School board candidate ends campaign, backs incumbent and calls challenger ‘extreme’
Wichita school board candidate Justin Bjork has ended his campaign for the Nov. 2 election, endorsing incumbent Julie Hedrick for the District 2 seat and opposing her remaining challenger, Brent Davis.
Bjork said he’s quitting out of concern that he would siphon votes off Hedrick, which could allow Davis to win the seat with less than majority support.
Neither of the other two candidates could be reached for comment.
In a written statement, Bjork said Davis holds “extreme views” and “his partisan agenda would be a distraction on the Board of Education.”
Although the race is technically nonpartisan, Davis is part of a four-candidate Republican Party-backed slate that also includes Kathy Bond, Diane Albert and Hazel Stabler.
All were recruited by Sedgwick County Republican Chairman David Thorne and have pooled their campaign resources to try to take four seats and gain a board majority under the flag of “Your conservative voice for Wichita School Board USD 259.”
In an interview, Bjork was especially critical of a proposal by Davis to use the district’s schoolchildren as test subjects in an experiment that would separate students into masked and unmasked groups and then study their rates of infection with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease.
Davis has also proposed testing medications and dietary supplements, such as Vitamin D, zinc and the over-the-counter cold remedy Coricidin, to see if they have any effect on transmission rates in the schools.
“That’s crazy,” Bjork said. “I don’t even know what to think about that, it’s so far out in la-la land. It just seems so incredibly irresponsible.”
Dr. Thomas Moore, an infectious disease specialist and director of infection control at Wesley Medical Center, told The Eagle that Davis’ proposal to do medical studies on school children would be unethical and illegal, potentially harmful and scientifically worthless, because the Internet-touted medications he supports using have already been shown ineffective in clinical trials.
Bjork said it’s caused him to worry about his own child if Davis, who runs a tutoring and test-preparation business, wins a seat on the board.
“I have a third grader and just the thought of separating kids in school, just to see what happens, it really makes me wonder about his demeanor to not think about what harm he could bring to a child,” Bjork said.
Bjork said during the campaign, it became obvious to him that he agreed with Hedrick on most issues facing the schools.
“We had a long talk maybe two weeks ago and we were both most interested in running against Brent Davis,” Bjork said. “I said, you know what, you’re already in there, go for it.”
He said the schools needs steady leadership through the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“School boards have gotten so crazy with all the people showing up to meetings and threats, etc.” he said. “I’m good. I will just drop out and let Julie take the reins.”
Although Bjork is no longer campaigning, his name will still appear on the ballot.
State law only allows candidates to officially withdraw if they do so before the filing deadline, which passed on June 1, said Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Angela Caudillo.
Although the school board is divided into geographic districts, the upcoming election isn’t.
All eligible voters who live in USD 259 will be voting on all four board positions up for election.
The school board primary, originally scheduled for August, was canceled this year because no more than three candidates filed for any one seat.
There are no runoffs, so in each of the board districts, the candidate with the most votes will win the office, even if they do not get a majority.
