Seven school board seats contested in Delaware
Voters in seven Delaware districts will go to the polls Tuesday for school board elections.
The districts with more than one candidate for seats includes Appoquinimink, Colonial, Red Clay Consolidated, Lake Forest, Woodbridge, Delmar and Indian River District.
And, for each of those districts, there is only one contested race.
The Delaware Voting Rights Coalition recently released a guide for voting in school board elections.
At the time, Jill Itzkowitz of the League of Women Voters remarked on how low voter turnout has been in the state.
“Despite making up the largest body of elected officials in the country, school board elections receive little attention and suffer from extremely low voter turnout rates,” she said. “During the 2023 school board election, no school board district in Delaware saw more than a 10% voter turnout, and most remained well below 5%.
“Last year, a school board race was decided by just four votes. Our voter education efforts aim to equip Delawareans with the knowledge to talk to friends, family and neighbors about why every vote matters in this year’s school board elections.”
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Visit elections.delaware.gov/school/index.shtml to see a complete list of polling places.
A voter must be a citizen of the United States and of Delaware, live within the district and be at least 18 years old on or before the day of the election.
Also required is proof of identity and address, like a driver’s license, a Delaware ID card, a work ID with photo and address or U.S. postal material with a street address.
Indian River
There is one contested school board race in the Indian River School District – a District 4 showdown between Anita West-Werner and Joshua W. Hudson.
They are seeking a four-year term on the 10-member board, a seat held by Dr. Donald Hattier, who did not seek re-election after serving 22 years on the board of education.
Six other seats on the board are uncontested.
Ms. West-Werner, a 1996 graduate of Indian River High, served 25 years in the U.S. Air Force including on C-5s at Dover Air Force Base with the Air Force Reserves. She is now a reservist for the Air Force Crisis Action Team at the Pentagon and is a captain and 737 pilot for United Airlines.
Raised on the family farm near Clarksville, she and her husband have two children, a sophomore at Indian River High School and an eighth grader at Selbyville Middle School.
“My whole campaign is focused on a back-to-basics platform. I feel like, especially since COVID but just in general, our kids are suffering, academically, socially,” said Ms. West-Werner.
“We need to focus on the basics – reading, writing, English, starting at the very basic level. We need great leadership from top to bottom. Our teachers need support. We need improved discipline. And curriculum, we’ve got to get out of Common Core somehow.”
Mr. Hudson, born and raised in the Roxana/Frankford area, is a full-time captain with the Delaware Natural Resources Police. He and his wife Melinda, a teacher in the Milford School District, have two children, ages 5 and 7.
He is a 2007 Indian River High School graduate.
“I’ve got a lot of really close friends that are all schoolteachers throughout Indian River, and just hearing some of the big problems they are having, whether it’s discipline with the children, the school bus issues that we are having with recruitment, and then the recruitment/retention of our teachers,” he said. “Our teachers I just feel are not getting the support they really need.”
Lake Forest
The Lake Forest School District has one at-large seat up for grabs.
It is the only seat contested in Kent County.
The position is a four-year term, ending June 30, 2028, and there are two contenders.
The first is incumbent Sarah Starkey of Felton, who also serves as the board’s liaison for Lake Forest High and the Delaware Early Childhood Center. She is an alternate for the Delaware School Boards Association’s board of directors.
Ms. Starkey, who has been a board member since 2019, will be running against David Mazur of Frederica, a retired state of New Jersey employee who moved to Delaware in 2020.
Contested races
Kent County
Lake Forest At-Large
•David Walter Mazur
•Sarah R. Starkey
Sussex County
Delmar At-Large
•Russell R. Smart
•Dawn M. Turner
Indian River District 4
•Joshua W. Hudson
•Anita West-Werner
Woodbridge At-Large
•John Campbell
•Brian Swain
•Kristie Thomas
New Castle County
Appoquinimink At-Large
•Norman A. Abrams Jr.
•Candace M. Jusino
•Britney Mumford
Colonial Nominating District G
•Robin Crossan
•Tanya Kerns
Red Clay Nominating District E
•Jason P. Casper
•Susan Sander
Uncontested races
Kent County
Caesar Rodney At-Large
•Jessica Marelli
Capital At-Large
•John C. Martin Jr.
Milford Nominating District B
•Jennifer Lynn Massotti
Smyrna At-Large
•Christopher T. Scuse
Sussex County
Cape Henlopen At-Large
•Alison J. Myers
Cape Henlopen
Nominating District C
•Janet E. Maull-Martin
Indian River District 1
(two seats)
•Lisa Hudson Briggs
•Kelly Kline
Indian River District 3
•Mark L. Steele
Indian River District 5
(two seats)
•Derek E. Cathell
•Kim Law Taylor
Laurel At-Large
•Kim Ralph
Seaford At-Large
•Dara Laws Savage
New Castle County
Brandywine
Nominating District E
•Shawn L. Jegede
Brandywine
Nominating District G
•Jason Heller
Christina Nominating District D
•Amy Trauth
