Wade Long
Wade Long was a candidate for Seat E representative on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board in Alaska. The general election was held on October 6, 2015. Long was defeated by Kelsey Trimmer.[1]
Long participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates.
Biography
Long is a firefighter and service manager for Motorola Service Partner. He has experience working in the forestry industry. He also worked as a Navy Air Traffic Controller. He has volunteered with Adopt-A-School and Big Brother/Big Sister.[2]
Elections
2015
Three of the seven seats on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board were up for election on October 6, 2015. All seats on the board of education represent the district at-large.
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.[3] 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.[4][1][5]
Results
| Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Seat E, General Election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 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. | ||
Funding
Long reported no contributions or expenditures to the Alaska Public Offices Commission as of October 5, 2015.[6]
Endorsements
Long received official endorsements from the AFL-CIO[7] and the Matanuska-Susitna Teachers Association.[8]
Campaign themes
2015
Ballotpedia survey responses
Wade Long participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates. The following sections display his responses to the survey questions. When asked what his top priority would be if elected, the candidate made the following statement:
| “ | 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. [9] | ” |
| —Wade Long (2015)[10] | ||
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues by importance in the school district, with one being the most important and seven being the least important. This table displays this candidate's rankings from most to least important:
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in Alaska. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Expanding arts education | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
| Expanding career-technical education | |
| Improving college readiness | |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer 10 questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are in the left column and the candidate's responses are in the right column of the following table:
| Question | Response |
|---|---|
| They should not be implemented. | |
| Yes | |
| No | |
| They are a measure, but they are not the end game as a standards metric. They are to be taken seriously, though. | |
| A foundation to my platform is creating a culture of tutoring and mentoring in the schools. Make a part of the day, access to tutoring provided by students in higher grade level to struggling students. This atmosphere of support will further ingrain learned information and give support/additional instruction to struggling students. | |
| Expulsion cases must be viewed on a case-by-case basis rather than the district having an overarching policy. | |
| First, have a system in place to see the performance trend for schools, teachers and students. Once you can see the start of the decline, pounce on it. Reinforce the support to staff and educators early. But you must have a system in place to see the trend, then you have a chance. | |
| Teachers who go above and beyond and do extra work such as clubs, should get additional pay. There should be additional benefit to keep teachers in the district. 10% annual turnover is unacceptable and sourcing teachers to Alaska is a major challenge. I do not support bonuses for seniority. | |
| Offer additional training options. | |
| STAY ENGAGED! All too often board members get idle. The work to maintain that relationship takes work to maintain trust. Communication when change occurs is critical. I would engage Principals to have town meetings and one-on-ones with parents to explain policy and procedure. And to be receptive to feedback. It is unreasonable to expect good relations when the conversation is one sided. A Board cannot say, my way or the highway; nor can a Board say we value your input, but never respond to the input. I will engage businesses, the military, the labor unions, the colleges and community in general to come to the table and every day I will work to keep them there. That takes drive, which I possess. |
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.[11]
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.[11]
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]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Wade Long' 'Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Alaska
- Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District elections (2015)
- Analysis of incumbency advantage in the 2014 school board elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Final List of Candidates," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ Facebook, "Wade J. Long," August 21, 2015
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, "Official Certified Write-In Candidates as of September 29, 2015," accessed October 5, 2015
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, "School Board," accessed August 13, 2015
- ↑ Matanuska-Susitna Borough, "Election Unofficial Results", accessed October 6, 2015
- ↑ Alaska Public Offices Commission, "Campaign Disclosure Forms," accessed October 5, 2015
- ↑ Facebook, "Wade J. Long," September 1, 2015
- ↑ Facebook, "Wade J. Long," August 26, 2015
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2015, "Wade Long's responses," September 30, 2015
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Alaska Public Media, "Wasilla charter school forges a new financial path to fruition," August 24, 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
