As results for the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education race solidified Wednesday, the incumbent front-runners were already beginning to outline their priorities for the next term, while their challengers reflected on the difficulties of unseating incumbents.

District 2’s incumbent Jennifer Hall Lee has continued to maintain a commanding lead over her opponent, Juan Carlos Perez, according to the first post-election night results released by the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Lee expressed her gratitude to her supporters in a phone interview Wednesday morning.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so appreciative to my constituents for electing me for a second term as their school board representative, and I’m really looking forward to advocating for all students to have a quality education in the PUSD,” she said.

Lee outlined her priorities in her second term as “creating quality education for all students,” as well as striving toward fully funding IDEA to support inclusive practices for all, increasing daily student attendance and aligning PUSD’s budgets with strategic inclusive practices.

On the other hand, Perez said he wasn’t surprised by the election results. What did catch him off guard, however, was the lack of awareness among many Altadena residents about their eligibility to vote in PUSD elections, which contributed in part to his current standing in the election, he said.

“And so what struck me over and over again was how a lot of the people who live in the area, especially in District 2, don’t have their kids in the PUSD system, or they’re so removed from it that they don’t actually take much time to look into it,” Perez said.

This, he explained, made reaching voters challenging, “and I imagine most people will look at a ballot and just check off the incumbent because it’s easy,” Perez added.

In contrast to District 2, the District 6 race between incumbent Tina Wu Fredericks and her challenger Lisa Kroese shows a narrower but still a significant margin, with Fredericks holding nearly two-thirds of the votes counted.

In a statement, Fredericks thanked voters in her district for the opportunity to serve a second term. She identified a projected $23 million budget deficit next year as the district’s most pressing challenge and one of her top priorities.

“I want to ensure that the district exhausts every avenue for generating revenue through updating and leasing our property and that staffing cuts are made away from the classroom, especially in the area of special education,” she said.

If Measure EE passes, Fredericks plans to allocate a portion of that funding to retain teachers and staff. Should Measure R pass, she pledged to advocate for transparent spending based on school site needs assessments and regular community feedback, she said. Fredericks added that she will continue to expand outdoor green spaces. She also expressed optimism about working with a new school board.

Kroese congratulated Fredericks in her win and also acknowledged the challenge of unseating an incumbent.

“I congratulate Ms. Fredericks,” Kroese said. “I’m hopeful that she will be a more responsive board member as a result of this going forward.”

She is very proud of her team and her supporters, Kroese said. They will continue to advocate to make a strong impact in the community. This includes pushing to ensure that students get the resources they need and working to reduce disparities across the district, Kroese said.

“I think that’s what people who supported me strongly felt, that there’s a discrepancy in a lot of the ways that PUSD views certain schools,” she said. “And I really hope that that will end for our students and for our community, and we can be truly unified going forward.”

This election cycle includes District 2, 4 and 6, though only District 2 and 6 are contested. In District 4, incumbent Patrick Cahalan is not seeking reelection, leaving Scott Harden as the only candidate.

Harden received 6,233 votes, which accounted for 100% of ballots cast in District 4. He declared victory in a statement posted on his campaign website early Wednesday.

“My promise to the community is that I will be as deliberate and intentional in steering the course of PUSD as I am accessible to those that have elected me,” he said. “My goal is to work hard to ensure that the public understands the issues our schools face and that they have a voice in charting the course forward.”

The PUSD race is a plurality election, meaning the candidate who receives the highest number of votes in each district will be elected.

The latest update follows the semi-official results released by the registrar’s early Wednesday, which include all of the ballots cast at vote centers on Election Day.

After that, the registrar’s office must tally vote-by-mail ballots that were cast by Election Day but had not yet arrived, as well as conditional and provisional ballots, before confirming the election results.

Here’s where things stood in the PUSD District 2 and 6 races as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

District 2

In District 2, Lee secured 71.03 % of the votes, while Perez garnered nearly 29% of the votes, trailing by a margin of around 42 percentage points.

District 2 includes parts of Pasadena and Altadena. In this race, incumbent Lee, a filmmaker and former Altadena Town Councilmember, is defending her seat against Perez, a marketing director.

District 6

In District 6, Fredericks received 62% of the votes, while Kroese captured close to 38% of the votes, falling behind by roughly 24 percentage points.

Fredericks, elected to the PUSD board in 2020, is a former PUSD teacher and an active parent volunteer. Kroese, a real estate agent and PUSD PTA Council volunteer, previously served as the District Director in New York’s 20th congressional district.

District 6 encompasses parts of Sierra Madre and Pasadena.