What this election means for the Douglas County school district — and it’s chaotic board | News from Carson City Nevada

The Douglas County School Board has made a number of headlines both regionally and nationally since the 2022 election, leading to a new majority taking over.

This new majority, composed of trustees Susan Jansen, David Burns, Kathleen Dickerson and Doug Englekirk, is staunchly and vocally alt-right. They began planning their takeover long before their first day on stage, text messages found during a contentious public records request show.

They were very clear about what they wanted their first actions to be: create a policy barring transgender students from participating in district sports and hire Joey Gilbert as the board’s new attorney. This has led to a number of complaints and issues of its own, as Gilbert has no background in education law and the board’s previous attorney advised the board not to pursue a ban on transgender sports because they would inevitably be judgment.

Following the advice of previous counsel, they quickly fired that law firm, which had served the district for decades, and were able to hire Gilbert.

Gilbert told the board he would create an anti-transgender policy and fight it in court on behalf of the district if they were sued.

That policy was never realized.

Since then, he’s racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills to the district that could even reach half a million by the end of this year, with more than $100,000 billed in the first two months alone. The district’s annual budget for legal counsel totaled only $160,000 at the time.

While anti-transgender politics didn’t happen, what did happen from the 2022 election was:

In the trial, it was revealed that the trustees were trained and directed on how to vote by four outsiders:

• Nick Mayer who spent nearly $80,000 to date on supporting candidates across the region;
• Virginia (Ginny) Starratt
• Lynn Muzzy
• Jan Muzzy

While Trustee Englekirk was mostly on the side of the board majority, only going against them on a few items such as choosing not to fire then-inspector Keith Lewisrecovered conversations between the new board members and the four outside individuals discussed that they “shouldn’t trust him” because he had given Lewis a positive annual review.

Now, it appears that with the candidacy of candidate Antoinette Marie Casselberry, these individuals have found a new candidate to support. Maier has already donated thousands to Casselberry, but Englekirk is absent from his list of recipients despite being challenged by Erinn Miller, who is running to unseat Englekirk for District 3 in Lake Tahoe.

So far, Casselberry has brought horror $16,672 in donations, with Maier at the top of her donor list, and Jan Muzzy’s name can also be found on her list.

Casselberry is running against Melinda Gneiting for the seat of Linda Gilkerson, who along with Trustee Carey Kangas, has consistently spoken out against the board’s majority since its inception in 2022.

While Englekirk may not have the support of these four behind-the-scenes individuals, the Douglas County Republican Central Committee has endorsed Englekirk as well as Casselberry for the positions, similar to their endorsements of Burns, Jansen and Dickerson in 2022.

Board seats are meant to be nonpartisan, and this endorsement breaks with tradition of keeping party politics out of nonpartisan campaigns.

Meanwhile, candidates Miller (District 3) and Melinda Gneiting (District 5) are backed by We Deserve a Better Board, a group that emerged after disputes with the new board majority began to grow in 2022.

The board majority has often called the group “Marxist” and “liberal,” despite the fact that most of its members are also registered Republicans. All of the board candidates the group supports are described as “conservative Republicans.”

The new candidates

Erin Miller (District 3) is a Lake Tahoe resident with three children enrolled in the district and is running against incumbent Englekirk. She serves as the parent representative on the district’s family life committee and has served on a number of other district committees. She and her husband are involved with Douglas Pop Warner and have spoken out against the board majority’s actions several times, saying Gilbert’s law firm overcharged the district, overstepped its bounds and failed to represent the district in an efficient way. mode. She said she is concerned about the lack of civility and decorum displayed by the majority of the board during the meetings and hopes to represent the needs of all schools, especially lake schools, with the issue of declining enrollment. You can read more about it on We deserve a better council.

