All five incumbents led their Wake County Board of Education races early Wednesday.

Five of the Wake County school board’s nine members were up for election to four-year terms.

Five elections could mean some new board members, but the elections may not lead to a switch from the board’s Democratic lean to Republican one. The results so far indicate the the board would keep all of its same members and its 7-2 Democratic majority.

Only one race was close just before midnight, with 100% of Wake precincts reporting results, though some provisional ballots remaining to be counted.

Incumbent and Republican Wing Ng led Democrat Jordyne Blaise 50.3% to 49%.

Incumbents and Democrats Toshiba Rice, Lynn Edmonds, Sam Hershey and Lindsay Mahaffey all led by double-digit percentage points.

The board — which oversees North Carolina’s biggest school district, with 160,000 students — picked up mostly new members in 2022, when most members didn’t run for reelection. Back then, the board retained its 7-2 Democratic majority and it’s again poised to maintain at least a Democratic majority in the county, where registered Democrats far outnumber registered Republicans.

The school board race is officially nonpartisan, although parties often endorse their favored candidates.

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Whoever is on the next board may also be picking another new member next year. Current Vice Chairwoman Monika Johnson-Hostler, whose seat isn’t up for election this year, is running for state House of Representatives. If she wins, the board will vote to fill her seat through 2026 via an application process.

All five seats are for terms lasting four years, with the next election in 2028.

The other four board seats aren’t up for election until 2026.

WRAL News interviewed and surveyed candidates this fall on topics including teacher and bus driver retention and school safety.

The school board, which oversees a more than $2.1 billion operating budget, faces several key issues that have escalated in recent years: school safety, student behavior, air conditioning malfunctions, and teacher and bus driver turnover. Ongoing issues include improving academics and managing growth. Academically, proficiency rates have more than rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in several subject areas, but not all.

In the coming months, the board is expected to address discipline, bullying and cellphone use in schools, among other things.

Here’s who’s running for the five school board seats:

District 3, Northern Wake County

  • Jordyne Blaise is a consultant, former high school English teacher and former deputy Title IX and equity compliance officer at North Carolina State University. She is the mother of a toddler who is not school-aged. She is endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party.
  • Wing Ng, the incumbent, is a physician. He has two daughters, one of whom he sends to a parochial school and the other of whom his family homeschools due to special needs related to Down syndrome. Ng is endorsed by the Wake County GOP.

District 4, East Raleigh and beyond

  • Toshiba Rice is the incumbent. She has served since March, after being appointed to the seat by the school board in a divided vote. She replaced Tara Waters, who vacated her seat after being appointed to fill a Wake County Commissioners position. She has received the Wake County Democratic Party’s endorsement. www.toshibarice.org Rice, whose children attend Wake County schools, ​​is a principal consultant and trainer at imWell, a wellness company. She trains students and school employees in mental health first training across the state.
  • Micheal T. Williams is an education consultant with the North Carolina Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and is a licensed school administrator. Williams is also a Democrat.
  • Sean Callan didn’t respond to a WRAL request for an interview, didn’t participate in candidate forums and doesn’t appear to have a campaign website.
  • ​Robert Morales Vergara will appear on ballots, but he has dropped out of the race and endorsed Rice.

District 5, South Central Wake

  • Lynn Edmonds is the incumbent. She is outreach director for Public Schools First NC. Her two children have graduated from the Wake County Public School System. She is endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party.
  • Ted Hills is an information technology consultant. He has an adult daughter whom he and his wife homeschooled. He is a Republican and has been endorsed by the Wake County Republican Party.

District 6, Central Raleigh

  • Sam Hershey is the incumbent. He is a sports referee who has also been a coach in the Wake County Public School System. He has a fourth-grade son in the system. Hershey has been endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party.
  • Josh Points is a commercial real estate adviser and former golf instructor. He’s a father of three, including one Wake County Public School System student and one who just transferred from the system into a private religious school. His youngest attends a developmental school for a disability. He has been endorsed by the Wake County Republican Party.

District 8, Southwestern Wake

  • Lindsay Mahaffey is the incumbent and a former teacher at a Seattle private school and in French public schools. She has three children in the Wake County Public School System. Mahaffey has been endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party.
  • Elizabeth McDuffie is a former Wake County Public School System English-as-a-second-language teacher and has also taught in preschool and college. She has been endorsed by the Wake County Republican Party.

WRAL will have complete results as votes are counted in 400+ national, state and local races.

alan@flooddigital.co November 5, 2024 0 0