Glass’s wife, Sheryl Anderson-Glass, leads Orange High as district rules require trustees to abstain from personnel matters that uniquely affect relatives.
A review of Orange Unified School District records Thursday shows Board President Dr. Stephen Glass presides over a district that employs his wife, Sheryl Anderson-Glass, as Orange High School principal, raising recurring questions about disclosure, recusals and public trust because trustees vote on budgets and personnel matters affecting district employees. Glass made transparency a campaign promise in his 2024 candidate statement.
“As a taxpayer, I expect our district to be transparent and wise stewards of our tax dollars,” Glass said.
The relationship is public. Glass said in the same statement that he met Sheryl while both worked at Orange High and later married on campus. The current Orange High directory identifies Sheryl Anderson-Glass as principal, while OUSD’s core values include ethical and transparent decision-making.
Glass has also built a record aligned with progressive education priorities. A 2024 OC Independent editorial cited Facebook posts in which it said Glass backed race-conscious teacher hiring and implicit-bias training, praised activist Angela Davis and made equity and inclusion in education his top campaign priority. The piece was explicitly an editorial but linked to Glass’s underlying posts and campaign materials.
The scrutiny comes months after Glass joined a unanimous January vote raising trustees’ maximum monthly compensation from $400 to $2,000. OC Independent reported the 400% increase appeared on the consent calendar and passed without trustee discussion.
OUSD’s conflict-of-interest bylaw distinguishes between a prohibited conflict and matters requiring recusal, mandating abstention on personnel decisions uniquely affecting relatives while permitting class-wide personnel votes.
“Even if a prohibited conflict of interest does not exist, a Board member shall abstain from voting on personnel matters that uniquely affect his/her relatives,” the policy said.
California law, however, stops short of treating the marriage itself as an automatic conflict. OUSD policy treats certain pre-existing spousal employment as a statutory noninterest, while FPPC guidance generally permits districtwide votes affecting a spouse’s government salary when an entire employee class is treated equally. Anderson-Glass was already an OUSD principal before Glass’s 2024 board appointment.
That leaves a public-transparency question rather than proof of a statutory violation: when decisions touch Orange High, administrator compensation or personnel matters, how clearly can residents determine when Glass discloses the relationship, abstains or participates?
