JoAnn Lopez appointed to FUESD Governing Board

JoAnn Lopez will serve on the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District Governing Board for the remainder of former board member Patty De Jong's term.

FUESD's board voted 3-1 to appoint Lopez to fill the empty board seat Monday, Oct. 12, after interviewing two candidates – Lopez and Karen Arter – in open session. Lopez was sworn in at the same meeting.

Sharing her qualifications with the board, Lopez said she worked as an educator for 30 years, primarily in the Vista Unified School District.

"I worked as a teacher, as an assistant principal and eventually as a principal in that district," Lopez told the board. "So I had the opportunity to work at the classroom level face to face with students as well as administration and actually loved both sides of it so that worked out well."

Lopez said she has been retired for about five years and moved to Fallbrook about two-and-a-half years ago.

Arter, the candidate who was not ultimately selected, told the board she started her career as a bilingual teacher in Logan Heights, a job she held for about five years before serving as an elementary school principal in Santa Rosa for 12 years. Arter also said she worked for three years at her county education office mentoring new principals, and then "decided to do something quite different." She worked as an elementary school principal in Kuwait for nine years, returning to the United States in February after the pandemic forced schools to close, a few months before her planned retirement.

Board members all said they found both candidates highly qualified, although they were of course only able to select one.

"We both want to say you were both incredibly excellent," board member Caron Lieber said, though she provided the sole 'no' vote against appointing Lopez.

"We thought about expanding the board to six," Lieber joked.

Board President Siegrid Stillman offered a similar opinion, though she, as well as board members Susan Liebes and Lisa Masten voted in favor of Lopez.

"The two of you are just so qualified ... we would be blessed to have either one of you and thank you so much for stepping out during this time," Stillman said.

Even Arter said she was happy with the decision.

"I think you made a great choice," Arter said after hearing the motion to appoint Lopez.

The seat Lopez will now fill became vacant in August when De Jong, a 24-year board member, announced she was stepping down in order to effectively retire. De Jong has most recently been reelected in 2018 and was set to serve until 2022. She was elected to her seat at-large, but FUESD moved to district elections last year, so the seat will be up for election from FUESD's Trustee Area 1 in 2022.

Lopez does not live in Trustee Area 1 – the FUESD board's provisional appointment committee, consisting of Lieber and Liebes, was unable to find any applicants from that area – and thus will be ineligible to run for reelection in that trustee area unless she moves, although she will be able to run for election in the area she lives.

Will Fritz can be reached by email at [email protected].