As Andrea Varon sits down for an interview, people keep walking through the back kitchen door and handing her money.
One neighbor says a quick hello and gives her a check for $100. Minutes later a second friend follows, putting a $200 check on the dining room table.
Varon—“Andi” to most everyone—thanks them and tells the News-Press: “I just sent out an appeal this morning. That’s why people keep coming in.”
By any measure, her appeal to people has been overwhelmingly successful.
Varon, 70, is a candidate for Area 7 of the Santa Barbara Community College District Board. As she runs to succeed her sister Ellen Stoddard on the board, she is endorsed by the Santa Barbara Democratic Party and five sitting SBCC trustees, including board President Jonathan Abboud and Vice President Kyle Richards.
Three former trustees are also endorsing Varon, along with some members of the Santa Barbara City Council and the Goleta and county boards of education. A long list of other Democratic politicians and community leaders are supporting her, as well.
And though she was recruited to run and days later filed her candidacy papers on the last possible day, she said she is now committed to this race.
‘Part of the reason I said yes is my passion for education,” she said. “I’m a lifelong learner, and I feel like this is a whole new learning opportunity for me.
“This is something I know I can do and a way of supporting this amazing community.”
Varon is one of three candidates vying to represent the sprawling district that is home to the Mesa campus. Area 7 includes the Mesa, Hope Ranch, Hidden Valley, Bel Air, and Los Positas Road reaching into Samarkand.
Her opponents are nurse and Republican Heather McGinnis and fellow Democrat and retired SBCC counselor Oscar Zavala. Multiple attempts to interview McGinnis, who did not file a public candidate’s statement for the Nov. 3 ballot, were unsuccessful. She has been endorsed by the Santa Barbara County Republican Party.
32 years in education
Varon earned a bachelor’s degree in human development from University of California, Davis, and a teaching credential and master’s degree in educational psychology from California State University, Northridge.
She has been involved in elementary education for 32 years. She taught kindergarten through fourth grade for 27 years in the Los Angeles area, with a 2-year stint in Tokyo. She was vice principal at two elementary schools the other years.
She has also served on numerous faculty and administrative committees, setting policy and curriculum standards. In Spring 2000, she was part of the leadership team forced to close Larchmount Charter School in West Hollywood because of COVID-19 and to transfer classes online for hundreds of students, she said.
The role that she feels is most cogent to her campaign, however, was leading the three accreditation teams at her various schools. Accreditation is the official certification given to an organization by an independent body for meeting specific quality standards. It’s a complex and painstaking yet vital process for all educational institutions.
“My experience on the WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] teams is very important,” Varon said. She pointed out that SBCC is headed into its seven-year accreditation cycle, governed by the same agency she worked with at the K-12 level.
“I think I could be a support to the superintendent-president in her work and provide insight,” she said. Acknowledging that the college’s accreditation prep is done by administrators and faculty—and not the board—Varon added: ”It doesn’t necessarily have to come from me as a trustee. I’m known to go beyond.”
Her platform
She said she would bring to the board intimate knowledge of the kind of obstacles students can face early in their education.
“I’ve always worked in diverse communities,” she said. “The schools I worked at, part of their mission was always to value diversity and seek an environment of economic diversity, racial diversity, families from LGTBQ+ community.”
As for the rest of her platform, she talked about attending a Sept. 15 board retreat and agreeing with much of the board’s current direction in positioning the college for the future.
She said she would like to support the college as it offers innovative programs that teach students how to use AI but not lose their critical thinking abilities.
She said her other priorities would be maintaining a balanced budget and financial stability, “but not at the cost of teacher and staff salaries.” Taking care of the three campuses’ aging facilities and exploring providing affordable housing for students and staff complete her platform.
“I want the college to continue to be a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment for all students from all walks of life,” she said
This would include “students who are going back to school as an adult, either because they’ve lost their job and need to explore a new career, or students like me who want to take extended learning classes for life enrichment,” she said.
Retirement—then cancer
Varon retired and moved to Santa Barbara five years ago, into an ADU in the backyard of her sister’s Mesa home.
Her sister, in fact, is outgoing trustee Ellen Stoddard. If elected, Varon would be taking her sister’s seat on the board, a fact she did not disclose on her candidate’s statement when listing Stoddard as one of her endorsers.
A Sept. 29 press release from Varon’s campaign said that this close relationship gives her “a front-row view into what the role of Trustee entails.”
Varon said being a witness to her sister’s tenure on the board is entirely positive, but she “probably should have included [the relationship]” on her ballot statement.
“But I do have my own mind,” she said. “I’m 70 years old, for God’s sake. If I can’t stand up to my sister when I need to, well…”
During her first years in Santa Barbara, Varon took adult education classes. She also worked with the non-profit Apples to Zucchini Cooking School, teaching basic kitchen skills to local elementary school children.
A year ago, however, she was diagnosed with a recurrent lung cancer. She began chemotherapy treatment, which concluded in August. She now has received a “no evidence of cancer” clearance.
Her illness was the main reason she waited until the last possible day to declare her candidacy, she said.
“It does affect my energy level, but I’m very good at resting when I need to rest and planning my days,” she said. “If I know I’m going to have a long board meeting, I won’t make any other plans for that day.”
She lives “a very simple life,” and can prioritize board responsibilities and the time they will require, she added.
“I’m done with cancer, and I’m ready to take on this new challenge,” she said.
Varon said she has collected $2,800 so far and has set her campaign budget at $3,500 to $5,000. She and her supporters helped create her website and prepare flyers, and she’s been canvassing throughout the Area 7 neighborhoods.
“I don’t love campaigning,” she said, adding that she is grateful to get logistical support from the Santa Barbara Democratic Party, along with help from friends, family and neighbors.
The morning of the News-Press interview, for example, she was sorting out campaign finance regulations, “a whole ordeal in itself,” she said. She also had set up a bank account for her campaign at a Mesa bank.
“We were talking with the bank teller, who’s from Brazil,” she said. “He asked what we were doing, and we explained. And he said, ‘Oh, I went to City College. That’s where I learned to speak English.’
“You see that everywhere you go… I’ve never heard a person say anything bad about the college.”
