by Mark McDermott
Cathey Graves, the president of the Manhattan Beach Board of Education, has been reelected by her board colleagues to serve another one year term at the helm of the district.
The position generally rotates to the vice president of the board. But Jen Fenton, who served as vice president the last year, took the unusual step at the outset of the board’s December 13 organizational meeting of renominating Graves to serve a consecutive term as president.
“As much as I’ve enjoyed being your vice president, I know the constraints of my full time job and I also know what is required to be a leader of this board,” Fenton said. “And for those of you who have watched these meetings for several years, and this year in particular, you know we’ve got a big year coming up — 2024 is going to be a big one with budget considerations, construction projects, the implementation of ethnic studies, not to mention the upcoming parcel tax.”
“If anyone can represent the diverse voices in our community, it’s you,” she said, addressing Graves. “And you do it while skillfully moving us along and making sure we are handling everything to a tee. So with that I wholeheartedly believe that it is in the best interest of the district for you to continue serving as board president.”
Graves said, while she was open to any of the other board members taking over as president, she would be honored to do so again.
“It is an amazing responsibility, and very fulfilling,” she said. “I appreciate your support, the support of the board, and your confidence in my ability to bring us through a lot of difficult issues in the year ahead.”
Graves has been a unifying figure as board president. She was elected to the board in 2020. Graves is an attorney, a CPA and a mother of four children who all attended Manhattan Beach schools. Prior to serving on the board, she had been active for 17 years within the district — as District Advisory Council president, as board member and president of the PTA District Council and Pennekamp PTA, MBUSD Green Committee founder and chair, founder and chair of the MBUSD social and emotional learning committee, as a board member for both MBEF and MBX, and chair of Young at Art and Growing Great. She also coached youth sports, served as chair of Amigos Unidos, served as the leader of Girl Scout Troop 1685 and on the executive committee of Boy Scouts Troop 816 and served as president of the National Charity League.
She has brought a steadying presence, attention to detail, and accessibility to her duties as board president, which is a volunteer position but often requires nearly full-time hours, colleagues say. During the controversy that erupted over student antisemitic incidents at Manhattan Beach Middle School in November, Graves answered every one of more than 1,000 emails the board received regarding what had occurred — while also investigating the incident and working with school administrators and leaders of the Jewish community to address the matter going forward.
Fenton’s motion was seconded by board member Bruce Greenberg, who said he agreed with everything Fenton said about Graves.
“In the short time that I’ve been on board, I have been so impressed by your steady leadership,” he said. “There’s so much that the public sees when they attend these meetings, but there’s it’s kind of like an iceberg — there’s so much below the water, and so much that Cathey does that is not visible to the public in terms of communications and responding to all of the emails that come into the board. Cathey takes on the responsibility of responding on behalf of the board, with a unified voice, and that’s just a tremendous amount of work, as well as the board agenda planning and coordination with Superintendent [John] Bose….So thank you for doing all that you do, and thank you for being willing to do it for another year.”
The motion passed unanimously. Board member Tina Shivpuri was unanimously elected to serve as vice president. ER
