Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District elections (2015)
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Three seats on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board were up for election on October 6, 2015.
Incumbents Deborah Retherford and Sarah Welton won re-election to Seats A and B, respectively. Retherford and Welton were formally unopposed but faced two certified write-in candidates in Sacha Pettitt and Michael Coons. Pettitt and Coons did not appear on the ballot but were eligible to win the election. Incumbent Kelsey Trimmer defeated challenger Wade Long for a two-year term representing Seat E. Trimmer was appointed in April 2015 to fill a vacancy left by Tiffany R. Scott, who moved out of the district.[1][2][3]
The district used public financing to fund the building of a new school for one of its charter schools. The district, in partnership with the city, developed a plan that would become the first school in the state to use a loan from the United States Department of Agriculture to fund the building of a school.[4]
Two of the four candidates in this election participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 school board candidate survey . Check out the "Ballotpedia survey responses" section to see the candidates' answers.
About the district
Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District is located in southern Alaska in Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The borough seat is Palmer. The borough was home to 97,882 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau.[5] Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District was the second-largest school district in Alaska, serving 17,484 students during the 2012-2013 school year.[6]
Demographics
Matanuska-Susitna Borough underperformed compared to the rest of Alaska in terms of higher education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 21.3 percent of borough residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree compared to 27.5 percent of state residents. The median household income in the borough was $71,037 compared to $70,760 in the state. The poverty rate in the borough was 9.9 percent, the same as the rest of the state.[5]
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Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
Voter and candidate information
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board consists of seven members elected to three-year terms. Each member was elected at-large. Three seats were up for election on October 6, 2015, two seats were up for election in 2016. The remaining two seats were on the ballot in 2017.
School board candidates had to file for this election with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough elections department by July 30, 2015. To vote in the election, residents had to register by September 6, 2015.[8]
Elections
2015
Candidates
Seat A (three-year term)
Deborah Retherford 
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Sacha Pettitt | ||
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Seat B (three-year term)
| Sarah Welton
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Michael Coons | ||
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Seat E (two-year term)
| Wade Long | Kelsey Trimmer
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Election results
| Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Seat A, General Election, 2015 | ||
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| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Deborah Retherford Incumbent |
86.6% | 7,297 |
| Write-in votes | 13.39% | 1,128 |
| Total Votes | 8,425 | |
| Source: Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Official Borough Election Results", accessed November 12, 2015Write-in vote totals are cumulative for all write-in candidates. | ||
| Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Seat B, General Election, 2015 | ||
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| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
| Sarah Welton Incumbent |
86.6% | 7,348 |
| Write-in votes | 13.4% | 1,137 |
| Total Votes | 8,485 | |
| Source: Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Official Borough Election Results", accessed November 12, 2015Write-in vote totals are cumulative for all write-in candidates. | ||
| Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Seat E, General Election, 2015 | ||
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| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
| Kelsey Trimmer Incumbent |
52.9% | 4,680 |
| Wade Long | 44.9% | 3,969 |
| Write-in votes | 2.2% | 195 |
| Total Votes | 8,844 | |
| Source: Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Official Borough Election Results", accessed November 12, 2015Write-in vote totals are cumulative for all write-in candidates. | ||
Endorsements
Long received official endorsements from the AFL-CIO and the Matanuska-Susitna Teachers Association.[9][10]
Campaign finance
No contributions or expenditures were reported during the election, according to the Alaska Public Offices Commission as of October 5, 2015.[11]
Past elections
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What was at stake?
2015
Election trends
- See also: 2013 school board elections and 2014 school board elections
In 2015, three incumbents ran for the three available seats. Only one seat, Seat E, had a challenger to the incumbent. Seat E was filled by the appointment of Kelsey Trimmer after Tiffany R. Scott resigned in 2015. Trimmer defeated challenger Wade Long for a two-year term. Incumbents Deborah Retherford and Sarah Welton won re-election to Seats A and B, respectively.
Since 2013, the race for school board seats in the district has seen an average of 1.63 candidates per seat. The most contested race in that time period, with four candidates, was for Seat F in 2013. The election for that seat resulted in challenger Donna Dearman beating incumbent Neal Lacy and two other candidates. In 2013, two of the three incumbents running for re-election lost. That trend did not continue in 2014 when the two seats up for election were filled by incumbents who ran unopposed.
