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Steve Bergstrom
Steve Bergstrom ran for election to the Wake County Public School System to represent District 8 in North Carolina. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Bergstrom completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Bergstrom was born in Santa Rosa, California. He attended Brigham Young University and earned a bachelor's degree from Utah Valley University in 2004. He also earned a master's degree from American Military University in 2012. His career experience includes working as a pilot for a major airline. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 2004 to 2016.[1]
Bergstrom has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1]
- Boy Scouts of America
- Veterans Affairs
- ALPA
Elections
2022
See also: Wake County Public School System, North Carolina, elections (2022)
General election
General election for Wake County Public School System, District 8
Incumbent Lindsay Mahaffey defeated Steve Bergstrom in the general election for Wake County Public School System, District 8 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Lindsay Mahaffey (Nonpartisan)  | 59.9 | 27,268 |
 | Steve Bergstrom (Nonpartisan) | 39.4 | 17,939 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.7 | 310 | ||
| Total votes: 45,517 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
2020
See also: Wake County Public School System, North Carolina, elections (2020)
General election
General election for Wake County Public School System, District 8
Incumbent Lindsay Mahaffey defeated Steve Bergstrom in the general election for Wake County Public School System, District 8 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Lindsay Mahaffey (Nonpartisan) | 62.3 | 49,724 |
| Steve Bergstrom (Nonpartisan) | 36.8 | 29,383 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.9 | 749 | ||
| Total votes: 79,856 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released march 3, 2022 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Steve Bergstrom completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Bergstrom's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Airline Captain 12-year Air Force veteran Bachelor's degree in business Master's degree in political science Served two years in Venezuela on a church mission Business experience managing $36B in contracts for Lockheed Martin, Boeing and others Eagle Scout
Wake County Public School’s educational performance has been on an eight-year steady decline. This plummeting performance was never more evident than in District Eight where, under the direction of incumbent Lindsay Mahaffey, every High School has declined in Academic Growth each year she’s been in office. I will bring educational excellence back to Wake County.
The Wake School Board has alienated parents, exercised extreme budgetary waste, caused plummeting academic scores with poor curriculum, and infused extreme political agendas into our schools.
I will: Give schools back to parents. Attract the best and most qualified teachers and admin to Wake County. Bring back parental access to classrooms for observation and volunteering. Eliminate years of budgetary malfeasance. Address learning loss.
Correct the plummeting reading and math performance for minority students.- Give schools back to parents
- Give resources to teachers and students by correcting budgetary malfeasance
- Address extreme learning loss brought on by extended school closures
Here’s what Wake County parents are up against:
- Learning loss, deemed a non-issue by this board, will plague our children’s future if we do not take real action. The board has declared learning loss a "false construct"
- Special education families are still recovering from over a year of denied educational resources and services.
- Budgetary mismanagement is crippling education in Wake County. The Board recently declared Wake Schools is approaching a "fiscal cliff" because of spending waste.
- The school board refuses to listen to parents’ concerns. Emails, letters and speeches at board meetings continue to fall on deaf ears.
- Teachers are being taken advantage of and not provided with needed resources to do their jobs. Instead, taxpayer funds are wasted on ineffective curriculum and programs.
It’s time to give Wake County schools back to parents. I’ll be a voice for ALL Wake County parents and families. I will work to return Wake County to educational excellence. And I will make parental partnerships the focus of Wake County school policies.
There were many other impactful influences in my life, including teachers, Boy Scout leaders, wrestling coaches, military officers, and others. Every influence in my life shared one common attribute. That of service before self. I hope to emulate that attribute as I serve the families and students of Wake County.
Federalist Papers
American Generalship
Principled leadership
Service before self
The tyranny of Socialist and Marxist doctrine has destroyed lives, hopes and dreams for generations. The freedom we enjoy here in the United States, while never perfect, is what led to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and so many other oppressive symbols and regimes.
For a decade now, WCPSS School Board has forgotten their customers - families. They have alienated parents, mistreated students, and provided a product of education that leaves half the student population seeking remedial courses after high school just to catch up. Families in Wake County deserve better.
That's why parental alienation in Wake is so detrimental. I want to reverse that trend and give schools back to parents. They are the most critical resource for success in education.
In the simplest of terms, this is where the board has failed - in the idea that their role goes beyond this. They focus on politically driven agendas that do nothing to prepare students for the world they will enter. Budgetary malfeasance strips public education of the resources needed to impact learning. Teachers are left to pick up the slack for their bad policies and even worse curriculum choices. They graduate students at a rate of 91%, yet less than half are college or career-ready when leaving the public school system (according to NCDPI).
