Candidates for three seats on the Chico Unified School District Board of Education are running to address key issues facing local schools, including new technology, surveillance and campus safety.
The only contest this election is for retiring trustee Eileen Robinson’s Area 5 seat. The open seats are held by board members Robinson, Tom Lando, and Board President Rebecca Konkin.
Caitlin Dalby, Amy Ford and Lance Atkins will compete for the Area 5 seat Robinson occupied for 16 years; Tom Lando runs unopposed as an incumbent in Area 4; and Beverly Patrick is slated to take the Area 1 seat currently held by Konkin, who decided to not run for a second term.
Voters are selecting trustees amid growing pressures on schools across California to manage diminishing funds caused by lower enrollment while juggling parents’ concerns about safety and test scores. While Chico Unified School District (CUSD) touts its balanced budget, staff projects that declining enrollment will impact its fiscal health in coming years. That’s a problem many California schools face.
The trustees, some of whom spoke by phone with ChicoSol, will also address other concerns about the role of artificial intelligence in classrooms and security, which has received recent pushback from parents because of a contract adopted for surveillance cameras with facial recognition capability.
A map of all trustee district areas is available online.
Contest to replace Robinson in Area 5
The three candidates for Area 5 — comprising much of east Chico and Forest Ranch — agree on several issues, including limiting cell phone use in schools, improving academic performance, and building better communication with the community. They vary in their educational experience and careers.
Caitlin Dalby
Caitlin Dalby, who served on the Chico Board of Education from 2020-2024, decided not to run when redistricting put her and Robinson in the same district. She also taught school for 12 years, including eight at CUSD. She now works as an environmental scientist for California State Parks and has a first grader at a CUSD charter school.
The Chico Unified Teachers Association endorsed Dalby for the position.
She said she wants to return to the board to improve communication between schools and the community and staff working conditions to handle increasingly volatile student behaviors.
“There’s lingering behavioral issues. So we need to see what we can do to get those students what they need,” she said.
Dalby said her experience working with the district’s budget can help prepare for what she called “funding uncertainty, especially for special education, [as] we’re not sure what we’ll be facing.”
“I’m never satisfied with the status quo,” Dalby said. “There will always be kids struggling. I hate to see any child fall through any crack. You can’t meet all of the kids’ needs if you’re not fully staffed with staff whose needs are fully met.”
Dalby said she thinks student screen time should be limited, and opposes most uses of cell phones by students.
Lance Atkins
Lance Atkins, the CEO of Capay Farms, says it’s an asset that he has the least experience in education among the candidates because he wants to represent people without formal experience as educators.
He advocates for developing a policy within the next four years to educate children on responsibly using AI, and agrees with other candidates that cell phone use in schools should be limited. “It leads to teachers feeling like they don’t have control of the classroom,” he said.
Atkins’ website says one of his key issues is to “protect parents’ rights.” While he wasn’t specific about what this means, Atkins said, “There’s no place for bullying and racial and gender discrimination at all.”
“There may be times when I may have my own idea, but we gotta follow the law,” he said. “It starts with the parents. We have to have the right culture.”
He said he wants to see the district focus on academic excellence and workforce readiness. “I really want to find ways to improve academic performance, because those things are going to matter on whether kids succeed in life, whether they go into a vocation or academics.”
Amy Ford
Amy Ford decided to become an educator after volunteering in her child’s classroom at Citrus Elementary in 2003. Now she’s running to be a trustee, saying her work at Pivot Charter School as an English language development coordinator will inform her decision-making.
Ford said she wants to ensure schools and parents have strong, clear lines of communication, and that parents can be highly engaged with their school communities. “Families sometimes feel like they don’t have a say in what is happening at schools. I really want to make sure they know the avenues they have available to them,” she said.
Ford said she is concerned about students’ mental health and wellbeing. She said that while facial recognition from security cameras would help to address some bullying issues, it’s unclear if it’s useful enough to warrant activation of that technology when minors are involved.
She also wants to limit the use of laptops for students up through the fourth grade. She wants to focus on educational rigor, based on current test scores, “We need to ask the schools that have the higher test scores, what are you doing that’s working? I want to make sure we are not just pushing kids through [the grades].”
“I really want everyone to focus on students and learning again,” she said.
Lando to stay on Area 4 seat
Incumbent Tom Lando is poised to continue representing Area 4, the area of southeast Chico including the Barber neighborhood and homes along Highway 99. He successfully ran for re-election in 2022 following the area redistricting process, and has spent more than six years on the board.
Lando grew up in Chico and today works at a public charter school as a coach for other teachers. His key priorities are improving academics and responsible management of technology and the budget. He said while the district ranks well on test scores when compared to other districts of similar size and demographics, “I want the board to look closely at how we are using curriculum, teachers, and time, and to make sure we’re continually improving use of all three.”
Lando also noted that declining enrollment and the end of several COVID-era grants will negatively impact the budget. “We need to look now for ways to create savings at the administrative level, being super efficient with existing non-academic programs, and being very, very careful not to overcommit,” he said.
He said many parents have told him they want a focus on academics and campus safety.
“I also hear a lot of gratitude from families for our schools and teachers, and I don’t want to overlook that – our schools serve our students really well, most of the time, and in our search for things to fix it don’t want to miss the opportunity to give a big shout out to the hundreds of teachers and staff who bring learning to life for our kids on a daily basis,” he said.
Patrick runs unopposed in West Chico
Beverly Patrick is also running unopposed for Area 1, which comprises much of West Chico. She has been employed by CUSD for decades, including a position as an administrative assistant.
In a statement on Instagram, Patrick said, “I’m running because I believe our schools are strongest when we put students first, support our educators and staff, and practice responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. I would be honored to earn your support. I look forward to meeting many more members of our community in the months ahead!”
She did not respond to ChicoSol’s requests for an interview.
Natalie Hanson is a contributor to ChicoSol.