Santa Ana Ready to Select Schools Chief : Education: Bakersfield superintendent is the front-runner for the job. The position has been open since July.

SANTA ANA —  The board of the Santa Ana Unified School District plans to vote today on a new schools chief, amid speculation that the choice is Bakersfield superintendent Al Mijares.

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Trustee Tom Chaffee, who traveled to Bakersfield earlier this week with other board members to conduct interviews, said Mijares “seems like an outstanding individual and a great leader. I look forward to working with someone of his caliber.”

But Chaffee cautioned Thursday night, “It’s not set in concrete yet. He is an outstanding candidate for the job--head and shoulders above the crowd--but we have not had an official vote.”

The board originally had planned to decide next week, Chaffee said, but “decided not to drag things out.”

The board is seeking a replacement for Rudy M. Castruita, who left in July to head the San Diego County Department of Education. The new superintendent will oversee the largest school district in Orange County, and the ninth-largest in the state, with nearly 50,000 students.

Mijares, 41, became schools superintendent in Bakersfield in January, 1993, after heading the Coachella Valley school district for 3 1/2 years.

He declined comment Thursday on the Santa Ana job.

Trustee Rosemarie Avila would not name the board’s selection, but said, “We’re very excited to be getting a new superintendent soon.”

The vice president of the Bakersfield school board, Ralph W. E. Anthony, said the two boards met on Wednesday “to measure the pros and cons of the ability of the superintendent, to see if they wanted to hire him down there.”

Anthony added, “We don’t want him to go. We want to keep him. He’s a man of talent and vision and integrity.”

At an emotional school board meeting Tuesday night, “a bunch of parents showed up and said they didn’t want him to leave,” Anthony said. “And they let us know it, and told us to figure out a way to keep him.”

Mijares “responded very positively to their request, but he said he’d let us know,” Anthony said. “With a man of his talent, I would think that Santa Ana will gain him if they give him the right offer, and it looks like they can. If he can do for them what he did for us, he’ll be a valuable asset to that community, as he was to ours.”

Mijares and his wife, Jackie, have five sons, ranging in age from toddlers to teen-agers.

While at his post in Coachella, Mijares helped write a grant proposal that earned the district $250,000 from the federal government to set up an program to monitor attendance and reduce truancy. It was later adopted throughout the state.

Correspondent Jon Nalick contributed to this story.