My opponent has failed Wake families and students - https://steveforschools.com/my-opponent
For two years, Mahaffey and this board alienated parents in favor of personal agendas. They ignored concerns of learning loss (calling it a "false construct"). They made fun of parents that asked for removal of oppressive mandates with twitter memes and public rebukes. They removed parents from board meetings, the classrooms, and schools in general.
Meanwhile, the last two years have seen a dramatic increase in learning loss for minorities. By the 3rd grade, 55% of black and brown students are NOT proficient in reading and math. By the 8th grade, only 12% of black students are proficient in Math. Every high school in Mahaffey's district has declined in academic growth under her tenure.
For too long, Mahaffey and this school board have focused on personal agendas that detract from the needs of students and pull away much needed resources from teachers and schools. These resources are essential in providing a quality education to our most vulnerable, including special education, economically disadvantaged, and those with learning disabilities.
To learn more about the issues above, visit https://steveforschools.com/my-opponent
I plan on empowering our teachers, principals and school admin to have a greater voice in the education of our children. That also entails providing teachers with the pay and resources to do the job they love.
Diversity will naturally come as we seek out the best teachers and admin to lead our students and families. All throughout the county, we have a very diverse and qualified core of teachers and admin. My focus will be to continue this effort and improve upon it by attracting the best talent to WCPSS.
Political and personal agendas are currently the biggest hindrance on quality education in Wake County public schools. It is incumbent upon us as school board members to set the example and leave politics and personal agendas at the door. I believe this is why school board is a non-partisan race, and it should remain non-partisan throughout our tenure.
We have the ability to attract the best teaching talent to Wake County. The masters pay program is a good first start in encouraging teachers to improve their teaching techniques. Teacher training should be a key focus in our public schools. In order to accomplish better teacher training, we need the resources that are currently being wasted in other areas. I am determined to fix that problem.
We need to properly incentivize and compensate teachers that teach in critical subject areas. The North Carolina Teacher of the Year makes the same base salary as every other teacher with the same experience and credentials ... The current pay system pushes higher-performing teachers into administrative and non-instructional roles. We should compensate educators according to ability and initiative instead of giving equal pay to all - - a concept which has never worked.
One example - A student can graduate high school in WCPSS with two years' worth of college credits already accomplished. They can enroll in a school like Western Governors University, receive their four-year degree in Cyber Security in less than two years. The average starting pay for a college graduate in cyber security is $96,000 per year. There are hundreds and hundreds of scenarios like that that many parents are unaware of.
As an airline Captain, I can tell you there is a current pilot shortage that will continue for the next decade. A student can receive all of their licenses before graduating, enter an advanced program upon graduation, and be hired at any Major Airline (FedEx, American, United or Delta) making $200K/year or more at the age of 25.
There are many more real-world examples that WCPSS is simply not exploring right now. They are focused on agendas rather than practical application of the education process.
“Fiscal cliff” are the words used by the school board in the latest WCPSS budget management meeting to describe the impending disaster awaiting Wake County Public Schools.
On March 15th, the board briefed the Wake County Commissioners their plan to carry over $220 million in unspent Covid relief funds in order to soften the blow of the impending “fiscal cliff”. Instead of using the federal funds (CARES Act) for its intended purpose, to address educational learning loss, the board is engaging in a pseudo money-laundering scheme to cover their fiscal irresponsibility. Consider the mess the WCPSS school board has created:
- WCPSS currently operates on a $2.1 billion budget.
- The 2022 ballot will include a $2.5 billion bond for new school construction. If passed, taxpayers will have spent almost $5 billion in bonds for public schools since 2013.
- My opponent, and current WCPSS School Board Chair Lindsay Mahaffey, has announced that she will ask the Wake County Commissioners for additional funding for next year’s budget beyond the $2.1 billion currently allocated.
- The school board continues to allocate millions toward ineffective and agenda-driven programs. Most of these have not improved education standards, and some have caused significant academic decline.
Schools right now are not properly funded because of the gross mismanagement of the WCPSS budget. If funding from the state were to continue at the current rate from 2011 until now, funding for schools would far exceed the Leandro report recommendations. I believe that we need to focus on proper budgetary management and avoid using taxpayer dollars for personal agendas.
When elected, I will ensure:
▪ transparent budgets through line-item audits
▪ direct student funding through use of the WSF formula (weighted-student funding)
The Fraternal Order of the Police has endorsed me for School Board because of my solid position on school safety. I'm grateful for their confidence in me and look forward to working with our capable public servant SROs.
