Often neglected, Kansas board of education races receive attention after COVID vote

When Kansas Board of Education member Deena Horst voted against an executive order delaying the school year to fight the coronavirus, she was running for re-election unopposed.

By the next day, a write-in challenger endorsed by a former governor had joined the race.

The board’s rejection of Gov. Laura Kelly’s order to reopen schools after Labor Day in a 5-5 tie has drawn heightened attention to board seat races, usually a sleepy affair. The board’s July 22 vote, coming less than two weeks before the primary election, was among its most controversial, high-profile decisions in years.

Five of the board’s 10 seats are up for election this year but just two have competitive primaries. In a sign of how little interest the races typically generate, three board members -- Horst, Ann Mah and Jim McNiece — have no opponents listed on either the primary or general election ballots.

“People generally don’t pay much attention to the state board of ed. In general, they don’t make a lot of typically controversial decisions. There’s nothing like controversy to get people riled up and paying attention,” said Dave Colburn, who launched a write-in campaign against Horst the day after the vote on Kelly’s order.

The state board of education, which leads the Kansas State Department of Education, hasn’t received this level of attention since debates over teaching evolution played out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to Mark Tallman, a longtime lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards.

During that era, the board was sharply cleaved into two groups: conservative Republicans and a bloc of moderate Republicans and Democrats. In recent years, the board — where Republicans hold an 8-2 majority — hasn’t been as ideologically split, Tallman said.

“Most decisions usually got to more of a seven or eight member majority and I think had quieted things down until this last issue,” Tallman said.

But Kelly’s school delay order divided the board in a stark way. Some members argued local districts should be allowed to make their own decisions, a near-sacrosanct value in public education. Others countered the virus doesn’t respect borders or rural-urban distinctions.

Three of the four board members running for re-election supported the order. They included Mah, who represents Topeka and parts of northeast Kansas; Kathy Busch, who represents Wichita; and McNiece, who represents parts of southcentral Kansas. Horst was the only one who voted no.

Horst, whose district includes much of northern Kansas, didn’t respond to a request for comment. In previously explaining her vote against delaying school statewide, she said it is “very confusing to parents to have their local district making a decision that is trumped by the governor’s executive order.”

Colburn, a Democrat backed by former Democratic Gov. John Carlin, doesn’t actually need to win more votes than Horst, a Republican, in the primary. Under Kansas law, a write-in candidate needs the votes of 5 percent of all the registered voters in the district to appear on the general election ballot.

Each board district has roughly 185,000 voters, so Colburn, a past member of the Manhattan Ogden school board, likely needs around 9,250 votes to earn a spot on the November ballot, though state law appears to cap the number needed at 5,000. Colburn acknowledged his candidacy is a longshot but said parents and educators had urged him to run.

Steve Roberts, who represents northern Johnson County, voted against Kelly’s order after a lengthy speech outlining his general views on education policy. He isn’t running for reelection and is instead a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

At least two of the three candidates vying to replace Roberts would have supported the delay. Republican David Krug and Democrat Melanie Haas both signaled support for the order. A third candidate, Republican Benjamin Hodge, didn’t return a call Friday.

“There’s definitely been an uptick in the concern over this race,” Krug said. “This was one of those down ballot offices that a lot of people, perhaps, didn’t even know exists.”

Haas, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said the fact that “a few board members chose to politicize their votes” drew more attention to the race. In an email, she wrote that Kelly’s order was supposed to be a gift of time to districts to plan to safely reopen.

“I heard a lot of frustration and anger from parents and teachers as soon as the vote was over. Teachers are very concerned about returning to their classrooms - they don’t feel safe,” Haas wrote.

In Wichita, Busch, the board chairwoman, faces a Republican primary challenge from Trish Hileman, who opposes Busch’s vote in support of Kelly’s order. Hileman said that even if she loses, her campaign has made Busch a better board member.

“I think when people don’t run against each other, the community loses,” Hileman said.

Busch said she’s seen increased interest in the race since the vote. More people understand what the board of education is and what it does, she said, adding that’s a good thing.

“You were going to please some people and irritate other people,” Busch said. “There wasn’t any way to please everybody. It just isn’t going to happen.”

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 4:22 PM.