Pleasanton Unified trustees appoint longtime teacher Carreon as board president

The Pleasanton school board recently appointed Trustee Mary Jo Carreon to be the board president for 2024 and Trustee Justin Brown to be the vice president.

Carreon, a retired Pleasanton teacher who was elected to serve on the school board back in 2020, will be taking on the position during the last year of her current term, which expires at the end of this year.

“I am honored to serve as board president this year,” Carreon told the Weekly. ” I believe in collaboration and partnership and look forward to working together with all of our educational partners in the upcoming year.

Carreon will be taking over for Trustee Steve Maher, who was selected as president in December 2022 and was the one who nominated Carreon to be president.

After receiving the unanimous vote during the board’s annual reorganization on Dec. 14, Carreon then went on to nominate Brown for vice president. Brown will be taking over for Carreon who was serving as vice president during 2023.

“As a board, we have to choose who we feel is the most effective leader and we need a leader who will effectively engage with the superintendent with a clear understanding of vision, goals, objectives of the district, who works well with each of the other trustees, who communicates effectively with the public and staff,” Carreon said during the meeting. “I believe that person is Justin.”

Carreon said that apart from his experience as a planning commissioner with the city of Pleasanton, Brown is a strategic thinker whose leadership style will best suit the district.

Brown, who was elected to the board back in November 2022, said that he was humbled by the nomination and pointed out his experience serving as the chair and vice chair on the Pleasanton Planning Commission and his 25 years of management experience in his engineering career.

However, as opposed to Carreon’s unanimous appointment, Brown was appointed with a 4-1 vote with Trustee Kelly Mokashi dissenting after having given a heartfelt speech on why she didn’t agree with Brown’s nomination.

“I know we have a process for election, as per our handbook and our governance handbook,” Mokashi said during the Dec. 14 meeting. “But … there’s been an informal code of honor of allowing leadership capacity for each elected official to have an opportunity to serve in a leadership capacity of vice president or president.”

According to the Board Policy Manual, under bylaw 9100 it states that “it is the Board’s intent for every Board member to have the opportunity to serve as president.”

Mokashi said it was an honor to have Carreon as president, but she was not happy that she has not had a chance to at least be vice president, which is a position that is expected to move up to become president. That was the case with Maher who was vice president in 2022 and with Carreon who was vice president last year.

“Two years ago, Mary Jo and I had an expectation that there would be a rotation,” Mokashi said regarding the Dec. 16, 2021 board meeting. “We walked into that meeting knowing that it would be either she or myself elected as vice president and the board at that time did not have the confidence that, even though we were elected officials, we could have that capacity (to serve as vice president).”

Carreon was even “disappointed” by the decision at that time after she went through extensive leadership training and was ready to take on more responsibility as a vice president despite being in her first year on the board.

Mokashi also brought up the same issue last year during the Dec. 15, 2022 meeting and at the time had even tried to nominate Carreon as president. That motion was shut down quickly by Maher who after being elected as president for 2023, went on to quickly nominate Carreon.

The issue again was that Maher was elected as board president for a second time, having served as president back in 2020, and Mokashi hadn’t had a chance to serve in either position during her three-plus years on the board. Mokashi’s seat on the board, like Carreon and Maher, will be up for election in November.

Pleasanton resident Bill Foley also spoke out on the issue last month during public comments where he also referred back to the board’s policy on intending to have every trustee serve as president and quoted the policy before asking the board to do the right thing.

“You’re each elected for four years. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the following election cycle,” Foley said. “(Shifting roles) is a practice from the past, of the board meetings that I’ve gone to, in which there’s been an organizational change that has been followed and I’d hate to see it broken again, because it was broken last year.”

While Brown told the dais and the public last month that he heard what Foley was saying about the board policy, he said that it takes more than just being elected to be a leader. He said at the end of the day, it is about representing everyone in the district and making choices that will best benefit all the stakeholders.

“Leadership is a subtle skill,” Brown said. “I am mindful of the policies, but I’m also mindful of what I believe is best for the district, its students, its parents, its teachers and my vote will reflect that.”

However, before Brown’s comments and the vote to elect him as vice president, Mokashi took center stage to say that all the trustees are leaders in their own respect and that even if she does not have a title of president or vice president, she will continue to work for the benefit of everyone in the district.

“A title is a title,” Mokashi said. “I am saddened that my colleagues do not understand that when I question on the dais, I’m pushing us to be that transformative change to make us better and not stay (within) the status quo.”

She said that while she does push the district with questions a lot of times during meetings, it isn’t because she doesn’t trust staff — it is because she answers to the residents and she wants to fully understand the issues and the district’s narrative before making any votes, which was met with a roar of applause form the audience in the room.

“It’s because I care and I do believe that I will continue to serve because I don’t answer to the superintendent; the superintendent answers to the board,” Mokashi said. “I answer to the president, I answer to the students and I answer to the parents, so when something doesn’t make sense to me, I’m asking why and I push for what is good for students.”

Carreon did not directly comment on what Mokashi said during last month’s meeting, but she did tell the Weekly that Mokashi “is a valuable member of our governance team and I appreciate her interest in serving the students and families of PUSD.”