Three seats open on Washington school board

WASHINGTON — The tally of Washington school board members planning not to run again in November is up to three, after Wednesday night’s meeting for the group. That leaves a wide-open field for the upcoming race, with an election filing period about to begin.

Soon-to-depart board members Sonia Leyva (district 4) and Kelly Smith (district 1) made the announcement at the Aug. 9 meeting. At-large board member Eric Turner already announced his plans not to run again back in 2022. The fourth member up for re-election, board President Troy Suchan, has not publicly stated whether he intends to run again.

In an email after the board meeting, Kelly Smith said she was ready for someone else to take the reins. She first ran for the office in 2019, according to archived Washington County election results.

“As our kids are getting older, I want to give someone else from our community and school district the opportunity to share their ideas and to serve on our school board,” she said in an email after the meeting.

In a phone call Wednesday night, Sonia Leyva said she wished she could stay, but had too many other obligations to juggle after eight years in the position. The board member has attended most of the group’s monthly meetings remotely for the last year.

“I am just pulled in too many different directions,” she said. “When I first started school board, I was only working thirty hours, and now I’m back up to 40 and have some other community commitments, and it’s just too much.”

Leyva, who is Latina, said she hoped to see another person of color run for one of the open positions.

She said such a candidate would provide an important perspective.

“You’re the voice, right, and sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know,” she said. “We definitely need a diverse board for the school board, because there’s a lot of Latinos, and you need to represent. You need to have somebody at the table who’s bicultural, bilingual, knows what’s going on.”

The filing period for this November’s election runs from Aug. 28 to Sept. 21, according to a candidate guide from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. To run for school board, viable candidates must live in the district they hope to represent, be eligible to vote there, and fill out the necessary forms, which include an affidavit of candidacy and a nomination petition with at least 50 signatures. All of those must come from eligible voters in the given director district, according to a spokesperson from the Washington County Auditor’s office.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com