East Side Union High holds public workshop on switching to by-district elections; Districtr tool demonstrated

At a public workshop hosted by the East Side Union High School District, consultant Liz Ditt of Redistricting Partners outlined the district’s transition from at-large to by-district elections under the California Voting Rights Act and demonstrated how residents can draw and submit maps using the Districtr online tool.

Ditt said the district is following state redistricting law and a defined public schedule that includes five public hearings: “Some of the provisions include 5 public hearings on this issue,” she said. She described the first two hearings as educational, the last three as devoted to draft maps, and urged community members to submit maps and written testimony for the board to consider.

The nut of the discussion was legal and technical constraints the district must follow. Ditt summarized key criteria codified in state law, including equal population by U.S. Census counts (districts should stay within a 10 percent total deviation), contiguity, identifiable lines such as roads and natural barriers, compactness, and maintaining communities of interest. She also explained the difference between the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) and the federal Voting Rights Act and said the CVRA requires plaintiffs to show a minority group’s ability to influence an election; the statute allows plaintiffs to seek legal-fee reimbursement unless the district follows safe-harbor procedures.

Ditt walked attendees through Districtr (districtr.org/tag/esuhsd), a public mapping tool that displays data layers including attendance boundaries, total population, and citizen voting-age population (CVAP). She noted census blocks are the smallest unit available and cannot be split when drawing maps: “These are The US census blocks that were given from the US Census Bureau. This is the smallest form of geography that we've, that we have. So we can't break these blocks, by law.” Ditt also demonstrated how Districtr shows per-district deviations and explained how total deviation is calculated from the maximum and minimum district deviations.

Board Trustee Brian Dell, present at the workshop, told the audience that board members receive the same public materials as attendees: “Whatever you see in here on, on your website that you're looking at is exactly what we get on the board.” Dell said he would weigh public testimony in his considerations and encouraged people to provide detailed logic when submitting unconventional shapes such as horseshoe districts.

Attendees asked about adding external datasets and overlaying locations such as churches, schools or unhoused-student populations. Ditt said Districtr allows users to pinpoint and name places and that the project team will consider additional datasets submitted as public testimony. A participant noted the district has “over 1,000 unhoused students,” and Ditt said attendance-area layers and other datasets can help show where affected students attend school; she also said interpreters and translated materials are available.

Ditt emphasized that the school board has the final authority to adopt trustee-area maps and that the board previously requested that draft maps reflect maps submitted by community members. She reiterated how and when the public can submit maps and testimony and said staff will present public-submitted maps at the next hearing.

Next scheduled steps Ditt announced at the workshop include a map-submission hearing on June 26, a post-map community workshop on June 30 and a fourth hearing on July 15; the final hearing date was listed as to be determined. No formal action or vote occurred during the workshop; it served to collect public testimony and walk residents through the mapping tool.

For more information and to submit a map or community-of-interest statement, Ditt directed residents to districtr.org/tag/esuhsd and the district's public materials page.