Melinda Gneiting (District 5) is a 24-year Douglas County resident with a bachelor’s degree in social work who has had four children enrolled in the district, two of whom have since graduated. She, too, said she was concerned about the current board’s spending and the taxes Gilbert’s firm continued to raise. She wants to see a law firm that is qualified to work in education replace Gilbert’s firm. She said she wanted “balance and normalcy” to return to the district. Gneiting said she is concerned about special needs students, parental rights, fiscal responsibility, building positive relationships and not allowing “boys to compete in girls’ sports.” You can read more about Gneiting on it website.

Antoinette Casselberry (5th District) is running against Gneiting and moved to Douglas County in 2020 from Santa Cruz, California. She attended private Catholic schools through college before graduating and moving into the dental field. She holds a degree in dental hygiene from Loyola Dental School and a bachelor’s degree in health from the University of St. Francis. She is a member of the Elks Tahoe/Douglas Lodge and serves on the advisory board of the Douglas County Community and Senior Center. She served as a volunteer assistant coach for after school programs for the Santa Cruz Track Club, raised money to stop child trafficking in Madagascar through running marathons, and served as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for three years in Santa Cruz.

Casselberry said he wants to help DCSD regain its status as the best school district in the state and noted that academic scores have declined over the past ten years. She said she would be a “moderating force,” bringing “balance and respectful dialogue” to the board. One of her goals is to keep transgender students out of sports, stating “no boys in girls’ bathrooms or girls’ locker rooms. Protect girls’ sports.” She said she also wants to bring back the DARE program. You can read more about Casselberry on it website.

Yvonne Wagstaff will continue to hold her designated seat as she is running unopposed.

Administrator Carey Kangas is not on the ballot, and his seat will go to Markus Zinke, who is also running unopposed.

Marcus Zinke is a district parent and co-founder of the Parents Group, which seeks to bridge the gap between the school board and parents. He spoke to the Record Courier in March 2023 after setting up the Parents Group. During that interview, Zinke said the Parents Caucus was formed because they often can’t attend school board meetings, which are held on Tuesdays at 4 p.m., and often don’t even know what the board is voting on.

Co-founder Stephanie Christensen told RC that many of the board members have never had students attend the district, which means they may not have a parent’s perspective on some of the issues. Parents were able to review agendas and provide surveys to the group, who then present them to the school board as a whole. However, the group does not appear to have been active since 2023.

What do elections mean?

On cursory searches of Zinke, not much is known about his position on the board’s current management. However, he is not supported by Maierr, the other four individuals behind the scenes who dictate the wishes of the majority of the board. Although, since he is running unopposed, he has has not recorded any donations during his candidacy and was not endorsed by either the Douglas County Republican Central Committee or the group We Deserve a Better Board.

Linda Gilkerson and Carey Kangas were the most outspoken board members against the majority, who will both leave in January after the election. If Casselberry succeeds in winning Gilkerson’s seat, the board could flip to a supermajority of members backed by Maier and Englekirk.

However, if Gneiting is able to win the seat and Miller is able to unseat Englekirk, a supermajority would not be on the table unless Zinke joins the current council majority. He was not endorsed by the Douglas County Republican Central Committee or the group We Deserve a Better Board.

If Gneiting and Miller manage to win their seats, it will all come down to which way Zinke falls: to the current majority or to a newly formed majority.

Gneiting and Miller have made it clear that, if elected, they plan to seek a new councilman for the district and relieve Gilbert of his position. The reasons he cites for this are that the district paid his firm $400,000 in just one year and that he has no experience in education law.

If Zinke sides with the current majority, or if Casselberry and Englekirk keep their seats, then the council will continue as it has since its inception in 2022: four members essentially make all the decisions, with Englekirk going rogue from time to time when all three board members opposed almost every point brought up by the board majority.

So far, Douglas County has turned out more than any other county in Nevada. Currently, during early voting, 21,205 ballots were cast, which represents 51% of all active registered voters in the county.

Election night is November 5. Only time will tell what the future holds for the board and the Douglas County School District.