Naughton: El Distrito Escolar Unificado de San José necesita nuevas voces en su junta directiva.

San Jose Unified School District families have spent the past year watching the district make consequential decisions regarding Cierres y consolidaciones de escuelas that reshaped entire neighborhoods with limited input from the people most affected. For many parents, teachers and community members, that experience has made one thing clear — this Board of Education needs new voices, and it needs them now.

When a recent effort to secure an endorsement for an incumbent failed to win support, it signaled something significant from within the circles typically inclined to back incumbents — confidence in the current board and its direction has eroded.

A non-endorsement is as powerful as an endorsement — especially when the endorsement was given for previous elections. A non-endorsement reflects accumulated frustration about the lack of transparency in the “Schools of Tomorrow” process; about whether commitments made to teachers and families at closing school sites were honored; about how the superintendent controls the trustees when in reality, she works for them; and about whether the board has been sufficiently independent of outside interests when it comes to our schools’ future.

The school board no longer reflects the community it serves and was voted in by. It has settled into patterns that reward blind acceptance over true representation and accountability.

Boards that govern well over long stretches do so because they keep earning trust through honest engagement with the community and a willingness to change course when the evidence calls for it. Parents and community members have lost faith, hope and belief in this board. A change is desperately needed.

That’s why this November’s school board election matters more than most.

A changing of the guard creates room for trustees who will ask challenging questions before major votes, do their homework and insist on real community input. One that treats California Public Records Act requests and public records as a normal part of accountable governance rather than an inconvenience and taking months to provide.

One that doesn’t dismiss the Gran Jurado Civil report. And one that would not have moved a problematic principal from Lincoln High School to become the assistant principal at San Jose High School. It also creates room for board members without conflicts of interest with charter schools.

Our ask is simple. We want a school board that governs honestly, keeps its promises to the schools and staff and engages parents and community members about what’s really going on — not what SJUSD feeds them.

So, the task now is straightforward: look at who is running for trustee in your area. Read their positions on school closures, facilities planning, housing for teachers in a building known as the Slavery Towers and the use of Measure R funds. Ask where their support comes from — and doesn’t come from — and weigh that against a record. Don’t be fooled by a scare tactic hashtag and endorsements from extranjeros y figuras políticas.

San Jose Unified’s next board will decide how the district manages its next round of hard choices and the community has earned the right to choose carefully who sits in those seats.

We encourage you to show up to candidate forums. Ask candidates the uncomfortable questions and, most important, vote in November.

Maeve Naughton is a parent of a SJUSD student and an active member of San Jose Voice (previously Parents United), a grassroots coalition of parents and community members throughout the district representing all schools and grades TK-12.