Issues in the district
The district worked with borough leadership to oversee the first publicly-financed school in the state when it used a government loan to fund the construction of its Spanish immersion charter school.[4]
Charter school gets new building with unique financing
Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District included six charters schools as of 2015. At that time, five of the six charter schools rented property from private property owners for their facilities. Property owned by the district is exempt from property taxes on land that has a public school on it, while property owned by private landowners does not qualify for the exemption even if a school functions on the property. The charter schools pair rent to their landowners that was going in part to cover the property taxes the owners pay.[12]
The district wanted to try a new approach to help one of its charter schools, Fronteras Spanish Immersion, move to a permanent facility built to educational specifications that would qualify for the property tax exemption. In partnership with the borough, the school applied for a loan from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The $6.9 million loan was approved, and the district broke ground on the new school in 2015.[13]
The USDA director of rural development explained that the loan was the first publicly financed school in the state of Alaska. The borough donated the land used for the new facility to the district and was the primary loan applicant. The school will make the loan payments to the borough. The land is exempt from property taxes and will be owned by the district once the loan is paid in full.[4]
The mayor of the borough, Larry DeVilbis, expressed his approval of the project at the groundbreaking: "Today is an atonement for what I was told was going to be political suicide for vetoing a bond initiative that was going to be put before the voters." DeVilbis vetoed a ballot initiative for a $15 million bond package to fund the building of the school after a campaign promise to keep school bond debt off the ballot for five years.[14]
Ballotpedia survey responses
Two of the four candidates in this election participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates as of September 30, 2015. The following sections display the responses to the survey questions from Sarah Welton and Wade Long.
Top priorities
When asked what her top priorities would be if elected, Welton stated:
| “ | I do not have an opponent. My top priority is to reduce class sizes and ensure opportunities for students to work on their priorities for career and college readiness. The need for critical thinking and social emotional intelligence is needed in school is noted by employers and college professors so I would enhance and support the programs we have in those areas.[15] | ” |
| —Sarah Welton (2015)[16] | ||
When asked what his top priorities would be if elected, Long stated:
| “ | Implementing a sweeping tutoring and support program in schools starting at the lowest grade levels to infuse learning. This will also address hurdles at the lower grade levels that may interfere with learning. Like parental coaching or counseling troubled kids. Then provide tutoring in the middle grades. At the upper grades work businesses, the community, military, unions and the state college to get internships, scholarships and real world training and actual college credit to prepare young adults, not older kids. [15] | ” |
| —Wade Long (2015)[17] | ||
Ranking the issues
The candidates were asked to rank the following issues by importance in the school district, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. This table displays the candidates' rankings from most to least important:
| Issue | Welton's ranking | Long's ranking | ||
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| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | ||||
| Closing the achievement gap | ||||
| Expanding arts education | ||||
| Expanding career-technical education | ||||
| Expanding school choice options | ||||
| Improving college readiness | ||||
| Improving education for special needs students | ||||
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer 10 multiple choice and short answer questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. Links to the candidates' responses can be found below.
Key deadlines
The following dates were key deadlines for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District school board election in 2015:[8]
| Deadline | Event |
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| July 20- July 31, 2015 | Candidate filing period |
| August 7, 2015 | Candidate withdrawal deadline |
| September 6, 2015 | Last day to register to vote in the general election |
| September 21 - October 6, 2015 | Absentee in-person voting period |
| September 29, 2015 | Last day to request an absentee ballot by mail |
| October 1, 2015 | Write-in candidate declaration deadline |
| October 6, 2015 | Election Day |
Additional elections on the ballot
- See also: Alaska elections, 2015
This election shared the ballot with elections for seats on the borough assembly and borough mayor. Voters voted on Proposition B-1 to determine if the school board will become elected by district instead of at-large. Another notable proposal on the ballot was Proposition B-2 that would change the regular election date from the first Tuesday in October to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.[2][18]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Matanuska Susitna Borough School District Alaska. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
| Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District | Alaska | School Boards |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, "School Board," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Final List of Candidates," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Election Unofficial Results", accessed October 6, 2015
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Alaska Public Media, "Wasilla charter school forges a new financial path to fruition," August 24, 2015
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 United States Census Bureau, "Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ National Center for Education Statistics, "ELSI Table Generator," accessed August, 13 ,2015
- ↑ State of Alaska Division of Elections, "Number of voters registered by party in precinct," accessed August 5, 2014
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Elections," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ Facebook, "Wade J. Long," August 26, 2015
- ↑ Facebook, "Wade J. Long," September 1, 2015
- ↑ Alaska Public Offices Commission, "Campaign Disclosure Forms," accessed October 5, 2015
- ↑ The Frontiersman, "Assembly to debate charter school tax exemption," August 17, 2015
- ↑ The Frontiersman, "Assembly approves Fronteras loan," February 16, 2015
- ↑ The Frontiersman, "Uno! Dos! Tres!" August 24, 2015
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2015, "Sarah Welton's responses," September 14, 2015
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2015, "Wade Long's responses," September 30, 2015
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, "Sample Ballots and Propositions," accessed October 6, 2015
