Anderson calls it quits

The longest-serving member of the Chico Unified School District’s Board of Trustees, Rick Anderson (pictured, portraying a school board member in a 2007 production of The Music Man), has announced that he will not seek re-election this year. The kindergartners of 1995, when he took office, are graduating high school, he noted, so this is a good time to leave.

“It’s hard to give up,” he said in a phone interview. “I’ve enjoyed making a difference everywhere I can.”

Highlights? Laying the groundwork for academic success by setting standards for the core curricula well before the state did, he said. Also, creating Internet and tech connectivity early on.

Regrets? That a reversal in enrollment growth took place immediately after residents approved a bond measure for a new high school, so it never got built. Most of all, though, that the insistence on high-stakes testing has “limited the latitude of professional teachers to do what they know is best and right.”