EVANSVILLE — The final day of filing for EVSC school board seats answered a longstanding political riddle, added a second partisan candidate to a mostly nonpartisan election and expanded the field for one at-large position to five hopefuls.
The window for school board candidates to file opened on May 19, but at-large board member Melissa Moore waited until 90 minutes before Thursday’s noon deadline to file in the Vanderburgh County Election Office. In so doing, Moore finally provided an answer to a question that had buzzed around political circles for months — would she seek re-election as a Democrat or as a nonpartisan candidate?
Moore had been cagey about her intentions, insisting for months that she didn’t know what she would do. Local Republican Chairman Kyhle Moers said Moore, a Democratic Party activist, would file as a nonpartisan candidate in largely Republican Vanderburgh County if someone emerged to run against her as a Republican.
On Thursday morning, both things happened: conservative pastor Steve Ary filed to run for Moore’s seat as a Republican and Moore finally declared herself nonpartisan in November’s election.
But Ary filed shortly after Moore, and he said her plans had no impact on his. Moore would not speak to the Courier & Press by phone after she filed, asking that questions be sent to her EVSC email account.
By email she said she had decided in the end to run as a nonpartisan candidate “because school board and the services are about students, families, and education — not political parties.”
“My responsibility is to represent the community and make decisions that put our students first,” Moore wrote.
Moore wrote that she seeks another term on the school board “because I care deeply about our students, families, educators, and community.”
“There is still important work to do, and I want to continue being a voice that listens, leads, and puts students first,” she wrote.
And why won’t she answer questions in an interview?
“I appreciate the opportunity, but I’ve chosen to provide a written response and keep the focus where it belongs — students, schools, and families,” Moore wrote.
The conclusion of candidate filing sets up November’s school board elections this way:
At-large (one seat)
District 1 (one seat)
District 2 (two seats)
No slate of partisan candidates ever materialized
District 3, currently represented by Amy DeVries and Terry Gamblin, and the District 1 seat held by Karen Ragland will be on 2028’s election ballot.
Although most of them represent districts, school board members are elected countywide. Those who run as Republicans or Democrats do not benefit from straight-ticket ballots cast for either party.
Running for school board seats under a political party’s banner became an option last year, when Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill allowing candidates to disclose their party affiliation — if they wish to do so — in what had been strictly nonpartisan elections.
Vanderburgh Democratic Party Chair Cheryl Schultz, a retired former EVSC employee who did not support allowing candidates to run under a party’s banner, did not recruit Democrats for school board seats.
But local GOP Chairman Kyhle Moers said allowing partisan candidates in school board elections gives voters more transparency about the candidates’ core beliefs. Moers did actively recruit Republicans to run under the party’s banner for school board seats. He said recently that “four or five” Republicans had expressed interest to him.
But in the end, just two Republicans — Ary in the at-large race and Ryan Owens in the District 1 race — stepped up to run under the GOP’s banner. And Owens wasn’t one of the four or five Republicans who spoke to Moers.
“When I talk to somebody about running for office, I really try to be transparent and upfront about what the level of effort is going to be to run a race — and school board is no small race,” Moers said earlier this week. “It might not be as high on the ticket as some of the other offices, but there’s still a pretty high level of effort required for it. You’ve still got to fundraise and you’ve got to try to get enough to send out mail and you’ve got to knock on a lot of doors and make a lot of phone calls.
“I’m sure that the people I’m talking to are weighing that effort against whether or not that’s what they want to spend their summer doing.”
The newest and final challenger says…
Ary, 51, said shortly after filing Thursday that EVSC needs to do a better job of supporting teachers as they deal with students who bully others and behave aggressively.
“I’ve always had a heart for the kids that are being bullied in these schools and the safety factor for them as well as safety for teachers,” he said.
Ary said a friend who is a retired teacher had told him “all kinds of stories about what he experienced in the classroom with kids throwing chairs at him and all kinds of stuff.”
Ary, pastor of Evansville-based Visionary Ministries, grew up as a student in EVSC schools. He said he has several children in the school corporation.
“I’d like to see accountability,” he said. “I think that some of the accountability has fallen by the wayside.
“Specifically, I’ve noticed that children who are being bullied, if they tell a teacher that they’re being bullied, or tell the principal that they’re being bullied, that they are bullied even worse because of tattling, so to speak.”
Those students respond by staying silent, Ary said, when the real problem is that “teachers don’t have enough support.”
“If we gave them the ability to make better decisions in those types of situations, things would turn out better for a lot of kids,” he said.
The general election happens on Nov. 3.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Final day of filing for EVSC school board seats sets the table
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
