Spokane Public Schools elections (2017)

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2023 → ← 2015
Spokane Public Schools Elections
Primary election date
August 1, 2017
General election date
November 7, 2017
Enrollment (14-15)
30,641 students

Two of the five seats on the Spokane Public Schools school board in Washington were up for at-large general election on November 7, 2017. A primary election for District 5 was held on August 1, 2017, because more than two candidates filed for the seat.

In District 5, the District 2 incumbent Mike Wiser filed for the seat along with challengers Miranda Ackerman, Jennifer Thomas, and Jessica Yocom. Wiser and Thomas won the primary, allowing them to move on to the general. Wiser went on to win the seat. He was appointed to District 2 in March 2017 following former member Bob Douthitt's resignation.

A special election was held for the District 2 seat to finish out the last two years of Douthitt's term. District 5 incumbent Deana Brower ran unopposed, winning the seat.

Elections

Voter and candidate information

The Spokane school board consists of five members who serve six-year terms. While members serve the district at large, they are elected to numbered positions instead of appearing on a joint ballot.

In order to run for a school board in Washington, candidates must be U.S. citizens, legal residents of Washington, at least 18 years old by the election day, and registered voters of the district in which they run.

Voter registration

To vote in Washington, one must be a U.S. citizen, a resident of Washington, and at least 18 years old. One may register to vote online, by mail, or in person at a county elections department. Registration must be completed 29 days prior to an election if done by mail or online and eight days prior to the election if done in person.

Washington is a vote-by-mail only state. Ballots are mailed to voters at least 18 days before an election. Voters must postmark their ballots by election day or return them to a ballot drop box by 8 p.m. on the election day in order for them to count.

See also: Voting in Washington and Voter identification laws by state

District 2 (Special election)

Results

Spokane Public Schools, District 2 Special Election, 2-year term, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Deana Brower  (unopposed)	100.00%	32,192
Total Votes		32,192
Source: Spokane County, "November 7, 2017 General Election," accessed December 1, 2017

Candidates

Deana Brower
	District 5 incumbent (2011 - Present) Former teacher

District 5

General results

Spokane Public Schools, District 5 General Election, 6-year term, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Mike Wiser	62.92%	25,083
Jennifer Thomas	37.08%	14,782
Total Votes		39,865
Source: Spokane County, "November 7, 2017 General Election," accessed December 1, 2017

Primary results

Spokane Public Schools, District 5 Primary Election, 6-year term, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Mike Wiser	57.61%	15,441
Jennifer Thomas	20.11%	5,390
Miranda Ackerman	12.34%	3,308
Jessica Yocom	9.13%	2,446
Write-in votes	0.81%	218
Total Votes		26,803
Source: Spokane County Elections Department: Canvassing Board, "August 1, 2017 Primary," accessed August 16, 2017

Candidates

This symbol, , next to a candidate's name indicates his or her participation in Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey. Click the image to jump to their candidate page detailing their responses.

Mike Wiser		Jennifer Thomas
	District 2 incumbent (March 2017 - Present) Works for CHAS Health		Director of business development for the Jonah Project

Defeated in primary

Miranda Ackerman		Jessica Yocom
			IT student at Spokane Falls Community College

Additional elections on the ballot

See also: Washington elections, 2017

This Washington school board election in 2017 shared the primary ballot with elections for:

• Spokane Superior Court judge
• City council

The school board election shared the general ballot with elections for:

• State Senate
• State House
• Spokane Superior Court judge
• City council
• Municipal court judge

Key deadlines

The following dates were key deadlines for this Washington school board election in 2017:

Endorsements

Mike Wiser received an official endorsement from The Spokesman-Review and the Washington Education Association.

Do you know of an official or organization that endorsed a candidate in this race? Let Ballotpedia know by email at editor@ballotpedia.org.

Campaign finance

Reports

District 2

Deana Brower opted for mini reporting in this election, according to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission.

District 5

Jessica Yocom opted for mini reporting. Miranda Ackerman had not filed a report with the commission as of October 16, 2017.

Candidate	Contributions	Expenditures	Cash on hand
Jennifer Thomas	$8,785.00	$5,902.05	$2,882.95
Mike Wiser	$8,775.00	$1,873.75	$6,901.25

General guidelines

See also: Campaign finance requirements in Washington and List of school board campaign finance deadlines in 2017

Washington school board candidates must file a statement of organization within two weeks of filing for office. A statement of organization establishes a candidate's committee, treasurer, and bank the committee will use for its transactions.

Candidates who raise and spend no more than $5,000 in aggregate and who do not receive more than $500 from any one contributor, including themselves, can participate in mini reporting. These candidates must keep a record of their contributors and expenditures but they are not required to report them unless they exceed the stated thresholds. In those cases, they must switch their filing status from mini to full reporting.

The table below details campaign finance deadlines for 2017 Washington school board candidates:

Past elections

Information about earlier elections can be found by clicking [show] at the right.

