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No endorsement

The race

This school board election is on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot in San Jose Unified School District (Santa Clara County), the city's largest district. Two trustee-area seats are at stake, per the Registrar: Trustee Area 2 — incumbent board President Jose Magana vs. Tomara Hall vs. Carson Dance; Trustee Area 4 — Mary J. Grunthaner vs. Michael Melillo (the Area 4 incumbent, Brian Wheatley, is not on the roster).

The parent coalition San Jose VOICE (formerly Parents United / Families of SJUSD) states the temperature of this race in its newsletters: it "will not endorse any candidate but we are strongly encouraging community members to vote against any incumbent," and its October issue presses the district on public-records delays, dismissed Civil Grand Jury findings, school closures, Measure R bond spending, and a controversial principal transfer — the same catalogue in Maeve Naughton's San José Spotlight opinion piece calling for new voices on the board. Those are the accountability questions both areas are voting on.

The candidates

### Trustee Area 2

Jose Magana — incumbent, board president (in office since 2018; re-elected 2022 with 72.6% against a single challenger, per San José Spotlight). Credit: he is a former teacher, nonprofit administrator and former city library-and-education commissioner — "the only educator in this race," as he put it in 2022 — whose stated priorities are declining enrollment, staff hiring and retention, and student mental health, and who promised to keep "bringing access, equity, and results to San Jose Unified." He holds the South Bay Labor Council's sole endorsement for Area 2, and the San Jose Teachers Association's executive board ultimately recommended endorsing him. Dirt, documented: the SJTA's own PAC committee twice recommended no endorsement in Area 2 before the executive board overrode it, per the SJ VOICE newsletter's account of the union's process — the teachers' vetting body looked at the incumbent twice and passed. And Magana declined invitations to two community candidate forums, including the October 6, 2026 Area 2 forum both of his opponents attended, per SJ VOICE. A board president who will not sit for a parent-run forum in his own re-election is a transparency failure we can document, not infer. The parent coalition also maintains a public page of unanswered questions directed at him; the questions are theirs, the forum refusals are fact.

Tomara Hall — challenger. A special-education teacher whose campaign site runs on "the perspective of a classroom teacher, the voice of an advocate," promising schools that are "safe, inclusive, and high quality" and leadership that "listens, values educators." She previously ran for this board in 2020 (Area 3, finishing second of four) and for county board in 2024. Credit: real classroom experience and the persistence to keep running. Con, documented and priced: Hall was a named member of the San Jose Unified Equity Coalition's campaign to remove police officers from district campuses, in San José Spotlight's reporting on that fight — she spoke and rallied for removal across months of board meetings. Removing sworn officers from campuses is a position against the school-safety doctrine of this page, and it is hers on the record. The DSA guide, which endorses her, adds that she would fund schools "according to their need" with restorative practices — the same equity-first frame.

Carson Dance — challenger. He attended the October 6 parent forum alongside Hall (the incumbent declined). Beyond that participation and his roster line, no campaign site, platform, questionnaire, endorsement, or news profile of his candidacy was found in any source worked — GoodParty lists him and nothing more. Insufficient record, documented below.

### Trustee Area 4

Michael Melillo — challenger, former trustee. The DSA guide — again, a source whose politics are not ours, reporting facts we checked against the labor lists — states Melillo "was a former trustee and it shows in his platform," with "detailed plans to improve transparency in the district." He holds a dual endorsement from the South Bay Labor Council (shared with Grunthaner). Con, documented in the same DSA account: his platform also includes removing police officers from campuses, which this page opposes for the reason stated in Area 2. His file is therefore genuinely split: the race's most detailed transparency plan, and a safety position we reject.

