Keith Coleman fills SMMUSD Board of Education seat
By Jadyn Miyahira, Staff Writer
On Jan. 14, Keith Coleman was sworn into the SMMUSD Board of Education, filling Oscar de la Torre’s seat, who is now a member of the Santa Monica City Council.
Coleman ran for school board in Santa Monica’s November 2020 election, receiving 13,682 votes, but did not initially earn a spot on the board. However, after some movement within the board members, including de la Torre, a seat opened. Coleman reclaimed these circumstances as a second chance and was successful.
Ready to meet and embrace new challenges, Coleman describes himself as a “team player”. Through his work as an educational innovator and mental fitness coach, he has encouraged students to participate in STEM programs, entrepreneurship and humanities in higher education. Besides being the parent of two sons in the district, he is also the co-chair of SMMUSD’s Intercultural, Equity and Excellence District Advisory Committee, he was involved in the U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration and emphasized his passion for social justice. For instance, he has actively supported female representation and Latinx entrepreneurship via several different organizations and hopes to address the achievement gap that is heavily affecting marginalized students and students of color in the district.
“Millions came out on the street to recognize that systemic racism runs through all of our institutions and deny equal opportunity. And none of those institutions is as important as public education, not one. And it starts here,” Coleman said in the January board meeting.
During the board meeting on Jan. 14, applicants for the open spot on the board, including Coleman, were given five minutes to speak about their values, their accomplishments and ultimately why they should be the one to fill the vacant seat. After more than two hours of speeches, board members testified for each of their preferred candidates and then proceeded to vote. In order for a candidate to be selected, they needed four or more votes. Coleman received the majority of the votes and was sworn in by the SMMUSD Superintendent, Dr. Ben Drati.
In the city election, de la Torre, a longstanding member of the board, ran for city council and obtained 17,570 votes—enough for him to earn one of the open spots. However, he initially was not willing to give up his spot on the board so fast as he believed that he should be able to hold his positions on the board and council simultaneously. In an article he wrote called “Two Seats, One Position—Why I Haven’t Resigned From the School Board” issued on Jan. 5 by several local publications, he explained the string of events that led him to refuse his resignation. During his last board meeting after 18 years, he wrote that he was hoping that his colleagues would vow to continue working on racial inequality in the district, as that was an important issue he focussed on and even experienced when he attended John Adams Middle School. Instead, de la Torre wrote, he felt ignored and was muted on Zoom by Jon Kean, the board president.
“It was never my intention to force the issue by refusing to resign from the School Board after being elected to the Santa Monica City Council, but SMMUSD’s Board leadership and superintendent have left me no other option,” de la Torre said in his article.
Board president and vice president, Jon Kean and Laurie Lieberman, however, had a different account of this situation. The same day on which de la Torre’s article was published, Kean and Lieberman released their article, “Setting The Record On School Board Events.” There, they addressed the controversy involving de la Torre, mentioning that his claims that he was still a member of the board, despite his oath to city council, was “legally frivolous.” Later in the article, the two board members countered his statements about the board and Dr. Drati, defending the actions they’ve taken to combat social and racial inequality.
“While council member de la Torre seemingly cannot come to terms with his departure from the School Board, his leave-taking from the Board will not in any way slow our progress nor divert the attention of the Board, staff and families in SMMUSD who will continue to support and implement initiatives that address [social and racial justice],” Kean and Lieberman said in their article.
Despite the altercations that transpired, both parties seem to have recovered. The board, including new member Coleman, have continued their work to better the district and de la Torre has been a council member for several weeks.