My Too Little, Too Late Notes on the 2025 Aspen Peaks School Board Primary (Seats 6 and 7)
Some folks are still voting, but . . .
At 8:00 p.m. last evening, the evening before primary election day in American Fork and the rest of the future, temporarily-named Aspen Peaks School District, I still knew virtually nothing about the candidates for Seats 6 and 7, two of whom will represent American Fork.
I apologize for that. I wanted to be well-informed well in advance, so I could post information and notes early enough to be be useful to American Fork voters. But this summer hasn’t worked out that way.
Here’s what I did to learn enough to inform my vote (I hoped)—on a ballot which I dropped in a drop box at the American Fork Library this morning, since today is too late to mail ballots.
(I hope someone told you that yesterday, the day before the election, might have been too late to mail your ballot. In its exquisitely finite wisdom, the Utah Legislature changed the rules on us. A mailed ballot no longer has to be postmarked by the day before the election. Now it has to arrive at the Utah County Clerk’s office on or before the day of the election, i.e. today. So if you were going to mail your ballot, to be confident it wouldn’t be late, you probably should have mailed it last Wednesday or so. Closed circuit to my state legislator and state senator: didn’t you have real problems to work on last session?)
But I was about to tell you what I did.
The Info
I vote for Seat 7, but a lot of my fellow American Forkers vote for Seat 6, so I paid attention to both races.
I read the American Fork Citizen’s Q&A with Seat 6 and Seat 7 candidates. Not for the first time, I felt gratitude to the Citizen for existing again; we need local news coverage.
I read the Citizen’s write-up of a candidate event held on July 21, when I was at Lake Tahoe with the family, so I couldn’t attend and report. Candidates for both seats participated, and the Citizen’s Editor-in-Chief, former three-term city councilor Rob Shelton, moderated.
I watched a recording of the July 21 event and took some notes. The weak audio was mostly adequate, but there were times when I had no idea what someone was saying. And the recording began after most of the their opening statements. Still, it’s a lot more than nothing, and thanks to the Citizen again, for posting the recording.
I used links at the Aspen Peaks School District’s site to visit each candidate’s web page (or equivalent).
Ahem.
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Beyond This Be Opinions
At AFelection.info we realized some people want information without commentary, and some want the commentary—opinion, analysis, that sort of thing. If you’re here for the information alone, the links in the previous section are it. After this, you get some general thoughts and a few specific ones. At the end I’ll tell you the general election races I’d like to see.
What I’m Looking For
In school board races in general, I look for certain things. In this situation, where we’re building an new district, the list is perhaps a little longer. I could write an essay on each of these, and maybe I will, before the general election, but here’s the quick version.
School board races are officially non-partisan. We’re not choosing a Republican candidate and a Democrat candidate to oppose each other in the general election. But I’m interested in a de facto partisan divide we do see in school board races: insider vs. outsider. The local education establishment—PTA, union, etc.—typically has its own candidates, and sometimes we get plausible and competent outsiders to oppose them. I’m not saying every insider is bad and every outsider is good, or vice versa, but it’s one data point.
This next point is closely related to the insider/outsider distinction: Does a given candidate agree with me (and more recently the Utah Legislature) that the public school’s are the people’s schools, funded with the people’s money, and the school board is elected primarily to represent the people in running the people’s schools? Or does a given candidate take the insider view, which has actually been part of new school board members’ training in the past, that the school board’s primary job is to represent the school system to the people, and that any disagreements among the board should be private, and then the board should present a united front to the public? (Is it just me, or does “united front”—to quote insiders—suggest warfare pitting the school system against the people?)
This one’s about representation too: Does the candidate seem determined to represent all his or her constituents, including the ones who voted otherwise or didn’t vote at all, not just the candidate’s own partisans and ideology? I want the answer to be yes.
What is the candidate’s view of taxation? Does the candidate prioritize lowering taxes above all else? Does he or she view the people's wealth as the property of government, to be confiscated at will? Tax too little, and you'll gradually strangle whatever is good in the schools. Tax too much and you'll unduly oppress the people and invite them to elect extremists who are obsessed with taxing too little. I want candidates who understand that the people's schools are funded by the people's money, and that they must be careful, respectful stewards of both the people's schools and the people's money.
Every two years, when there's an election for the Utah Legislature, we hear a lot about the importance of local control of the schools. This usually means less federal control, and I'm all for that. But then, when elected, the candidates who made these speeches work to expand state control of the public schools. I want to go a step further. I want less state control and more local control of the people's schools. So where do the school board candidates stand? What do they intend to do to increase or at least defend local control?
It's a new school district—it will be, once it exists—and one of the most important decisions the new school board will make is choosing the first superintendent for the new district. Is the candidate thinking about this? If so, what does the candidate think about this?
Do the arts and humanities loom large in a candidate’s vision for the public schools? Sports are great too; I learned crucial life lessons from high school basketball and mostly had fun doing it. Excellent teaching of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is crucial—but, when untempered by arts and humanities, STEM makes high tech barbarians, not civilized, well-rounded humans. STEAM beats STEM every day of the week and twice on school days. The A, you already know, is for the arts and by extension the humanities too. In American Fork we expect—we should outright demand—that the school board and administration be committed to arts and humanities.
