Chandler Unified School District (No 80) election

The Chandler Unified School District (CUSD) election has 3 candidates. You can vote for up to 3. On the ballot, the candidates will appear in random order. Because this campaign is uncontested, and two of the candidates (Mozdzen and Wirth) are well known in the district, none of the candidates has yet put effort into websites and facebook. There is also a write-in candidate.

  1. Barbara Mozdzen, facebook page
  2. Jason Olive
  3. Joel Wirth, facebook page
  4. Sharon Tuttle (write-in), facebook page

Here are outstanding features of the candidates:

  1. Ms Mozden, incumbent, has served on the governing board since 2012. She is in favor of in-person instruction.
  2. Mr Olive is a parent with children in the district. He is an architect, a profession in which conservatives are rare. He is aware that the charter and private schools are doing a better job re-opening than the district schools. It is difficult to find out much about Mr Olive. He is a registered Democrat. He is sophisticated enough to have filed a challenge against David Evans, an incumbent who dropped out of the race after Olive’s challenge. Story here. Mr Wirth has endorsed Mr Olive.
  3. Mr Wirth is the former chief financial officer of the district. He helped recruit Lana Berry, the district’s current CFO. Look at any of the district’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports here. They are the best school district reporting in Arizona.
  4. Ms Tuttle (facebook page here) chose not to submit the 400 signatures required to get herself on the ballot. She prefers facebook. If you search facebook for any of the other candidates, you will find her. She is a district school teacher and in favor of Proposition 208. A teacher can serve on a governing board as long she does not do so in the district where she works. Michelle Fahy, for example, is a teacher in TUHSD and serves on the Kyrene School Board. Ms Tuttle has been endorsed by Lindsay Love, a member of the Governing Board.

Here’s a new tool coming out of a student project at Basis Schools: thepollingplace.org