Tyler Murphy narrowly wins Fayette school board race

Boyle County High School teacher Tyler Murphy narrowly defeated psychologist Shambra Mulder Tuesday in a race for the second district seat on the Fayette County Public Schools board.

Murphy won by a margin of 126 votes, collecting 7,090 to Mulder’s 6,964.

The seat had been held since 2010 by Doug Barnett, an attorney, who decided not to run for re-election in the district which includes northern Fayette County.

One of the first challenges Murphy will face in 2019 is raising achievement at seven Lexington elementary schools that as a result of 2017-18 statewide test results have been designated for comprehensive support and intervention. Several other Fayette schools will be on a watch list because one or more student groups are low-performing.

Murphy, 30, teaches at Boyle County High while living in Lexington. State law allows teachers to be school board members as long as they work outside the district where they were elected. He previously taught at Woodford County middle school and is a regional representative on the Kentucky Education Association Central District Board of Directors. He made his first run for public office in 2012 when he had an unsuccessful bid for a seat as state representative from Greenup County .

On his campaign website, Murphy said he would “be ready to join my colleagues on the (school) Board to legally challenge charter schools that undermine public education in Fayette County.”

The Kentucky General Assembly has not set a funding mechanism for charter schools and none have opened in the state yet.

Prior to the race, Mulder became known for criticizing the lack of equity in Fayette schools and raising concerns about achievement gaps. She said she had worked as a psychologist for students in Fayette County schools and had served as the education chair of the Lexington-Fayette NAACP. She wanted to use psychology to better deal with discipline and the mental health needs of students.

Mulder, 46, had said that a big challenge for the school district is determining how to allocate limited funds and resources to all of its schools so all students are career and college ready. She has said that another is determining why state test scores have consistently shown achievement deficits for students with disabilities, low-income students, black students, Hispanic students and students with English as a second language

School Board

• Tyler Murphy 7,090

• Shambra Mulder 6,964

This story was originally published November 6, 2018 at 9:09 PM.