Deb Mexicotte

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Deb Mexicotte

Prior offices:

Ann Arbor Board of Education At-large

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Deb Mexicotte was an at-large member on the Ann Arbor Public Schools school board in Michigan. Mexicotte was defeated in the at-large general election on November 8, 2016.

Elections

2016

See also: Ann Arbor Public Schools elections (2016)

Three of the seven seats on the Ann Arbor Public Schools school board were up for general election on November 8, 2016. Incumbents Simone Lightfoot and Deb Mexicotte filed for re-election, while Andy Thomas opted not to seek a new term. Lightfoot and Mexicotte ran against challengers Jeff Gaynor, Rebecca Lazarus, Jeremy Glick, Harmony Mitchell, Don Wilkerson, and Hunter Van Valkenburgh. Gaynor, Lightfoot, and Mitchell won in the election.

Results

Ann Arbor Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year terms, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Jeff Gaynor	16.04%	22,258
Simone Lightfoot Incumbent	15.48%	21,487
Harmony Mitchell	14.78%	20,507
Deb Mexicotte Incumbent	14.07%	19,524
Hunter Van Valkenburgh	12.66%	17,566
Rebecca Lazarus	11.40%	15,822
Don Wilkerson	7.88%	10,940
Jeremy Glick	7.00%	9,718
Write-in votes	0.68%	940
Total Votes		138,762
Source: Washtenaw County, Michigan, "Official Election Results," accessed November 22, 2016

Funding

See also: List of school board campaign finance deadlines in 2016

School board candidates in Michigan were required to file pre-election campaign finance reports with their county election offices by October 28, 2016. Post-election reports were due by December 8, 2016.

In Michigan, candidates are prohibited from receiving contributions from corporations or labor organizations. Within 10 days of becoming a candidate, candidates must form a candidate committee. Following the creation of the committee, candidates have an additional 10 days to register the committee with the school district filing official by filing a statement of organization. A candidate committee that does not expect to receive or spend more than $1,000 during the election cycle is eligible to receive a reporting waiver, which allows that committee not to file pre-election, post-election, and annual campaign statements.

October 28 filing

Candidates received a total of $15,654.22 and spent a total of $8,378.46 as of October 30, 2016, according to the Wasthenaw County Clerk/Register.

Candidate	Contributions	Expenditures	Cash on hand
Simone Lightfoot (incumbent)	$4,143.57	$3,282.62	$1,005.98
Deb Mexicotte (incumbent)	$2,262.30	$450.00	$1,812.30
Jeff Gaynor	$1,361.12	$0.00	$1,361.12
Jeremy Glick	$3,815.00	$3,281.60	$553.40
Rebecca Lazarus	$1,350.00	$1,364.24	-$14.24
Harmony Mitchell	$1,361.12	$0.00	$1,361.12
Don Wilkerson	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Hunter Van Valkenburgh	$1,361.11	$0.00	$1,361.11

Campaign themes

2016

Mexicotte provided the following responses for the voter guide compiled by MLive.com:

“	Why are you running for office? When we were preparing for the search that brought us our current Superintendent, Dr. Jeanice Swift, I conducted a number of community forums with my fellow Trustees, and one of the things that came up over and over was the desire to get a talented, passionate and forward-thinking leader for our district, who would stay here longer than 2-3 years. As we are in the fourth year of Dr. Swift’s tenure, we have accomplished much of this wish list – and more! Over the last several years we have seen increases in student achievement, enrollment, and graduation rates, maintained class size, positively impacted discipline rates, improved our financial outlook, passed several important local millages, have implemented new programs (International Baccalaureate (IB), K-8 STEAM at Northside, Project Lead the Way at all our schools), and increased our teaching staff and their compensation. I want to continue to serve to ensure these gains will be solidified and advanced through stable leadership. What are your top three priorities? As a current trustee, I actually have four, as the Board outlined in collaboration with the Superintendent during our discussion of the recent Bond and Special Ed Millage ballot questions and our annual retreat. We identified the need to increase teacher/staff salaries, which have been stagnant for far too long, enact programmatic improvements, especially in the areas of math and middle school, engage in infrastructure analysis and upgrades, and add to our fund balance (or “rainy day” fund). Focus on these areas over the next few years, (in addition to ensuring the gains we have made outlined in the previous question) will impact student achievement, help us attract, retain and professionally compensate excellent teachers and administrators, keep our learning environments safe and welcoming and make sure that we can weather unforeseen crises – like the recent water main failure at Allen – through prudent and thoughtful financial stewardship. What is the most pressing issue for this office? The overarching issue for every Board of Education Trustee is the de-prioritization of education in the State of Michigan, especially for traditional public education. This de-prioritization is not just a funding issue, but also results in our legislators not understanding how the expertise of our educational leaders – teachers, administrators, researchers, community – must be tapped and valued to improve outcomes for our students. They don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, how students learn, that resources matter and that there are real research and experience based strategies and methodologies that improve student outcomes. As for funding, in real dollars Ann Arbor received $4 less per student last year than we did in 2003. If per-pupil funding in Ann Arbor had just kept up with inflation since the passage of Proposal A, we would be receiving an additional $2000 more per student – imagine the impact that could have on class size or individualized learning!	”
—Deb Mexicotte (2016)

Recent news

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

Deb Mexicotte - Google News

See also

• Ann Arbor Public Schools, Michigan
• Ann Arbor Public Schools elections (2016)

External links

• Ann Arbor Public Schools
• Campaign website