← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · California
Endorses Oseguera
The race
Alum Rock Union Elementary School District (East San Jose) elects its five-member board by trustee area for the first time in 2026, after the board voted to move from at-large to by-area elections under the California Voting Rights Act. Three seats are up on November 3, 2026 — Trustee Areas 1, 3 and 5 — per the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters' Final Qualified List.
- Area 1 — NOT a contest. Darcie Green was the only qualified candidate and was appointed in lieu of election under Education Code §5328. No call is made.
- Area 3 — contested. Incumbent Andrés Quintero vs. Delia Oseguera.
- Area 5 — contested. Incumbent Board President Línda Lo Chávez vs. Manisha Kand and Jenny Ludwig.
The board adopted its trustee-area map (Map 111) on May 20, 2026, by a 3–2 vote, with Trustees Corina Herrera-Loera and Minh Nguyen voting no, per San José Spotlight. The district also has a parcel-tax replacement measure on the same ballot ($310 per parcel for seven years, ~$6.5 million annually, per the Registrar's notice of election).
The candidates
### Area 1 — appointed in lieu of election
Darcie Green — Credit: Green has served on the Santa Clara County Board of Education (she is listed as a county board member in earlier Santa Clara County campaign records), so she arrives with county-level school-governance experience. Dirt: No proven adverse finding against Green was located in this pass. She takes the seat without a vote because no opponent filed.
### Area 3
Andrés Quintero (incumbent, board vice president) — Dirt (proven): Quintero received a $22,700 reimbursement from the district for college coursework toward a doctoral degree. Parents publicly demanded a county investigation and repayment, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office looked into the alleged misuse of school funds, and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) completed an audit of district reimbursements, per San José Spotlight (Nov. 13, 2025; updated Feb. 24, 2026). The county superintendent's review closed the matter without finding a law was broken; Trustee Herrera-Loera stated on the record that the review "did not examine whether the actions in question met the ethical standards expected of public officials" and that Quintero "used public funds for personal benefit by paying for expenses related to obtaining a doctoral degree" (Spotlight, Mar. 30, 2026). Quintero disputes the criticism and called the audit thorough and unbiased. Spotlight also reported community questions about his role in changes to the trustee-area map from which he stood to benefit in this election; that map criticism is reported community concern, not a proven finding, and is labeled as such here. Credit: Quintero has served on the board since 2022 and, as board president, championed the district's teacher/workforce housing effort under Measure S.
Delia Oseguera (challenger) — Credit: Oseguera is endorsed by Democrats for Public Education (DPE) for Area 3, per the organization's November 2026 endorsement list. Dirt: None located. Gap: No campaign website, questionnaire response, or stated platform on curriculum, parental rights, or district finances was located for Oseguera in this pass — she is an unproven candidate (see Record gaps).
### Area 5
Línda Lo Chávez (incumbent, board president) — Credit: Chávez has served since 2022 and leads the board through the by-area transition and the 2026 parcel-tax replacement measure. Dirt: She voted with the 3–2 majority to adopt Map 111 over a community-backed alternative (Map 104) and public objections recorded by Spotlight — a documented governance choice voters may weigh, not misconduct. No proven fiscal or ethics finding against Chávez was located.
Manisha Kand (challenger) — No campaign site, questionnaire, endorsement, or public statement was located in this pass. Unproven; record insufficient (documented below).
Jenny Ludwig (challenger) — Credit: Ludwig has taken the GoodParty.org pledge and is endorsed by Democrats for Public Education for Area 5. Dirt: None located. Gap: No stated platform on the issues this page weighs was located beyond those two coalition signals.
Pros and cons
- Quintero — Pro: Four years of board experience; a record of pushing workforce housing to recruit teachers. Con: A proven, documented self-benefit problem — $22,700 of a low-income (Title I) district's money reimbursed for his own doctorate, serious enough to draw a DA look and a state fiscal-team audit. Legal compliance was found; stewardship was not demonstrated.
- Oseguera — Pro: No adverse record; the only alternative to an incumbent with a proven fiscal-stewardship failure. Con: Endorsed by a progressive education organization and otherwise unproven — no published platform was found.
- Chávez — Pro: Incumbent board president; continuity through a complicated election-system transition. Con: Led the board majority that adopted the contested map and is asking voters to renew the parcel tax; no documented record on parental rights or curriculum transparency was located.
- Kand — Pro: None documented. Con: No findable campaign record at all.
- Ludwig — Pro: GoodParty pledge; DPE endorsement shows an organized coalition behind her. Con: That coalition is the progressive education establishment; no platform on parental rights, basics, or fiscal restraint was located.
Record gaps
Searches run for every candidate in this article (October 25, 2026): the Registrar's Final Qualified List (roster); San José Spotlight's Alum Rock archive (map fight, DA/audit coverage, 2022 results); GoodParty.org candidate pages; Democrats for Public Education's 2026 endorsement list; candidate-name web searches for campaign sites, Vote411/LWV questionnaires, and local news. Results: no Vote411 response, campaign website, or questionnaire was located for Oseguera, Kand, or Ludwig; no platform document was located for Chávez's re-election. Where a candidate published nothing findable, this article says so rather than filling the gap.
OUR CALL
Area 3 — endorse Delia Oseguera. This is a narrow call and we state its basis plainly: the incumbent carries a proven fiscal-stewardship failure — public money spent on his own degree, audited by the state's fiscal team — and fiscal stewardship is a core value of this page. Oseguera is unproven and carries a progressive organization's endorsement, which we record as a con; a first-time candidate with no proven flaw is not a demerit, and she is the only route to removing a trustee whose documented conduct fails the stewardship test.
Area 5 — no endorsement (insufficient record). Chávez's record is documented but supplies no alignment basis on parental rights, academic basics, or fiscal restraint; Kand published nothing findable; Ludwig's only documented signals are establishment endorsements. No candidate in Area 5 earned an endorsement on a sourced record.
Area 1 — no call. Green was appointed in lieu of election; there is no contest to decide.
For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website. Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. --- Sources — bulleted with URLs. - Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters — Final Qualified List of Local Eligible Candidates, Nov 3 2026 General Election — https://files.santaclaracounty.gov/exjcpb1296/2026-09/qualified-list-of-local-candidates-9-28-26.pdf?VersionId=CM6jbwAVTLFIjLakj6hJku2l9KPAIxli - San José Spotlight — East San Jose school district redraws its boundaries (May 20, 2026 map vote) — https://sanjosespotlight.com/east-san-jose-school-district-redraws-its-boundaries/ - San José Spotlight — East San Jose school district changes how its leaders are elected — https://sanjosespotlight.com/east-san-jose-school-district-changes-how-its-leaders-are-elected/ - San José Spotlight — Santa Clara County DA looks into alleged misuse of school funds — https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-da-looks-into-alleged-misuse-of-school-funds/ - San José Spotlight — East San Jose school district audit investigation passes review (Mar. 30, 2026) — https://sanjosespotlight.com/east-san-jose-school-district-audit-investigation-passes-review/ - GoodParty.org — Alum Rock Union School Board candidates — https://goodparty.org/elections/ca/alum-rock-union-elementary-school-district/position/local-school-board - Democrats for Public Education — Endorsements Nov 2026 — https://www.sccdpe.org/ AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.