CSBA Presidents from 1931 to 2031
Prompted by discussions among several boards throughout California about the need to advocate for educational programs, 29 school board members from 12 counties gathered at the Donner School auditorium in Sacramento on Sept. 8, 1931, to form the California School Trustees Association, later to be known as the California School Boards Association.
To mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of CSBA in 2031, California Schools is taking a historical look at the CSBA Presidents from 1931 to the future president in 2031.
R.E. Bosshard
1947–48
Bosshard was a prominent early 20th-century civic leader, serving as the city clerk of Alameda in the 1910s and 1920s. He was deeply involved in local affairs, later chairing the city’s charter revision committee in the 1930s. Bosshard joined the Alameda Unified School District Board of Education in the 1940s.
J. Paul Eliott
1948–50
Eliott was a Los Angeles-based attorney and served on the Los Angeles USD Board of Education from the early 1940s to the early 1950s. Eliott was also the president of the National School Boards Association from 1949–51.
Jack Merchant
1950–52
Merchant served on the Acalanes Union High School District Board of Education in the 1940s and ’50s and was the founding president of the Contra Costa County School Trustees Association. During his California School Trustee Association presidency, he helped to secure the association’s incorporated status in 1952.
Carl B. Munck
1952–54
Munck served on the Oakland USD Board of Education for four decades, from the mid-1940s through the mid-1980s. After his tenure as president of the California School Trustees Association, he went on to become the National School Boards Association president from 1958–59. In 1960, the Carl B. Munck Elementary School in Oakland USD was named in his honor.
