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Community activist and leader Beatrice Leyva-Cutler led the Berkeley Board of Education elections Tuesday night with 37 percent of the vote, with incumbent and board president John Selawsky coming in second at 30 percent. 

As the top two vote-getters, Leyva-Cutler, with 19,366 votes, and Selawsky, with 16,069 votes, won seats on the school board. 

Priscilla Myrick, who worked in the Bay Area biotech industry for several years and has coached students in classrooms, got 18 percent of the vote, and at-risk teen coordinator Toya Groves had 12 percent. 

Selawsky said that even though only time would tell how the addition of Leyva-Cutler would change the dynamics of the school board, he was hopeful that his re-election and her victory would make the Berkeley Unified School District stronger. She replaces Joaquin Rivera, who did not run for re-election. 

Leyva-Cutler, director of the Bay Area Hispanic Institute for Advancement (BAHIA) for the past 20 years, has been a familiar face at school board meetings, PTA gatherings and after-school events.  

She led a strong campaign from the very start, focusing on the achievement gap and how she would help to carry out the 2020 Vision—a collaborative effort between the school district and the city—and went on to get the sole endorsement of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, which she said played an important role in her victory Tuesday. 

She also won the endorsement of United in Action, the John George Democratic Club, Mayor Tom Bates, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, and councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Max Anderson and Linda Maio. 

At BAHIA, Leyva-Cutler worked to provide bilingual care to diverse communities in Berkeley for 28 years and was also active in Latinos Unidos de Berkeley and United in Action. 

Leyva-Cutler has taught child development in Spanish at local community colleges to help Latinos find job opportunities. 

On Tuesday night she celebrated her win with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Senator-elect Loni Hancock and Councilmembers Max Anderson and Darryl Moore —who were also re-elected on Tuesday—and friends and family at the United Democratic Club on University Avenue. 

Although early absentee returns projected her as the leading candidate around 8:30 p.m., Leyva-Cutler said she was positive of her win only around 11 p.m. 

“I really look forward to working with the board,” she said. “We are all concerned about academic achievement and I really want to start working on the 2020 Vision as soon as possible. I want to help develop a city-wide task force and make sure that the eight priorities of the vision involve community members, teachers and students.” 

Board director Karen Hemphill, who stopped by the United Democratic Club Tuesday night, said she couldn’t wait to start work on the 2020 Vision with Leyva-Cutler. 

“She [Leyva-Cutler] has always said that every child deserves an equal start and I am a firm believer of that,” she said. “It’s good to have an educator on the board. Her commitment to the Latino community will bring forth a greater solidarity in the district.” 

Hemphill added that she was expecting president-elect Barack Obama to change the federal No Child Left Behind Act and invest more in education. 

“For Berkeley to have a group of African Americans and Latinos not doing as well as the county or the state has no excuse,” she said.  

At the Selawsky campaign headquarters at 2040 University Ave., which Selawsky was sharing with District 4 councilmember-elect Jesse Arreguin, people started congratulating the board president at 11 p.m., three hours after the early returns predicted that Leyva-Cutler and Selawsky were the top two contenders in the school board race. 

“I knew I would be re-elected,” Selawsky, who won his third term Tuesday, said. “I started to relax a few weeks ago and started to work on a few other campaigns, such as the library bond measure FF which passed by a slim margin and Jesse’s. I think we have a solid board and I would like to focus on student achievement and state budget issues. It’s going to be hard work.” 

Leyva-Cutler and Selawsky are scheduled to be sworn in on Dec. 10. 

Selawsky added he would continue working on solarizing the Berkeley public schools and improving the district’s facilities, issues he stressed while he was on the board for the past eight years. 

“I am sure new stuff will pop up,” he said smiling. 

Both Myrick and Groves congratulated the winning candidates and wished them luck. 

“Although I did not win, I am extremely proud of the effort that went into my campaign for Berkeley school board director,” Myrick told the Planet. “I wanted to raise substantive issues with respect to the Berkeley schools, and I think we accomplished this.” 

Myrick stressed the need for better teacher retention, strengthening math and science programs in schools and better management of school resources during her campaign. 

“I have raised questions about where bond monies have gone that were supposed to be used to build classrooms,” she said. “These issues have not gone away. I will continue to work for improvements in the Berkeley public schools.” 

Groves, who said one of her votes had gone to Leyva-Cutler, told the Planet that she looked forward to working with the school board member-elect as a youth service provider and parent. 

“I learned a lot of things through my campaign,” she said. “When people came up to me and told me they had voted for Obama and me, it was an inspiration for me. I was happy we were able to get out a lot of first-time voters and teens, and to be a known face to so many people.”