When Ana Vasudeo leaves the Berkeley school board on July 1, the seat she won twice at the ballot box will be filled by appointment — not by the voters who elected her.

Vasudeo is stepping down after six years to join the Alameda County Board of Education, and rather than call a special election, her colleagues on the Berkeley Unified School District board are opting to hand-pick a fifth member through a public application and interview process this summer. The choice — legal, cheaper and faster than an election — concentrates the decision in the four remaining directors at a moment when school boards across California are fielding a wave of politically charged disputes.

When Ana Vasudeo leaves the Berkeley school board on July 1, the seat she won twice at the ballot box will be filled by appointment — not by the voters who elected her.

Vasudeo is stepping down after six years on the Berkeley Unified School District board to join the Alameda County Board of Education, where she ran unopposed for the Area 1 trustee seat representing Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and parts of Oakland. Rather than call a special election, her four remaining colleagues are choosing to appoint her successor — a move that is legal and far cheaper, but one that hands the decision to a board majority instead of the electorate.

The board's appetite for moving quickly was plain at its June 3 meeting, where directors voted unanimously to begin the appointment process. "We've just spent a long time being a board of four," director Jen Corn said, according to Berkeleyside, referring to the maternity leave of director Ka'Dijah Brown that ended in March. "I would like to, as quickly as possible, become a board of five again."

Vasudeo, who won election in 2020 and 2024 on a platform of supporting Black and brown students, students with disabilities and street safety, framed her departure as a continuation rather than an exit. "I'm switching over into the county office, but make no mistake, that I do intend to make us 'hashtag Berkeley proud,'" she said, per Berkeleyside. "I'm excited to fight for all our students in the county." She pointed to the political climate as the stakes: "We're seeing a lot of attacks on our students with disabilities, on our LGBTQ+ students, on our immigrant students."

The process this summer

California education law gives a school board 60 days from a vacancy to either make a provisional appointment or call an election. By acting now, BUSD keeps the seat empty for only a short stretch and avoids the cost of a standalone ballot. The trade-off is built into the statute: once the board appoints, residents have a 30-day window to gather enough signatures to force a special election anyway — the public's check on a board filling its own ranks. Berkeley has been here before, having appointed a director in 2013 rather than going to the voters.

For now, the district is expected to open applications, interview candidates in public and vote on a replacement in the weeks ahead. The appointee would serve until the next regular election, when the seat returns to the ballot.

What makes the timing notable is the company Vasudeo's seat keeps: school boards from Temecula to the Bay Area have become flashpoints over curriculum, LGBTQ+ policy and special education. Berkeley's progressive board is unlikely to swing on a single appointment — but the choice of who joins it, and how, will be made by four people rather than tens of thousands.