Nothing is more important than our public schools. Here’s who we think should help lead them.

At a time when our public schools — teachers, students and parents — need strong, supportive leadership, the Fayette County school board is not bringing its best.

The board inexplicably botched the rollout of a proposal for a nickel tax increase in property taxes. Members didn’t do a prolonged public presentation over weeks and months to show the public why the increase was needed to renovate and build Fayette’s lamentably aged schools. Luckily, the snake that fell out of Henry Clay High School’s ceiling helped make the case that board members felt they didn’t need to.

Also inexplicably, the one-meeting presentation did not include the choice of leaving tax rates the same, which thanks to Fayette’s increased housing values, would have brought in more money. In addition, the one meeting had a two-minute limit on speakers, which left many frustrated, angry and certain the lack of transparency meant the board was up to no good. The situation has not been helped by the dismal test scores, which Superintendent Demetrus Liggins rightly called “unacceptable.”

One person voted against this recent travesty, the former board chair and current District 4 representative Stephanie Spires. She also made the point that the last time Fayette successfully passed a nickel tax, the board created a lengthy and detailed public campaign, which brought partners like the Chamber of Commerce to the school board’s side.

For her deep institutional knowledge and willingness to stand up to the board majority, we are endorsing Spires for the District 4 seat. She has a deep understanding of the administration and its byzantine workings and a deep compassion for children, which is why she voted against raising school lunch prices in schools. As the single working mother of five children, she is busy, but makes the school board a top priority.

We appreciate the willingness of the two other candidates to step forward and appreciate their questions about the tax hike. Candidate Amanda Ferguson also stood up to board majorities when she served from 2007-2016 and asked hard questions. She wants to go back to the board but has not articulated enough exactly why or what she most wants to do.

Matthew Vied is part of the grassroots group Let Them Learn which fought to reopen schools during COVID. We appreciate his passionate advocacy on behalf of children and hope he will continue it, but we are concerned that he is more interested in exposing problems than finding ways to solve them.

There is nothing more important to our democracy than fully functioning public schools. We hope Spires will keep pushing the Fayette board to do better.

This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 10:02 AM.