Tempe Union High School District (No 213) election

The Tempe Union High School District (TUHSD) election has 8 candidates. You can vote for up to 3. On the ballot, the candidates will appear in random order.

  1. Lori Bastian, website, facebook page
  2. Don Fletcher, website, facebook page
  3. Berdetta Hodge, website,facebook page, blog
  4. Sarah James, website, facebook page, blog,
  5. Sandy Lowe, website, facebook page
  6. Armando Montero, website, facebook page, blog
  7. Michael Myrick, facebook page, article in local newspaper
  8. Paige Reesor, website, facebook page

School board elections are supposedly non-partisan; however the Democrats invited their four candidates (Hodge, James, Montero, and Reesor) to a facebook forum on August 29, here. Here are the main things they emphasize:

  1. Ms Bastian entered the race to protest the continued closure of the schools. She has children in the district.
  2. Mr Fletcher is the parent of 4 kids who have already graduated from TUHSD schools. He has been active for years in TUHSD committees, such as the Finance Committee.
  3. Ms Hodge is incumbent, currently the president of the TUHSD governing board. She also is the parent of a former TUHSD student, Jevin Hodge, who is running for the County Board of Supervisors. From her blog: We do not always agree, nor should we; we may have different paths to get to a solution, but we generally always come to the same conclusion: Putting students, teachers, staff, and our community first.”
  4. Ms James is a teacher in Mesa Public Schools. 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. She favors Restorative Justice (RJ) as the first method of school discipline. She has children in the district.
  5. Ms Lowe is incumbent. She has served on the TUHSD governing board since 2012. Though a registered Republican, she supports Mitzi Epstein for the State House.
  6. Mr Montero is 19 and an undergraduate at ASU. He favors Proposition 208 and wishes to be the voice of the students.
  7. Mr Myrick has served since 2016 on the Kyrene governing board. His children are now old enough to be in Tempe Union, so he wants to switch governing boards. He thinks the current governing board has been too slow to reopen the schools and needs new members.
  8. Ms Reesor is also a teacher, in Tempe Elementary. She wants to bring EVIT-type instruction on to the Tempe campus.

See the neighboring post on Tactical Voting. This may be the only case on our ballot where we have such an opportunity. By concentrating their votes on three candidates — Bastian, Fletcher, and Myrick — conservative voters have a chance at influencing the governing board.