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Alysse Castro has taken a commanding lead for Alameda County superintendent of schools, positioned more than 13,000 votes ahead of two-term incumbent L.K. Monroe.
Monroe has led the county office since 2014 while Castro is an Alameda County resident who is currently the executive director of court, county and continuation high schools in the San Francisco Unified School District .
With county election officials still processing final ballots from the June 7 primary, Castro sits at 122,851 votes overall (52.89%) to Monroe’s 109,407 votes (47.11%) as of Tuesday evening, continuing the reversal after Election Night when the incumbent held a slim advantage in the tally.
“All I really want to say is that the trend continues to look very positive and we’re excited,” Castro told the Weekly regarding the recent results. “It was particularly nerve racking in the beginning, but in my case the trend has been very, very consistently positive, except for Election Night.”
Castro, who used strong backing from education unions to mount her challenge, was referencing when Monroe stood with 51.71% of votes and Castro at 48.29% at the end of Election Night. But the script flipped in Castro’s favor beginning with the results update last Friday.
With her new lead, Castro said she is excited for the opportunity to make public schools work for everyone and mainly wanted to thank fellow educators for informing the public on what the county office is and how it can support teachers and schools in general.
She said she was honored in being able to participate in this race and shedding light in rethinking how the justice system and social services work in education.
“I feel like this race plus what we’re seeing with with the sheriff’s race tell me that in Alameda County we’re really rethinking justice systems and social support systems and really thinking about how we can make them work better for our most marginalized folks and to me, that’s a very exciting direction for to be headed,” Castro said.
Monroe told the Weekly that even though she is disappointed in the results, her focus moving forward is continuing to support the students and schools of Alameda County.
“It has been an honor to serve for the past eight years as the Superintendent of Schools and to lead the work of the Alameda County Office of Education,” Monroe said in a concession statement. “While my tenure as Superintendent of Schools in Alameda County will be coming to a close, I remain committed as ever to being a source of service and support. I wish my successor the best.”
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office is still processing pending vote-by-mail ballots, which if postmarked by June 7 can arrive up to seven days after the election date and still be counted, as well as some number of provisional and conditional ballots. Election officials have 30 days to certify their final results.
