Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission school board voters favor 'pro public education,' diversity slates

Candidates for the Blue Valley Board of Education who campaigned as the “pro-public education” slate won their races. Shawnee Mission School District board candidates who voiced strong support for the district’s approach to diversity and equity also won comfortably.
Incumbents on the Blue Valley Board of Education in Johnson County, Kansas, kept their seats, and one newcomer on their informal slate called “The A+ Team” will join them.

All four members of “The A+ Team,“ a slate that campaigned as the “pro-public education” candidates of the election, each garnered the most votes in their respective races, according to unofficial final results from the Johnson County Election Office on Tuesday night.

While the races were nonpartisan, this year’s Blue Valley school board races demonstrated a clear ideological divide between the two groups, which continue a recent trend of more overt partisanship in these historically lower profile local races.

On Tuesday night, the winning candidates widely agreed their victories signaled a desire among voters for a “straightforward” and non-divisive approach from the school board.