Conejo School Trustee William Henry Resigns : Education: Former corporate leader is remembered for bringing a business-oriented perspective to the board’s activities.

Nine-year school Trustee William H. Henry Jr. has resigned after moving to a new residence in Oxnard last week, the Conejo Valley Unified School District announced Tuesday.

A retired corporate executive, Henry had told colleagues last month that he was planning to resign because he and his wife, Fran, had purchased a home near Channel Islands Harbor. His resignation was effective last Friday.

“We’ll miss him. He was a very stable force,” Trustee Dorothy L. Beaubien said.

The outspoken and fact-oriented Henry had emphasized student performance and prided himself for approaching education as a business. He twice served as board president.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the community,” Henry wrote in his resignation letter. “We have made measurable progress on virtually every front, even in the face of seriously declining budgets. . . . We can take pride in our accomplishments and in our district.”

By resigning just four months before the November election, Henry left district officials unsure about whether to leave his seat vacant until then, fill it by appointment or hold a special election. His seat is one of three trustee positions on the November ballot.

Supt. Jerry C. Gross said he has discussed the situation with the Ventura County counsel’s office. “I’ve asked them to clarify whether we have to have an election or appoint someone,” he said.

Assistant County Counsel Tony Waters said he hopes to have an answer in a few weeks.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Henry said he had planned to move to the harbor area after his retirement from Lockheed Corp. earlier this year but had hoped to hold off until the end of his term.

“When I ran for my second term in 1989, the expectation was I would retire in 1994 and move to the shore shortly thereafter,” said the 67-year-old Henry. “Then they extended our term. It added a year that I hadn’t expected.”

But when Henry found a repossessed home near the harbor, he knew the sale would not wait until November.

Looking back on nearly nine years in the Conejo Valley district, Henry said he tried to be a stabilizing force.

“When I came, it was a bickering board,” he said. “I think it is no longer a bickering board.”

Beaubien said Henry was a business-oriented counterpoint to other board members, who are mostly educators. “He was concerned with it as a businessman,” she said.

Henry believed strongly that the five-member board should set policy, leaving the smaller decisions to paid staff members, Beaubien said. And he was known for forthright comments during board meetings, she said.

“I think sometimes he said things that the rest of us didn’t say, that we perhaps thought we couldn’t,” she said.

When the district began writing a new list of long-term goals several months ago, Henry argued that the goals should be easily measurable.

“He kept us oftentimes on the straight and narrow,” Beaubien said.

Raising the SAT scores of students was another of Henry’s priorities.

“He did want accountability and he did want measurement,” said board member Mildred Lynch, whose back-to-basics approach to education was shared by Henry.

Correspondent Julie Fields contributed to this story.