# Sonoma County Board of Education, Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County) Steve Herrington is running uncontested for Sonoma County Board of Education, Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County). Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds the Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County) seat on the 5-member Sonoma County Board of Education. It sets policy for the County Superintendent of Schools' office, which runs the county's special-education and alternative-education programs and hears expulsion and inter-district-transfer appeals from the county's local school districts. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: School District - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/sonoma-boe-area-4 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Steve Herrington** — Teacher/Educator · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Steve Herrington is running unopposed for reelection to Sonoma County's Board of Education, Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County), on November 3, 2026 -- no other candidate qualified for the ballot. The winner serves a 4-year term on the county's Board of Education. The board has five members, one from each area. It sets policy for the County Superintendent of Schools' office. That office runs the county's special-education and alternative-education programs. It also hears expulsion and inter-district-transfer appeals from local school districts. With no opponent, this race is less a choice between platforms. It is more a look at what Herrington brings to the seat. He has held it since 2022. Before that he spent 12 years running the county's own school system. He was its elected Superintendent of Schools. He left that post the same year he moved to this separate, policy-setting board seat. ## Steve Herrington Steve Herrington is the incumbent Area 4 trustee, first elected in 2022 and running unopposed for another term. Before that, he served 12 years as Sonoma County's elected Superintendent of Schools, retiring from that post at the end of 2022 -- the same year he won this Board of Education trustee seat. He holds a Ph.D. and lists his current occupation as Teacher/Educator on the county's candidate roster. **Strengths:** 12 years running the county's school system as its elected Superintendent, giving him direct executive experience with the office this board oversees, plus four years already as a trustee. **Trade-offs:** Running unopposed means no rival pressure-tests his record this cycle, and no independent review of his specific trustee votes surfaced in this pass. **Keep in mind:** His long tenure as county superintendent means he's now overseeing, as an elected trustee, the same office he used to run day-to-day -- a continuity that cuts both ways: deep institutional knowledge, but also a long-running relationship with the office's staff and priorities. ## Sources 1. [Sonoma County Registrar of Voters -- "Local Candidates Who Have Filed," November 3, 2026 General Election: the county's own provisional roster, showing exactly two county-section contests (Board of Education Trustee Areas 2 and 4), each candidate's ballot designation, qualification date, and incumbent flag. States a final list won't post until "the end of August or the beginning of September"; last updated 8/17/26 and unchanged on a live re-check 2026-08-31, after both the regular (Aug. 7) and extended (Aug. 12) nomination deadlines had passed](https://sonomacounty.gov/administrative-support-and-fiscal-services/registrar-of-voters/elections/november-3-2026-general-election-local-candidates-who-have-filed) 2. [Sonoma County Office of Education -- "County Board of Education" page: names all five sitting trustees by area (Cuclis Area 1, Kostas Area 2, Watts Area 3, Herrington Area 4, Hernandez Area 5), confirming Peter Kostas -- not a 2026 candidate -- as the outgoing Area 2 incumbent and Steve Herrington (elected 2022, term expires 2026) as the sitting Area 4 incumbent, independent of the candidate roster](https://www.scoe.org/about-scoe/county-board-of-education) 3. [The Press Democrat -- "Close to Home: Choosing a new county school chief" (Dec. 5, 2021, opinion page): states that in 2022 "voters will choose a new Sonoma County superintendent of schools, as Steve Herrington is retiring after 12 years in the post" -- a factual biographical claim inside a guest-opinion piece, used only for that dated career detail, not for any evaluative claim](https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2021/12/05/close-to-home-choosing-a-new-county-school-chief/) 4. [Sonoma Index-Tribune (sonomanews.com) -- "County schools chief asks Sonoma Valley district to create special committee to oversee troubled budget" (Daniel Johnson, Oct. 24, 2022): straight news reporting describing Steve Herrington, then still serving as county superintendent of schools, sending an Oct. 13 letter to the Sonoma Valley Unified School District -- independent confirmation of his pre-board career, consistent with (not contradicting) the Dec. 2021 retirement piece: a county superintendent elected in June takes office the following January, so his final elected superintendent term ran through the end of 2022](https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/county-schools-chief-asks-sonoma-valley-district-to-create/) 5. [California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- filer search for "Herrington": the only Herrington-named political committee is a terminated "HERRINGTON FOR SONOMA COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 2010" committee, from a much earlier race for the different, county-superintendent office -- nothing active for this 2026 Board of Education race](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Misc/filerSearch.aspx?SEARCH=Herrington) ## The rest of the ballot Sonoma County Board of Education, Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County) is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Sonoma County Board of Education, Trustee Area 4 (Northeast County) — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/sonoma-boe-area-4 (sources last retrieved August 31, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.