Monica Moreland, an R. Roger Rowe School alum and former Rowe teacher, has been provisionally appointed to fill the vacancy on the Rancho Santa Fe School District board. The new board member will be sworn in on Aug. 27 and serve a short four-month term until after the November election.
“As a former student, teacher and current parent of two children at Roger Rowe, I am looking forward to this opportunity,” said Moreland. “Putting the children first and supporting our incredible staff will be an honor.”
Moreland was appointed at an Aug. 14 special meeting where the board interviewed four candidates in public, including Robin Jass, Heather Slosar and Andrea Khan, a new parent to the district. None of the candidates filed to run in November where there will be seven people on the ballot for the three available seats: President Annette Ross, Karen “Kate” Butler, Karen Eschrich, Victoria Gamble, Janice Lee Holowka, Maria Luoni and Kerry Vinci.
Vice President Rosemarie Rohatgi will not seek re-election.
Moreland comes to her provisional appointment with a long history in Rancho Santa Fe, where she grew up. She taught seventh grade English and elementary school Spanish at the school. For the last three years she has volunteered with the Rancho Santa Fe Education Foundation, where she served as parliamentarian and helped develop community partnerships.
“I just want to give back,” Moreland said.
During her interview, she stressed fiscal responsibility for the long-term health of the district and for Rowe to continue to be an academically excellent institution. She said the school has amazing teachers and that it is important to challenge all students, meeting them wherever they are in their learning and continue to progress and improve.
From 2011 to 2016, there was a pattern of provisional board member appointments in the Rancho Santa Fe School District after resignations, with the appointed members going on to be elected. After a third appointment in 2017, a parent-filed petition forced a special election.
While the board initially considered waiting until the November election to fill the vacancy rather than go the appointment route, they ultimately decided to appoint the fifth board member to ensure they could govern efficiently over the next four months.
The board interviewed the four candidates one by one, the board members acknowledging that the process was difficult and strange.
“It’s terribly awkward when you have four really talented, bright people who would like to support us as a board and that is a real blessing to have that in the community,” said Ross, who along with Trustee Jee Manghani said they lost sleep over the last few weeks leading up to this decision. “This is such a brutal thing for me. There’s nobody that I couldn’t put in that seat.”
Manghani made the motion to appoint Moreland and the vote was unanimous.
Most of those who stepped forward have several children in the district so they will be invested at the school for many years. As Rohatgi reminded the candidates, Manghani was once in the same position in 2017 when he applied for a provisional appointment and did not get it. He ended up running for the board and being elected in 2018. She encouraged those parents to stay involved and consider running for the board in the future.
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