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Parent and project manager Sam Phelps is challenging the status quo – and two sitting trustees – in his campaign this fall to represent Area 5 on the Livermore school board.
Phelps is running on a platform of educational achievement for all students, improving college readiness, ensuring district spending reaches the classroom and clear communication with families.
As the father of a Livermore High School student with two more incoming district students, Phelps said he wants to have a “hand on the wheel” in decision-making at the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District.
He is competing against trustees Deena Kaplanis and Christiaan VandenHeuvel – who are currently serving at-large terms that extend until December 2028 but are running midterm because their residential zone, District 5, is on the ballot for LVJUSD’s first election after converting to district-based elections. The winner of the three-person contest Nov. 3 is poised to represent southeast Livermore and a portion of unincorporated Alameda County located south of the city into 2030.
“I’m not running against two people. I’m running against the idea that a 97% graduation rate means the job is done,” he said on his campaign website.
Phelps said he will fight for all students’ education.
One area of his focus is scoring on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
While district-wide scoring on the CAASPP has remained roughly consistent from the 2018-19 to 2024-25 school year, an approximately 4 percentage-point decline was seen in the mean scores by economically disadvantaged students as well as students who are Hispanic or Latino, confirmed by data available through the California Department of Education website.
Phelps noted, the number of economically disadvantaged test-takers decreased from the 2018-19 to 2024-25 school year, so the declined score might be attributed to who is taking the test rather than a decline in individual students’ scoring.
“I want every board meeting to open with the same question: What did we do this month for the kids furthest behind?” Phelps wrote on his campaign.
He added, about 53% of LVJUSD graduates complete the courses required for admission to schools in the University of California and California State University systems, as opposed to about 81% of graduates from the Pleasanton and Dublin school districts.
Phelps has worked in construction for 15 years and currently works for a midsized general contractor. He also operates a direct mail advertising company dubbed RSVP.
“I can read a bid, I know what a building should actually cost, and I know what a kid who’s good with his hands can earn,” he told Livermore Vine in an email interview. “This board could use both of those.”
After 15 years of pricing construction jobs, Phelps said he knows what realistic costs looks like.
“Where it matters most is telling fluff from foundation. Every budget has both,” he explained. “The job is to cut the fluff without touching the things carrying weight — pay teachers properly, protect what happens in the classroom, and fund the things that compound over time instead of the things that evaporate at the end of the fiscal year.”
In addition to having student at LHS, Phelps is engaged to a former Palo Alto teacher, who shifted to working at home to raise their two youngest children.
“Most of what I know about what this job really asks of teachers — the hours nobody sees, what they buy with their own money, what they need and don’t get — I learned from her,” he said.
For more information about Phelps and his platform, visit his campaign website at https://seat5sam.com
