On Election Day, West Marin residents will have a significant opportunity to influence local leadership, deciding between the tried-and-true or more renegade options as school board terms come to an end and incumbents step aside. 

In the Shoreline Unified School District race, incumbent Thomas Tyson is facing challenger Buddy Faure. At the county level, Denise Bohman and Jill Manning Sartori, both prominent figures on their respective district boards, are competing for a seat on the Marin County Board of Education.

The race for the West Marin seat on the Marin County Board of Education brings two veteran local school board trustees head-to-head: Denise Bohman of the Lagunitas School District and Jill Manning Sartori of the Shoreline Unified School District. 

Both are vying to represent Area 7, Marin’s most geographically sprawling district. Stretching across the county’s coastal communities, it also includes Lagunitas, Nicasio and the westernmost reaches of Novato. The seat is being vacated by longtime trustee Clairette Wilson, a Tomales resident who has chosen not to seek re-election. 

As part of the seven-member board, whoever wins will play a pivotal role in setting education policy priorities for the county, while also serving as the final arbiter in interdistrict transfer disputes, student expulsions and charter school petitions. The board is also responsible for approving the education plan and budget for the Marin County Office of Education, which manages the schooling of roughly 30,000 students across 18 districts. 

Ms. Bohman, a Fairfax native and Forest Knolls resident, has been a fixture on the Lagunitas School District board for 25 years, including five terms as president. For three decades, she has worked as a property manager for an affordable housing nonprofit in Nicasio and the San Geronimo Valley. Ms. Bohman’s experience extends beyond her district; having led several countywide education committees, she is familiar with the challenges facing schools across Marin. 

“My areas of interest are in facilities and budget oversight,” she said, noting her 29 years on Lagunitas’s facilities committee and her leadership in budget restructuring efforts. She takes pride in her hands-on approach, particularly in areas like solar pro-jects, backup batteries and infrastructure improvements like septic systems. “I’m queen of septic at this point,” she said. 

Ms. Bohman believes one of the most pressing issues facing West Marin schools lies outside the typical purview of school boards: affordable housing. “In West Marin, one of the biggest challenges our schools face is retaining staff—teachers, administrators—and a diverse student body,” she said. “They all get priced out of Marin.”

Ms. Manning Sartori, a Tomales resident and 15-year trustee of the Shoreline Unified School District, brings a different perspective. In 1977, at the age of 8, her family relocated to Point Reyes Station when her father, a Coast Guard officer, was stationed as commander at the Point Reyes base. She attended West Marin School and Tomales High School before earning degrees from the University of California, Davis, and the University of San Francisco School of Law. 

A partner at the law firm Pearson Warshaw and a mediator by trade, Ms. Manning Sartori believes her background in conflict resolution uniquely qualifies her for the role. Speaking with the Light, she underscored several key achievements during her tenure on the Shoreline board, including the implementation of a wellness policy that enhanced nutrition education and the introduction of a school breakfast program after concerns arose about students eating their lunches in the morning. She also researched and drafted a policy banning smartphones in schools, which is slated for a vote by the board this month. 

Reflecting on her own experience growing up in the district she now serves, Ms. Manning Sartori expressed gratitude for the education she received. “I couldn’t be more thankful for my education here, particularly the small class sizes and the way teachers truly cared about each student,” she said. “There’s an incredible amount of community support for students, and that’s something really special and unique to all the schools in Area 7.”

Shoreline board race

For the second election in a row, Buddy Faure is challenging an incumbent on the Shoreline Unified School District board, running on a platform of enriching arts and music programs. Mr. Faure, a musician and checkout clerk at the Inverness Park Market, is taking on Thomas Tyson, an attorney who is seeking to serve his second term on the board. Both men are from Inverness, where Mr. Tyson, 35, has lived all his life, and Mr. Faure, 22, has been living since he was 8 years old.

Mr. Faure attended West Marin School and graduated from Marin School of the Arts at Novato High in 2020. He embarked on his first campaign two years later, losing to incumbents Tim Kehoe and Heidi Koenig.

“I’m running again because I really think that kids can learn a lot from experiencing performing arts and visual arts at a more comprehensive level than what is going on right now,” he said. “There just isn’t much of a program. A lot of kids leave the district when they go to high school because of the lack of resources and extracurricular activities.”

Mr. Faure, who serves on the board of the San Geronimo Valley Community Center, began posting campaign signs last weekend with the slogan: “Enough talk, let the kids rock.”

A solo artist with wide-ranging musical tastes, he recently released an album titled “Rattle in the Plaza” under the stage name Buddy Ray. “I love hip hop, I love funk, I love rock and roll, I love folk music,” Mr. Faure said. 

Mr. Tyson ran unopposed for the seat he has been filling since 2020. His daughter Rowan is in third grade at West Marin School, from which her older sister, Ripley, graduated before enrolling at San Domenico School two years ago.

One of his proudest first-term accomplishments involved updating the district’s former dress code. Mr. Tyson proposed an update after Ripley came home in tears in fourth grade because a teacher found that her clothes did not comply. 

“We realized we had this antiquated dress code that obviously applied unequally across genders,” Mr. Tyson said. “To be enforced, girls would be called out quite unequally. We changed the code to be more egalitarian, more equitable.”

Students no longer need to worry about being embarrassed by public reprimands. “I think kids feel more comfortable in an environment in which they need to feel comfortable,” Mr. Tyson said.

In a second term, he would work to expand the district’s new early dismissal program, which gives teachers time to collaborate and students time to receive extracurricular enrichment. 

This year, Shoreline students from transitional kindergarten through sixth grade are dismissed on Wednesdays between 1 and 1:30 p.m., rather than the usual 3 p.m. West Marin and Inverness School students are choosing from a variety of afterschool programs developed through community partnerships, including classes on outdoor education, dance, theater and art as well as small-group literacy sessions. Mr. Tyson would like to add more class options in coming years and expand the program to more than one day a week.

The program gives teachers time to brainstorm together without requiring parents to change their own schedules or find childcare. “Our teachers are amazing people, but they don’t have enough time in the day to do the things they need to do beyond teaching the kids,” Mr. Tyson said. “They need to do things like build out curriculum and build their professional skills.”