We need board members that put students and families above agendas. Parents can count on me to listen to their concerns and help.
When elected, I will divert funds from ineffective programs toward addressing learning loss, which will go a long way in alleviating mental health issues students are currently experiencing.
I strongly believe that school counselors are overworked. They need to be better supported and have their roles clearly defined so that they can better address the mental health needs of our students. Today, counselors are asked to do far too much.
A focus on SEL, outsourced to third party private firms for data sourcing and storage, is unacceptable in public schools. Yet that is exactly the path WCPSS has embarked on with trail runs of BIMAS in select Wake County schools this year.
Much of this has to do with poor Math performance. By the 8th grade, only 12% of black and brown students are proficient in Math. Before we can truly address technology, we must focus on this abysmal state of education Mahaffey and the board have put our families into.
We have seen the devastating effects of under resourced technology with the failures in the virtual academy from 2020-2021. Granted, most of these failures are due to a lack of leadership and action on the part of my opponent and the school board, but we have also seen a need to invest in better technology, especially for those in rural and low-income areas.
One reason for the failures is a lack of basic leadership. An inability to view the problem and come up with a viable solution, remaining flexible to change, and having the conviction to get the job done, was on full display the last two years.
Learning loss has devasted Wake education, despite Mahaffey and the board calling it a "false construct".
Meanwhile, in local schools like Thales and areas like Florida, schools remained open while practicing good safety protocol. The result is manageable learning loss that won't put their students behind the rest of the country and world.
To address these issues, I will make the parent-teacher relationship popular again. I will:
- Take measured looks at all curriculum currently in place in WCPSS. There is a need for proper, proven curriculum that prepares our students for success. At the same time, there is no place for politically divisive and agenda-driven curriculum like CRT. Currently Mahaffey and the board are pushing CRT content onto teachers and students (https://www.heraldsun.com/news/local/education/article260520367.html)
- Introduce measures to have lesson plans posted on an easily accessible site for parents, allowing them to assist and collaborate w/ teachers in their child's education.
- Re-introduce textbooks. We spend millions of dollars annually on "textbooks" in WCPSS, yet rarely see one sent home with our students. Every textbook vendor has an electronic version of their textbook.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2020
Steve Bergstrom completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Bergstrom's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- Unbiased quality education
- Bring back the parent-school partnership
- Principled leadership
Textbooks
Budgetary mismanagement
Reassignment
Curriculum
Improving our students college readiness
Transparency
Just as impactful and important of an example in my life is my wife. I married up. She is the foundation of our family and helps every single one of us be the absolute best person we can be. Though not a teacher by profession, it is the type of example that I envision for every student in Wake County - teachers that inspire us to be our very best.
Integrity
Decisiveness
Empathy
Hard work
The second was in November of 1998. I had just arrived in Maracaibo, Venezuela. We were told to stay in doors for three days during the presidential elections because they were worried if Chavez was not elected, he would lead a military coup. I remember the excitement and energy after Chavez won. Venezuelans were ecstatic. He was charismatic, offered hope, promised to change the country for the better, and spoke of the need for government to cure all the ails of the people. Many of us could see past the rhetoric ... and we knew what was being offered. Within 10 years, Chavez and his regime had crippled the country with socialist policies. I still, to this day, have people I love from that country that will write me asking for just $20 so they can buy food for their family. It breaks my heart. I've lived through the damage those ideologies provide.
The last historical event shaped so many of our lives - 9/11. Two weeks earlier I had decided to join the Air Force ROTC. Little did I know the impact that decision would have on my life, but I knew I had made the right choice after those terrorist attacks. I have deployed 5 times during my career, in defense of the freedom we enjoy. I am honored to have served next to great men and women.
After college, I commissioned as an Officer for the US Air Force and served my country for 12 years. Now, as a pilot for a major airline, I want to serve the people of Wake County by helping to make Wake County Public Schools the #1 option for all families. Wake students deserve the very best education, and I have the experience, the leadership, and the desire to sacrifice to make that happen for our families.
I would also push to implement a line item audit of the budget so that constituents can easily see where their tax dollars are being spent. Currently my opponent in the school board were able to divert money from one area to another with ease. This must stop.
Besides addressing teacher pay and benefits, which needs to become more competitive In order to continue attracting the best talent, my goal is to focus on teacher training and resource funding. Teachers also feel overworked as they try to compensate with a lack of resources do too gross budgetary mismanagement.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
