Wake’s school board will be up for grabs this year. Majority won’t seek re-election.
The Wake County school board will see major turnover this year, as a majority of its members don’t plan to seek re-election to lead North Carolina’s largest school system.
Four of the nine school board members say they won’t run for another term and a fifth member says it’s unlikely she’ll seek re-election. This fall’s election could decide whether Wake continues to have a left-leaning school board majority or shifts to a more conservative direction.
”I hope the community chooses people who are for public schools and not for some national agenda that is anti-public school,” said school board member Christine Kushner, who announced on Facebook Monday that she’s not running for re-election.
Wake school board elections are officially non-partisan. But the Republican Party and the Democratic Party both say they plan to field candidates for all nine seats.
“We want people who give a damn about children,” Kevyn Creech, chair of the Wake County Democratic Party, said in an interview Monday. “We want people who give a damn about public schools.”
Donna Williams, chairwoman of the Wake County Republican Party, says the incumbents don’t want to run again and lose.
“A lot of parents are very upset with our school board members,” Williams said in an interview. “In my opinion, those school board members are aware of that, and that’s one of the reasons a lot aren’t going to run again.”
Under a plan agreed to by the Wake County Board of Elections, four board seats will be on the ballot for four-year terms. The other five seats will be on the Nov. 8 ballot for two-year terms before switching in the 2024 ballot to four-year terms.
Candidate filing starts July 1. It runs to July 15.
‘Someone else to have a turn’
Kushner and Jim Martin were both elected to the school board in 2011 in an election that shifted control away from a conservative majority that had led Wake for two years. They both plan to leave when their terms expire this year.
“I’ve been on the board 11 years,” Kushner said in an interview. “It’s time for someone else to have a turn.”
Kushner reached out in April to Sam Hershey, a small business owner and parent, who announced Monday that he’s running for the seat. Hershey’s opposition is expected to include Chad Stall, a parent and critic of Wake’s decision to require face masks during the pandemic.
Heather Scott, who was elected in 2018, has also announced she’s not running for another term.
Roxie Cash said Monday she will not seek another term. Cash served on the board from 1991 to 1999 before being elected again in 2016.
Karen Carter, who was elected in 2020, says she doesn’t expect to seek re-election due to her mother’s health issues. It comes after Carter’s father died recently.
“I would not file unless there’s drastic change on my mom’s part,” Carter said in an interview.
Carter and Cash faced a censure vote in August from the leadership of the Wake GOP for not having voted against ending the mask mandate. The censure motion was defeated.
Only board chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey, vice chairman Chris Heagarty and board members Monika Johnson-Hostler and Tara Waters say they will run for office this fall.
Contentious school board meetings
Given the political climate around school boards, David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College, said it is not surprising that several school board members are not seeking re-election this year.
“Serving on the board has become much more contentious in recent years with parents and outside organizations putting pressure on board members on a variety of emotional issues, such as books in the libraries and the teaching of racial and gender issues,” McLennan said in an email Monday.
“School board meetings have become very heated at times and board members have been confronted outside of the regular meetings.”
McClennan says it’s not automatic for incumbents to win, pointing to how three San Francisco school board members were recalled earlier this year and several Los Angeles school board members lost their seats this month.
“School board elections used to be the least partisan of all elected offices in North Carolina.,” McLennan said. “This has changed with parties and special interest groups targeting these races with money and endorsements.
“The ratcheting up of pressure on these elections — as well as school board service — means that many current board members will no longer want to run or serve in these positions.”
‘It’s all nuts’
Several Wake school board candidates have spoken out at meetings to criticize the board.
“My child is my child and this education system is part of their constitutional right,” Becky Lew-Hobbs, who plans to run for Waters’ seat, said at the June 7 school board meeting. “But it does not give you the right to raise my child.”
Wing Ng, who plans to run for Cash’s seat, has accused Wake of trying to expose students to books with sexually explicit materials.
“Do children with special needs have to be saddled with learning about racism?” Ng said at the May 3 board meeting. “Do they need to spend precious school time learning about gender identity or gender affirmation?”
Heagarty, the board member, said he believes most people in Wake County support the school board, even if they’re not as loud as the critics.
“Board of Education members have quite frankly been falsely accused of everything from being child abusers, war criminals, part of vast left-wing conspiracies and it’s all untrue,” Heagarty said in an interview. “In fact it’s all nuts.”
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 10:14 AM.
