2024 Conejo School Board Candidates

​It’s 2024, and we’re facing yet another Conejo Valley Unified School District school board election with far-right extremists attempting to gain a seat on the school board. If you’ve been keeping up, in 2018, a community effort successfully flipped the Conejo School Board, defeating a trio slate of far-right extremists whose anti-LGBTBQ+ and book censorship views were not embraced by our community. Every two years, the far-right groups in Conejo Valley — Free Ventura, Move the Needle (Tim McCarthy), Conservative Moms of Conejo Valley, Conejo Valley Mama Bears (Joelle Mancuso) + Godspeak Calvary/Rob Mccoy folks, toss out their “best?” to regain elected power on the school board, with no success to date. Not even through their propaganda paper, the Conejo Guardian.
 
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be any less vigilant. A lot of damage can be done by one trustee with bad intentions, let alone a board majority.
 
NOTE: If you are unaware of the Conejo Valley Mama Bears, the group was launched by Rob McCoy buddy, Joelle Mancuso. Group members regularly post pretty horrifically transphobic posts in the group, disinformation about the COVID pandemic, and general contempt for public schools. None of this is a surprise to those of you who have been actively paying attention the last few years, and have caught my other blogs on their concerted effort to encourage a mass exodus from public schools and to garner support for school choice vouchers.
 
In 2020, the far-right candidate that got elected in 2016, Sandee Everett, lost her re-election campaign, and then in 2022 … perhaps the strongest of recent efforts (the Conejo Valley Mama Bear trio of Joelle Mancuso, Karen Meyer and Sophia DeDomenico) also lost at the ballots across their slate. Our community has been clear: we are not going back.
 
And now here we are: 2024. I heard that local Republicans had been on the search for a while, desperate to find two candidates to run this year in the two areas that have elections. And folks, their candidates, demonstrate that level of desperation.
 
As a reminder, our CVUSD board elections are no longer “at large.” They are “by-area,” meaning our district is split up into five areas. You may only vote in the area you live in, and you may only run in the area you live in. So, in 2024 … Area 1 (Westlake) and Area 5 (Newbury Park), are the two areas in which we have school board elections for the Conejo School Board. The other three trustees will face re-election in 2026, so if you live in areas 2, 3 or 4, you won’t see this race on your ballot — but the collective board impacts you … which is why you should still care just as much as you would have in an at-large election.
 
Below, is information on the two candidates running against Area 1 Trustee Karen Sylvester and Area 5 Trustee Lauren Gill.
 
Area 1 (Westlake): Nancy Van Volkinburg is running against trustee Karen Sylvester
 
Let’s dive in on Nancy Van Volkinburg. We’ve come across pictures of her featured on the Moms for America event page on their website (included below). When I posted these pictures, she claimed I was spreading disinformation, and that she was not affiliated with Moms for America, Ventura Chapter — despite being featured on the group’s website in their event photos and belonging to the Conejo Valley Mama Bears group, whose leaders are also the leaders and representatives of the Ventura Chapter of this organization. She also claimed to me, via Facebook exchange that she was not in the Conejo Valley Mama Bears group, acting as though she had never heard of it. When we presented screenshots of her commenting in the group as a “top contributor” the very next day … her response was that she “stands corrected.” The ease with which this woman lies — and what she lies about — is both fascinating and bizarre.

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So, let’s take a deeper dive into Moms for America. They note on their website:
 
“Moms for America is a national movement of moms reclaiming our culture for truth, family freedom and the constitution. We Activate, Empower and Mobilize Moms to promote and advance freedom in our homes, communities and through our vote.”
 
They advocate for what they call an end to “critical race theory and gender manipulation,” and call it an uprising of “the momma bears.” They provide training and mentoring on running for school boards. Here’s a goodie from their website which is so coded: “Join Moms for America Groups in doing our part in restoring our American culture by raising patriots right in our own homes!”
 
Moms for America have engaged in several forms of political activism ranging from launching a national parents strike on schools masks during the height of the pandemic, organizing “Keep Christmas” rallies, hosting rallies to thank Trump for his policies on school choice, etc. The group was also one of several sponsors of the  Jan. 6, 2021 “March to Save America” Trump rally that ultimately fueled the Capitol Insurrection. Vimeo has terminated their account after citing multiple videos flagged for misinformation.
 
It’s been reported that “Moms for America has also been a major player in pushing voter suppression, election denialism, attacks on public schools and COVID-19 misinformation.”
 
Nancy has also come out and endorsed Franke Enderle — who we’ll discuss in a moment — even after folks raised concerns about his wildly problematic and harmful social media tweets, stating that she stands by her endorsement. When you see his tweets, I’ll let you determine how you feel about her strong and public support for his candidacy.
 
On her website, she lists that her experience as a trustee in northern California equips her for this role. Now, I haven’t been able to find anything online verifying her role as trustee for Potter Valley Community Unified School District, near Ikiah, California … but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That said, Ballotpedia lists this district as being comprised of four schools with a combined student population of about 276 kids. In comparison, CVUSD has 27 schools and more than 16,000 students. I don’t want to discount her experience as a trustee … (whenever that was — assuming pre 1996, which is when she moved to the Conejo Valley) … but there is a quite a difference here between the two districts, and white a distance in time (assuming at least 28 years) since she would have served as a trustee if we assumed as recent as 1995. (Again, still no real information that she’s provided … she’s been dodgy on her page with details, which is no surprise.)

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Area 5 (Newbury Park): Frank Enderle is running against trustee Lauren Gill.

Alright, let’s take a look at Frank Enderle. Dude runs a lot and loses every time. I’ve always assumed it’s been to boost his realtor business, because, let’s be honest. He is not a serious person. 
 
Frank has taken to blocking every single person he disagrees with on his candidate page, and pretending that all the tweets he’s been making for years weren’t him, and that he’s being “cyberbullied” because people are calling him out for these tweets. The tweets? … They’re below (just a snippet). Full of tweets misgendering Michelle Obama, and suggesting that a rape victim isn't "rapeable" because of her looks. Y'all ... this is who the "family morals" crowd is backing to oversee education decisions as a trustee? 
 
Frank is also a contributor to the Conejo Valley Mama Bears.

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Nancy Van Volkingburg and Frank Enderle will not be champions for our Conejo Valley public schools, and based on their expressed views about our LGBTQ+ community, I don't believe they are safe for our LGBTQ+ students and decisions related to their healthy, safety, education and inclusion in school.

If you live in Area 1 (Westlake), I recommend voting for trustee Karen Sylvester.
​If you live in Area 5 (Newbury Park), I recommend voting for trustee Lauren Gill.