Manteca Unified School Board President Stephen Schluer and Trustee Kathy Howe were handpicked by the board to fill the seats that they currently occupy. 

And voters, roughly a year after their appointments, validated the selections – solidifying their status for another two years. 

Now, with the terms that they were selected to fill finally expiring, the public has validated Schluer and Howe further by essentially awarding them four-year terms to continue the work that they began when the board was in the throes of a crisis of legitimacy. 

Both of the trustees will run unopposed in November for their respective areas – seats that were cast into the spotlight in 2014 after the San Joaquin County District Attorney accused the people that were elected to the two seats of election fraud by using false addresses to qualify for the ballot. 

The upcoming election will be decided by district – meaning that only registered voters residing in a given area can vote for the candidates that will represent them. 

And of the four seats that are up for grabs this November, only one will feature a trustee defending their position against a challenger. 

Evelyn Moore, the longest tenured member of the school board who was first elected to the school board in 1994 and last ran unopposed in 2014, will be defending seat against challenger Cathy Pope-Gotschall – a teacher librarian from Lincoln Unified School District. 

Moore spent 28 years as an educator inside of Manteca Unified with stints at Lindbergh, French Camp and Nile Garden Schools, and was a founding member of Give Every Child a Chance. She was inducted into the Manteca Hall of Fame in 2008. 

Pope-Gotschall, according to her LinkedIn profile, has been employed by Lincoln Unified in her current capacity for the last four years, and serves as a teacher consultant for the Great Valley Writing Project. She spent one year of her career as a high school English teacher for Manteca Unified – from August of 2008 to June of 2009 – before moving on to Lincoln Unified where she spent a decade in the classroom teaching 11th grade English and AP Language and Composition. 

But while Moore plans on continuing her time on the board, the second-longest tenure current member of the board will be formally retiring in December. 

Nancy Teicheira, who was elected to the board in 1998, will give way for two new hopefuls to run for her seat that represents a large portion of Manteca’s rural south area, which includes areas that are poised for a tremendous amount of growth in the coming years. 

Marie Freitas, a retired teacher, and Andrea Collins-Cambra, a mother, farmer and businesswoman, seek to fill Teicheira’s shoes on the board. Of the four seats that are up for election, Area 4 is the only one that doesn’t include an incumbent – which led to an extension of the filing deadline that concluded last week. 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.