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Sunday, November 05, 2023

The latest on Minnesota's Anoka Hennepin School District's School Board Elections - per Ballotpedia.

 Should readers wish info on other state's school board elections, as well as Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin district, this page, stating AH info:

On Nov. 7, Ballotpedia will cover school board elections in 16 states—including all school board elections in seven of them - Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.

Anoka-Hennepin School District, Minnesota

Seven candidates are running in three districts in the nonpartisan general election for Anoka-Hennepin School District school board in Minnesota. The districts up for election are District 1, District 2, and District 5. Classroom safety, parental rights, and the academic achievement gap are among the issues coming up in the elections.

Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota, the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and the SEIU Minnesota State Council endorsed incumbent Erin Heers-McCardle (District 1), Susan Witt (District 2), and Michelle Langenfeld (District 5). The Senate District 35 Republican Party (which overlaps with the school district) and the nonprofit Anoka-Hennepin Parents Alliance—which describes itself as promoting academic excellence, school safety, and "parental rights on political, religious, and moral issues"—endorsed Linda Hoekman (District 1), Zach Arco (District 2), and Scott Simmons (District 5).

The school district is located in Anoka and Hennepin County, Minnesota. It served 38,764 students during the 2017-2018 school year. The school board consists of six members elected by district to four-year terms on a staggered basis in November of odd-numbered years.

Only one incumbent is on the ballot, District 1. 

For further Ballotpedia detail on the AH election, this link. Crabrgrass highlighted the endorsement texts above because of a belief that voting by consideration of endorsements would happen in many instances. (Perhaps too many)

Generally School Board elections are "nonpartisan" while in this instance there is a Republican Party slate consistent with the "parental rights on political, religious, and moral issues" language. 

What should education be, a statewide uniform approach set by experts, religiously neutral, or a politicized thing? That is part of what is at stake. 

Election day is this Tuesday, Nov. 7. Citizens are urged to find their polling location from the Secretary of State website, since borders may be drawn to where you think you're included within one of the ballot areas, but in fact are in a different district not on the ballot this year. 

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Crabgrass is of a firm belief parental rights on political, religious, and moral issues, as important as they are in firming a child's character and ultimate adult worldview, are to be emphasized by - who else - parents themselves, in pre-school early years where research has shown time and again that most value norms get set; on weekends and holidays and outside of schooling hours; where instead, uniform unbiased teaching is the norm, i.e., where teachers know their job best. Balance being the key, each learning mode having its separate time and place, while indoctrination is not and should never be the aim of public education. Rather open minded intelligent voting as citizens in our representative democracy is the ultimate key, more so than multiplication table rote learning, or spelling tests. 

Reasoning and reading skills are critical. It is how voters inform themselves before going to vote, and how they analyze options in order to vote intelligently.

Opinions differ. Some want indoctrinated robotic behavior and loyalties, thinking that best; other want openness and balance.