My Limited Conclusions from Incomplete Data
All seven candidates (for the two seats combined) are probably nice people. They all appear to care about students, among other things. Apparently they’re all for transparency, fiscal responsibility, accountability, and empowering students and teachers. They all seem to agree that AI is here to stay, so we have to learn how to use it wisely. They generally speak highly of collaboration, vocational education, and community involvement.
I try to look beyond the things everyone says in every school board race. I probably expect too much. On the other hand, no one ever tries to define the proper level of taxation, so I didn’t expect that here. I noted that none of the questions at the candidate event was about STEM or its civilized sibling STEAM, though some candidates mentioned these topics elsewhere.
Maybe some of the seven would (will) be great school board members, but I couldn’t tell you which. Maybe some will be mediocre or outright bad, but I couldn’t tell you which.
That said, here are a few notes which (for Seat 7) will affect my vote tomorrow and my preferences for general election races below. I’m mostly glossing over boilerplate and focusing on what stuck out to me, so some get more words here than others. It’s entirely possible that I won’t do justice to any of the seven candidates, but here’s what I have.
Candidates for each seat are in alphabetical order by surname.
Seat 6
Tyler Bahr has some experience in executive roles in local governments and the Salt Lake City Public Library. He says he wants to reduce class sizes and protect teacher compensation. Regrettably, he was poorly served by the audio in that video I watched. I frequently couldn’t tell what he was saying. (I didn’t have time to explore a solution apart from good speakers.) He appears to be endorsed by the Alpine Education Association, which makes him an insider candidate.
Jeanne-Marie Burrows has extensive PTA experience. She wants to make reducing class sizes a budget priority, as well as teacher compensation. In the Citizen’s Q&A she said she knows what to look for in a superintendent—but she didn’t say what. She also claims the AEA’s endorsement, so insider.
Alyn Toalepai has executive experience in the hotel industry and elsewhere, has recent experience working with the state legislature, and says he was the founder of the Polynesian Pickle Ball Club. (I mention that only because it made me smile. I have yet to pickleball.) He says he has a record of working with the resources available. He’s the one candidate for Seat 6 who has a website, apparently, instead of just a Facebook presence. Call me old-fashioned, but I like that.
Seat 7
Pamela Engles is a retired teacher who has been involved in hiring teachers and principals.
Stephanie Jones is a long-time school librarian. She pleased me with her discussion of choosing a superintendent in the Citizen’s Q&A. She impressed me with this reality sandwich in the July 21 event: There are two legislative sessions between now and the beginning of the new district. For that reason, among others, we don’t know exactly what will change or how. There will be difficult decisions, she said; voters and parents will need to be vocal advocates for teachers and students. Finally, she was the one candidate (unless I couldn’t hear someone else) who did an important thing in her closing statement: ask for our votes.
Jason Theler has 14 years’ experience as a principal. He is articulate and rather charismatic, I think, and he put some effort into his campaign website (as did Michael King). He said the relationship with the legislature and state officials should never be adversarial. I wanted him to discuss what to do when it is (nearly always), or maybe even say whose fault he thinks it is when it happens.
Michael King is the outsider in this race, though he’s married to a teacher. He’s a businessman with a special needs son and feels great gratitude toward the schools and the people in them who’ve helped. He injected a certain energy and interest into the candidate event. That evening, he was also the only one to discuss the importance of hiring the right superintendent (unless someone mentioned it in an opening statement I missed). This weighs fairly heavily with me. I also appreciated him saying that democracy is messy, and it may not be necessary or even desirable for everyone to agree all the time. He also mentions the arts and the AFHS Marching Band at his website, so at least he’s conscious of them. I’m not sure it was productive to suggest that the pay gap between top district officials and, say, teachers should be a lot smaller, but I’m not saying it shouldn’t be.
The General Election Races I’d Like to See
I’m looking for interesting races, with candidates who won’t just agree with each other, and who seem inclined to substance—and to addressing specific solutions, not just generically mentioning problems and concerns.
For Seat 6 (not my own, so it might be none of my business), I’d like to see Alyn Toalepai square off with . . . now that I think about it, either of the others. I don’t know enough about any of them yet, but if I were voting (illegally, because I don’t intend to move across town), I’d probably choose Toalepai.
For Seat 7, I’d like to see a race between Stephanie Jones and Michael King. I can see myself voting either way, after I learn more of both candidates. Based on too little information, I admit (again), Jones seems to be a good and reasonable insider candidate. King might be either a solid outsider candidate or a little too far outside for my taste. I’d like a chance to find out.
As I write this, I haven’t marked my ballot yet. I’ll choose between Jones and King. I won’t say the other two would be bad choices.
That’s all for now. Sorry it’s not more, better, and much sooner. I console myself with the thought that at least it’s a head start on discussion of the general election.
Thanks for reading!