This story first appeared at Newsmakers with JR.
In a political surprise, career educator Kate Ford has decided not to run for reelection to the Santa Barbara Unified School District board of education, she told Newsmakers on Wednesday.
Ford was elected four years ago on the strength of her four decades of deep experience at every level of education; in public and behind-the-scenes, she has been the intellectual leader on the five-member school board, both during the troubled close of former Superintendent Cary Matsuoka’s tenure and the first two, unsettled years of the term of incumbent Hilda Maldonado.