Grossmont Union High School District Board of Education, Area 5
Pete Mergens
A career teaching math at West Hills High School. Retired from the classroom, and not done yet.
- Restore trust and transparency
- Bring back libraries and educational services
- Fully resource English learner programs
What I’ll work on first
Restore trust and transparency
Board business belongs in public meetings, in front of the people who pay for this district. Open agendas, real public comment, and decisions that can survive daylight.
Bring back libraries and educational services
Teacher-librarians and subject-area support are the fastest way to help every classroom at once. Rebuilding that layer is where I would start.
Fully resource English learner programs
English learners are among our highest-need students. They deserve trained staff, current materials, and a district that tracks whether the support is working.
Meet Pete
I’m a lifelong resident of Lakeside and East County. I went to Lindo Park Elementary, TDS Middle School, and graduated from El Capitan High School in 1983. My family attended OLPH, where I was an altar boy.
I earned a bachelor’s degree in math from USC in 1986 and a master’s in education in 1988. After teaching in the Los Angeles area, I came home. West Hills High School hired me in the summer of 1990, the year of its first senior class.
I’ve worn a lot of hats at West Hills, and I always taught math. I coached Academic League and Academic Decathlon, served as the school’s first AVID teacher and coordinator, and ran the GATE program. In 2003 my colleagues elected me math department chair, and I held that job until I retired.
The plan was always to substitute after retiring, because good math subs are badly needed. I’m setting that aside to help the friends, colleagues, and students I spent my career with.
I married Jane in 1991, the summer after my first year at West Hills. For 27 years we attended North Park Community Church, where Jane’s dad pastored, and for the last eight we’ve been at Lakeside Christian Church, in weekly Bible study with dear friends. Our two kids, Collrane and Miranda, both graduated from El Capitan and are working on post-graduate degrees.
Why I’m running
I spent my whole career in a GUHSD classroom. I watched what the last few years did to the people I worked with, and to the students they serve. Teachers and administrators stopped feeling safe in their jobs. Support that reached every campus went away. Families and employees filled board meetings to say so, and kept showing up.
I am not a politician and I never planned to be one. I planned to substitute, because good math subs are badly needed. I am setting that aside because the district I gave my career to needs trustees who have actually been in its classrooms.
A school board’s job is not complicated. Pass a budget that puts resources where students are. Hire good people and keep them. Do the work in public. Ask whether what the district is doing is helping students, and be willing to hear the answer. That is the job I am asking to do.
It’s time to turn the page. As a recently retired teacher, I’ll restore trust, protect taxpayer dollars, and get GUHSD back to what it should have been doing all along: helping students succeed.Pete Mergens
Four ways to help
In the news
- Grossmont teachers union backs board challengersVoice of San Diego
- The Learning Curve: the trustee recall effortVoice of San Diego
- Trustees and board business in private texts and emailsSan Diego Union-Tribune
- Coverage of the layoff discussionsVoice of San Diego
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
Paid for by · FPPC ID #1494560