With a new school board and fresh perspectives, perhaps San Dieguito Union High School District constituents can look forward to greater transparency, more fiscal responsibility and an emphasis on the interests of students ahead of adults.

The race for San Dieguito Union High School District’s Area 4 seat offers voters stark choices. With three candidates hoping to replace retiring school board member Joyce Dalessandro, the election could turn the tables on a union-dominated school board. Although school board races are technically nonpartisan, this one, as with many others, is decidedly not.

Is it the last act of sitting school board members to recruit and select their replacements? The idea of retiring and letting anyone run who wants to is apparently not something San Dieguito Union High School District board members do.

If Save the Park prevails with its latest court action, it will waste more of Cardiff School District’s already strained budget. And, underscoring the ultimate folly of their unrelenting campaign, it will do nothing to create a better educational experience for kids or improved recreational space for Cardiff.

Bullying tactics worthy of playground antics not only set a terrible example of poor adult behavior but also may do more damage to Cardiff School’s tenuous position.

Cardiff School can be rebuilt and the park can be saved — and along the way blame can be put aside in favor of civility and lawful resolution of differences, without unnecessary adversarial posturing. All that’s missing is the will to make it happen.

Gender identity, as apart from assigned sex at birth, is a real thing. Attempts to deny this only serve to divide us and create hostility against “the other.” As one wise person said when asked how they felt about “the other,” the reply was, “We are all human. There is no ‘other.’”

Of all the issues that have arisen recently in the San Dieguito Union High School District, it’s fair to say the grading policy was one of considerable importance to the community. On this issue, the public was denied its right to address the board in a fair and transparent manner.

The San Dieguito Union High School District’s Board of Trustees, students and parents should have been involved in the district’s credit/no credit grading discussion from the beginning, rather than the superintendent rolling it out without seeking more feedback from stakeholders.

By violating the basic rules of California’s Brown Act in its ill-advised attempt to control the number of public speakers, the San Dieguito Union High School District board has taken away the public’s right to address its elected officials.