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Endorses Altman-Palm
The race
This school board election is on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot in Morgan Hill Unified School District (Santa Clara County). Four trustee-area seats are at stake, each contested, per the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters' Final Qualified List: Trustee Area 1 — Nancy Altman-Palm vs. Jason Amezcua; Trustee Area 2 — John T. Horner vs. Gabriela Winter; Trustee Area 3 — Art Cohen vs. Cesar Gamboa vs. Sarah Northrup Gadus; Trustee Area 4 — Glen R. Webb vs. Claudia Ortiz.
A documented fact frames all four races: on October 18, 2026, candidates Nancy Altman, Gabby Winter, Art Cohen and Glen Webb held a joint press conference in front of the district office accusing the district of avoiding responsibility for test scores that trail both the state and neighboring Gilroy Unified by up to double digits in English and math proficiency, and protesting the superintendent's cancellation of the only board meeting between the score release and the election, per the press-conference video description. The four are also the labor-endorsed slate: IBEW Local 332's voter guide and the OE3 endorsements list Altman (Area 1), Winter (Area 2), Cohen (Area 3) and Webb (Area 4), and the Silicon Valley DSA guide describes its four picks as "the four labor and teacher endorsed candidates."
The candidates
### Trustee Area 1
Nancy Altman-Palm — incumbent. Elected in 2022, when San José Spotlight reported the teachers union endorsed her in part over her opponent's investigated abuse-of-power episode; she is a retired Britton Middle School assistant principal. Credit: direct school-administration experience; co-led the October 2026 test-score accountability press conference. Dirt: none proven found.
Jason Amezcua — challenger. No campaign site, platform, questionnaire response, or news mention of his candidacy was found in the searches documented below. His file is the roster line alone.
### Trustee Area 2
John T. Horner — incumbent (current term 2023–2026, per GoodParty's officeholder listing). Credit: incumbency and continuity. Gap: no individual 2026 platform, questionnaire, or news profile of his re-election was found in this pass.
Gabriela "Gabby" Winter — challenger. Credit: co-led the October 2026 press conference demanding the district own its test-score gaps and restore public comment; labor- and teacher-endorsed, per IBEW/OE3/DSA. First-time candidate — unproven, not a demerit.
### Trustee Area 3
Art Cohen — challenger. Credit: co-led the October 2026 accountability press conference; labor-endorsed (IBEW, OE3). First-time candidate — unproven, not a demerit.
Cesar Gamboa — challenger. He appears on GoodParty's candidate list for Area 3, but no platform, questionnaire, or news profile was found in this pass.
Sarah Northrup Gadus — challenger. The DSA guide recommends her for Area 3 (while labor's published guides list Cohen for the same area — the two endorsements conflict, and we print both). No separate platform of hers was found beyond that recommendation.
### Trustee Area 4
Glen R. Webb — challenger (the Area 4 incumbent, Pamela Gardiner, is not on the roster). Credit: co-led the October 2026 accountability press conference; labor-endorsed (IBEW, OE3, DSA). First-time candidate at this seat — unproven, not a demerit.
Claudia Ortiz — challenger. No campaign site, platform, questionnaire, or news mention of her candidacy was found in this pass.
Pros and cons
- Area 1 — Altman-Palm Pro: Administrator's experience plus a public, specific accountability demand on test scores. Con: She is an incumbent of the board whose district produced those scores. Amezcua Pro/Con: No documented record either way — see Record gaps.
- Area 2 — Horner Pro: Experience. Con: No documented case for re-election found. Winter Pro: Specific accountability platform, teacher backing. Con: Untested in office.
- Area 3 — Cohen Pro: Accountability slate, labor backing. Con: Untested. Gadus Pro: DSA recommendation. Con: No platform found; labor's own guides back her opponent. Gamboa: No documented record found.
- Area 4 — Webb Pro: Accountability slate, labor backing. Con: Untested. Ortiz: No documented record found.
Record gaps
Searches run: the Registrar's qualified list (roster and areas); GoodParty's Morgan Hill candidate/officeholder pages (incumbency); IBEW Local 332 and OE3 endorsement guides and the South Bay Labor Council list (endorsements); the Silicon Valley DSA guide's Morgan Hill section; the October 18, 2026 candidate press-conference video; San José Spotlight's Morgan Hill archive (which produced Altman-Palm's 2022 background); Mercury News/EdSource detracking coverage, which names Morgan Hill Unified among the districts where anti-detracking candidates are running but does not name which Morgan Hill candidate holds which position — so no detracking position is attributed to any individual here. Amezcua, Ortiz, Gamboa, and Gadus (beyond the DSA line) returned no campaign platform in any of these sources, and Horner returned no 2026 platform.
OUR CALL
Trustee Area 1 — endorse Nancy Altman-Palm. Documented administration experience and a specific, public accountability demand; her opponent's record is undocumented after a full search. Trustee Area 2 — endorse Gabriela Winter. Unproven-but-aligned: she is asking, in public and with numbers, the transparency and academic-basics questions this page asks, against an incumbent who has published no case for another term that we could find. Trustee Area 3 — endorse Art Cohen. Same accountability slate, with labor's published endorsement behind him; Gadus's only documented backing conflicts with labor's, and Gamboa's record is undocumented. Trustee Area 4 — endorse Glen R. Webb. Unproven-but-aligned on the same documented accountability platform; Ortiz's record is undocumented after a full search.
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 - 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 - Trustee Candidate Press Conference, Oct. 18, 2026 (Altman, Winter, Cohen, Webb) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk9E2kc-IMU - IBEW Local 332 — Voter Guide (Morgan Hill endorsements) — https://www.ibew332.org/voter-guide - OE3 — 2026 California endorsements (Morgan Hill endorsements) — https://www.oe3.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/1001_CA_Endorsements-3.pdf - Silicon Valley DSA — 2026 November Voter Guide, Morgan Hill section — https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQAtAN3xtKSl7Pkx34nNpJyypPlm_Zga45PZHEYVk6jNpwxcp0GDBFrLsU9wjTjliya6ZP0OrMkljEt/pub - GoodParty.org — Morgan Hill Unified School Board (candidates and current officeholders) — https://goodparty.org/elections/ca/morgan-hill-unified-school-district/position/local-school-board - San José Spotlight — Morgan Hill school board candidate's integrity questioned (2022; Altman-Palm background) — https://sanjosespotlight.com/silicon-valley-santa-clara-county-morgan-hill-unified-school-district-trustee-board-education-member-scrutinized-for-past-behavior-investigation-election-2022/
Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.
AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.