A word about candidate endorsements
Consultants and political insiders have relied on candidate endorsements for decades. It’s convenient: consultants earn money pumping out slick mailers featuring endorsements and candidates don’t have to spend as much time (or any) knocking doors, doing calls, or other face-to-face outreach to voters. School Board is often a launchpad to city council and higher offices. Endorsements can also function as a way for political parties to launch careers.
But the political landscape is changing. Endorsements - even by unions - are not the same as having a responsive, ready candidate who is doing the field work to earn voters’ trust one call or chat at a time. Voters are tired of insider politics and want authentic, trustworthy, and honest candidates.
We are a parent group. And mostly mothers. We know firsthand the inherent labor, skill, and knowledge that comes with raising children in our community. We have formed deep networks volunteering in classrooms, running PTA events, working the drop-off line year after year. This is some of the most helpful, sustaining, and real community organizing in our community. It is why we are supporting Aileen Orlino Dinkjian, Kathleen Cross, and Ingrid Gunnell for School Board. All of these women have done tireless, often behind-the-scenes work for years in Glendale to improve our schools and community.
Aileen Orlino Dinkjian, Kat Cross, Ingrid Gunnell: 3 women who have done the work.
We also know too well the penalties for women who juggle careers and parenting. We see how the resume-building checkboxes that endorsing organizations or individuals require for endorsement are nothing more than busywork for so many working mothers. Club meetings held during dinnertime, homework time, or school pick-up time are not an option. Attending quarterly committee meetings to hear reports is not the same as writing a grant after your kids have gone to bed to find money to bring a speaker or event or shade trees to your child’s school.
It is inconvenient and often physically impossible for parents to attend 5pm Board meetings on Tuesdays, something that the Glendale Teachers Association felt was an important candidate qualification in their 2026 endorsement cycle, but which had never come up before to our knowledge. (Indeed, by that metric, several extremists would earn endorsements for their chronic appearances at GUSD board meetings.)
Our grassroots group - which was officially formed in 2023 in response to then-GUSD leadership’s utter failure to protect teachers, students, and parents from extremist threats - believes that certain endorsements from board members who presided over this period of GUSD’s management carry little in terms of evaluating a candidate’s ability to serve as Trustee. This is because the various endorsed GUSD Boards in place through 2023 were responsible for:
-chaotic, reactive decision-making around Covid response in schools.
-lengthy, contentious, and years-long negotiations with labor partners.
-financial mismanagement exposed in the 2024 FCMATaudit, leading to the cutting of 7th period for middle/high school students.
-removing and hiring several Superintendents, including “releasing from his contract” the only Black man ever hired for the role despite his careful handling of racially-motivated attacks in a GUSD school.
- the lack of coordinated preparation to avert violent Leave Our Kids Alone extremists attacking teachers, students, and parents in GUSD, leaving GUSD exposed to legal action and ongoing threats.
Finally, the Glendale Teachers Association Political Action Committee has a long record of endorsing some of the very same Board members (Greg Krikorian, Armina Gharpetian, Nayiri Nahabedian, Jen Freemon, Shant Sahakian) and City Councilmembers (notably Ara Najarian, Vartan Gharpetian, and Najarian defender Paula Devine) who have made life harder for families - and teachers - in GUSD with their mismanagement, avoidance, or outright hostility to community members. We love teachers, but we can and will disagree with their advocacy from time to time. Unions are made up of human beings, and no group of people is right 100% of the time.
We hope this helps you understand endorsements a bit better as you research your ballot.