2015 See also: Spokane Public Schools elections (2015) Position 3 Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors, Position 3 General Election, 6-year term, 2015 Candidate Vote % Votes Jerrall Haynes 50.7% 23,359 Rocky Treppiedi Incumbent 48.3% 22,241 Write-in votes 1% 461 Total Votes 46,061 Source: Spokane County, Washington, "Election Results: 11/03/2015-General Election," November 24, 2015 Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors, Position 3 Primary Election, 6-year term, 2015 Candidate Vote % Votes Rocky Treppiedi Incumbent 41.8% 12,094 Jerrall Haynes 30.7% 8,877 Donald Dover 26.2% 7,570 Write-in votes 1.39% 403 Total Votes 28,944 Source: Spokane County, Washington, "Election Results," accessed August 20, 2015 Position 4 Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors, Position 4 General Election, 6-year term, 2015 Candidate Vote % Votes Paul Schneider 54.5% 24,532 Patricia Kienholz 44.5% 20,045 Write-in votes 0.98% 440 Total Votes 45,017 Source: Spokane County, Washington, "Election Results: 11/03/2015-General Election," November 24, 2015 2013 See also: Spokane Public Schools elections (2013) Position 1 Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors, Position 1 General Election, 6-year term, 2013 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Susan Chapin Incumbent 96.8% 32,169      Nonpartisan Write-in votes 3.2% 1,070 Total Votes 33,239 Source: Spokane County Elections, "Election Results," accessed November 26, 2013 Position 2 Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors, Position 2 General Election, 6-year term, 2013 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Bob Douthitt Incumbent 54.1% 22,971      Nonpartisan Sally Fullmer 44.6% 18,936      Nonpartisan Write-in votes 1.3% 558 Total Votes 42,465 Source: Spokane County Elections, "Election Results," accessed November 26, 2013

What was at stake?

Education budget adds $7.3 billion to public school funding

Washington added $7.3 billion over four years to public school funding with the budget signed by Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on June 30, 2017. The funding was passed to comply with the 2012 McLeary v. State of Washington decision which ruled that the state was violating its state constitutional duty to fund K-12 education.

Under the plan, property taxes were raised in areas with high property values, while taxes in other areas were decreased. These raises accounted for approximately $4 billion of the total $7.3 billion. According to state Sen. Kevin Ranker (D), the property tax increases would add approximately $400 a year to the average Washington household's taxes.

Budget details

Washington teachers can receive two salaries: one from the state government and one from their school district. The new budget provisions included a minimum starting state salary for teachers of $40,000 (with adjustment for inflation and regional discrepancies), which was a 17 percent increase. The average minimum salary for instructional staff was $64,000 under the plan. School districts could also issue a salary over the previous maximum of $90,000 by up to 10 percent for educational staff associates or instructors who teach science, technology, engineering, and math, or in bilingual or special education programs. Below are a few other details of the new measure, according to Q13 Fox:

“

There’s a mandatory 10 percent [salary] increase after 5 years of employment. Starting in 2020-21, the minimum state allocations for salaries must be adjusted annually for inflation. Starting with the 2023 session, and every six years after that, the Legislature must review compensation to make sure they are adequate based on the market and economic differences between school districts.

”

Reactions

“It’s absolutely helping the middle class and 73% of Washington,” state Sen. John Braun (R) said about the budget. He also said that it found a solution to comply with the McLeary ruling fairly. State Sen. Reuven Carlyle (D) disagreed. “It’s a stressful situation; it looks like property taxes are a major component of this and I think it’s safe to say it’s a Democratic budget with a Republican tax plan,” Carlyle said. He called the budget “the good, bad and the ugly.”

McLeary v. State of Washington

The 2017 budget was passed in light of the McLeary ruling. When the decision was made in 2012, the Washington Supreme Court ordered the state to fully fund K-12 education by 2018. In September 2014, the Court held Washington in contempt for not making adequate progress. After the state still did not make adequate progress and produce a plan to comply with the Court's orders in 2015, the Supreme Court fined the state $100,000 a day until it complied. Those fines totaled $80.3 million as of October 24, 2017.

The State Supreme Court heard oral arguments on that day to determine whether or not the additional funding was enough for the state to be in full compliance with the court's ruling. An attorney for the state argued that the newest education budget was enough to pay for what the state's constitution calls for: a basic education for each child in Washington. The plaintiffs' lawyer argued that the Legislature was still far removed from reaching that goal. As of October 26, 2017, the court had not made a final decision.

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Candidate survey

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Click here to view or fill out the survey.

About the district

See also: Spokane Public Schools, Washington

Spokane Public Schools is located in Spokane County, Washington

Spokane Public Schools is located in Spokane County in eastern Washington. The seat of county government is Spokane. Spokane County was home to an estimated 499,072 residents between 2010 and 2016, according to the United States Census Bureau. The district was the second-largest school district in the state in the 2014-2015 school year and served 30,641 students.

Demographics

Spokane County underperformed compared to Washington as a whole in terms of higher education attainment from 2011 to 2015. The United States Census Bureau found that 28.6 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had obtained a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 32.9 percent of state residents. The median household income in the county was $50,079, while it was $61,062 for the entire state. County residents lived below the poverty level at a rate of 15.5 percent, while that rate was 12.2 percent for all state residents.

Racial Demographics, 2015
Race	Spokane County (%)	Washington (%)
White	89.5	80.3
Black or African American	2.0	4.1
American Indian and Alaska Native	1.7	1.9
Asian	2.4	8.4
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	0.5	0.7
Two or More Races	3.9	4.6
Hispanic or Latino	5.4	12.4

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.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Spokane Public Schools Washington election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Spokane Public Schools elections (2017) - Google News

See also

Spokane Public Schools	Washington	School Boards
Spokane Public Schools elections (2015) List of school districts in Washington	Washington school board elections, 2017 Public education in Washington Local ballot measures, Washington	School board elections, 2017 School board elections, 2016 School board election data analysis, 2017 School board election data analysis, 2016

External links

• Spokane Public Schools
• Spokane County Elections