Mary J. Grunthaner — challenger. She maintains a campaign site (grunthaner4sanjoseschools.com) and holds the South Bay Labor Council's dual endorsement for Area 4 alongside Melillo, and appeared at the September 23, 2026 parent-run Area 4 forum. Beyond the site's existence, the labor dual endorsement, and her forum participation, no platform detail, news profile, or questionnaire of hers was captured in the sources worked. Her record is materially thinner than Melillo's.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Searches run: the Registrar's qualified list (roster, areas); San José Spotlight's 2022 race reporting (Magana's biography and prior mandate), its school-police reporting (Hall's coalition role), and the October 2026 Naughton opinion (the accountability catalogue); the San Jose VOICE newsletters of Aug. 27, Sept. 17 and Oct. 5, 2026 (forum invitations and refusals, the SJTA PAC's two no-endorsement recommendations and the executive board's override, forum rosters); Hall's campaign site; the South Bay Labor Council and IBEW endorsement lists (Magana sole, Grunthaner/Melillo dual); the Silicon Valley DSA guide's San Jose Unified section (Hall and Melillo platforms, as attributed); GoodParty listings. Dance returned nothing beyond listings in every source. Grunthaner's campaign site was located but its platform text was not captured by the text sources worked; no Vote411 or news profile filled the gap. No individual roll-call votes by Magana on the March 2026 school-closure decision were published in the coverage worked, so none is attributed to him personally.

OUR CALL

Trustee Area 2 — no endorsement. This is an earned no-call, not a shrug: the incumbent carries a documented transparency failure (two declined parent forums, his own union vetting committee's twice-stated pass), the best-known challenger holds a documented position this page rejects outright (removing police from campuses), and the third candidate has no findable record after a full search. Area 2 voters who share our doctrine have no candidate in this race who meets it, and pretending otherwise would be a claim we cannot source. Trustee Area 4 — endorse Michael Melillo, with our disagreement printed in the same breath: we oppose his police-removal position and will hold him to account for it if he wins. He is endorsed because transparency is the live issue in this district — public-records obstruction and dismissed oversight findings are the parent coalition's documented complaints — and his is the only detailed transparency plan in either area, carried by a former trustee who knows where the records are kept. Grunthaner's file, after a full search, does not give a voter as much to hold anyone to.

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 - San Jose VOICE newsletter, Oct. 5, 2026 (forum refusals; candidate lists) — https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Hi--here-s-your-San-Jose-VOICE--previously-Families-of-SJUSD--Newsletter---October-5--2026--.html?soid=1142324858751&aid=TlqozXrc-14 - San Jose VOICE newsletter, Aug. 27, 2026 (SJTA PAC no-endorsement recommendations and override) — https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Hi--here-s-your-San-Jose-VOICE--previously-Families-of-SJUSD--Newsletter---August-27--2026--.html?soid=1142324858751&aid=luny6fb-1Kw - San José Spotlight — Naughton: San Jose Unified School District needs new voices on its board — https://sanjosespotlight.com/naughton-san-jose-unified-school-district-needs-new-voices-on-its-board/ - San José Spotlight — Election 2022: San Jose school board races taking shape (Magana biography) — https://sanjosespotlight.com/election-2022-san-jose-school-district-board-races-campaigns-taking-shape-east-side-esuhsd-alum-rock-arusd-sjusd/ - San José Spotlight — San Jose school district considers kicking cops off campus (Hall's coalition role) — https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-school-district-considers-kicking-cops-off-campus/ - Tomara Hall for SJUSD School Board (campaign site) — https://www.votetomarahall.com/ - South Bay Labor Council — 2026 endorsements (Magana sole Area 2; Grunthaner and Melillo dual Area 4) — https://www.southbaylabor.org/2026_endorsements - Silicon Valley DSA — 2026 November Voter Guide, San Jose Unified section (Melillo platform) — https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQAtAN3xtKSl7Pkx34nNpJyypPlm_Zga45PZHEYVk6jNpwxcp0GDBFrLsU9wjTjliya6ZP0OrMkljEt/pub

Election result — November 4, 2026

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.

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