When he pitched the idea of banning cell phones at Coronado Schools four years ago, he didn’t get much traction. But after several community forums, concern from parents and much discussion at school board meetings, Trustee Mal Sandie is proud that this year, CMS opens its doors with a new bell-to-bell ban on cell phones.
“I do not like personal electronics,” said Sandie, a retired Navy Captain with four sons who is running for re-election for the Coronado School Board. “I think they are addictive and unhealthy. There’s the social media for the girls; it just eats them up. Then for boys, there are these games.”
He says he attended CUSD-organized meetings with students and parents on the topic of cell phones in schools.
“The parents were like, ‘get this stuff out of our schools,'” said Sandie. “They felt exactly like I did. So I felt kind of vindicated.”
He hopes that the ban will increase connection between students, fuel learning, and bolster academics. But as he runs for reelection, he’s got new things on his mind.
“I’ve always been pushing for solar energy at CUSD and air conditioning,” he said. “We need a comfortable teaching environment. If you’re sitting in a sweltering classroom, how are you going to learn?”
But Sandie says he’s proud of what the board has accomplished in the last few years.
Perhaps the biggest success is making it to Basic Aid, whereby the Coronado School District is fully-funded by local property taxes. This means that starting the 2027-2028 school year, the district will have an additional $8 to $12 million in funding.
“Basic Aid is huge. That’s the big one,” said Sandie. “I want to use Basic Aid to pay our teachers so we can get the best and brightest. Then we can have the nicest facilities. So let’s support our public schools and not push our money somewhere else.”
He’s also proud that CUSD is segueing to a new school calendar, which aligns better with neighboring districts and allows CHS students to take finals before winter break.
“The teachers and students had to give up a week of their summers two years in row,” he said. “That was a good team effort.”
And Sandie says he’s extremely happy with the Portrait of the Graduate project. The month’s-long, grant-funded endeavor gathered input from community members to outline a shared vision of the knowledge, skills and mindset Coronado students need to succeed beyond high school.
The initiative, which is referred to as the “North Star” of the district, used more than 68,000 data points from community stakeholders.
He said the idea of a “lifelong learner” in the project really resonated with him.
“If we can make our kids lifelong learners, that is a huge success,” he said. “As an adult, who is going back and looking at your SAT score? But if we can make somebody just a learner for their whole life, that’s a good thing. Like my wife, she’s a voracious reader and she’s trying to read everything and grab every book.”
When it comes to being a lifelong learner himself, Sandie says he has some work to do. While he enjoys reading, and says he recently took a math class, some things like the remote control give him some trouble.
“I’m still learning about becoming a lifelong learner,” he admits.
Serving on the school board hasn’t come without its challenges. Sandie acknowledged that CMS had a very hard couple of years. The community was rocked after a student suicide in 2025, which triggered a lawsuit from the family. Then in fall of 2025, there was a stabbing in the CMS school library.
Although Sandie said some things cannot be prevented, they can always be improved. He hopes the cell phone ban was a “step in the right direction” when it comes to improving mental health at CMS.
When it comes to changes at Village Elementary, Sandie says he’s hopeful that the new Dean of Students will better help support teachers and students. He is excited that the district is “constantly tweaking” the leadership to offer better experiences.
Sandie also said he is a big fan of the 4×4 bell schedule at Coronado High School, which was implemented in fall of 2021. He is the sole board member of the board who voted against the formation of a committee to review the 4×4 once it was already in place.
“The 4×4 was attacked on day one,” he said. “People are always wanting to take us backwards … But we kept the 4×4, and refined it.”
Sandie said he was — and continues to be — inspired to fight against the national movement to redirect money away from public schools to private school voucher systems. He says this could spell disaster for public schools.
“The bottom line is, when you see something that needs to change, you have to do something,” said Sandie. “This was my way of taking action.”
Sandie says he was first inspired to join the school board in 2022 when he volunteered to become an interim member after trustee Stacey Keszei resigned. While her spot was filled by Bruce Shepherd, Sandie said he caught some momentum and found himself running for a regular board seat in the 2022 election.
But Sandie — despite being a long-time Coronado resident with four sons in CUSD, as well as a retired helicopter pilot with the Navy — almost lost the race. He finished only 32 votes ahead of candidate Lisa Meglioli, who was trained by the controversial political action group the RMNNT.
The RMNNT shares an aligned ideological space with Project 2025, which Sandie stands firmly against. He says this is another challenge he feels could play out on a local level.
While supporters say the ideals promoted in Project 2025 improve school choice, cut federal spending, and return authority to parents and local communities, critics say it will starve local public school systems, eliminate early childhood support, and roll back civil rights and protections.
Sandie says pushing back on the Project 2025 movement is something he’s prepared to do.
“That’s what we’re fighting,” he said. “We’re fighting against people who want to dismantle public schools. We need to keep Project 2025 at bay, and not divert money to voucher systems, or any of that nonsense.”
And there’s one other thing. Sandie is a self-professed introvert. But he says having four sons go through Coronado schools (his youngest is a senior) has really connected him to the Coronado community.
But being an introvert can make school board meetings exhausting and running for public office a bit of a conundrum. However, he says he’s dedicated to making Coronado schools better.
And he thinks being a “man of few words” has its advantages.
“I think when people are babbling, people really stop listening,” said Sandie. “I don’t talk that much. I spend most of my time listening.”
