A first-time Democratic candidate won a Kansas State Board of Education seat held by a conservative Republican in Tuesday's election, trimming the GOP advantage on the 10-member board to six seats to four.
Republicans won the other four seats on the ballot. Half the board was up for election, and all five races were open because the sitting members chose not to run again.
Amy Diediker, an Olathe Democrat who spent seven years as an elementary school teacher, took 55% of the vote over Republican Jim McMullen. Her eastern district, which covers much of Johnson and Miami counties near the Kansas City metro, had been represented by Republican Michelle Dombrosky since 2019.
Diediker, who had never run for office before, built her campaign around defending public schools and said voters wanted a strong advocate for them. She has said she plans to concentrate on middle and high school grades and to encourage more cross-party dialogue among state institutions.
McMullen, an attorney, won a seat on the Blue Valley School Board in 2021 and later lost his reelection bid. That board removed him as its vice president in 2022 over social media posts targeting transgender people.
Republicans sweep the other races
In the northeast district, Republican Amy Cawvey of Lansing defeated Democrat Jennifer Lloyd by a 10-point margin. Cawvey, who heads the Kansas arm of the National School Boards Coalition, called literacy her top concern and campaigned on auditing special education spending records.
Kansans understand that simply pouring more money into education without seeing improved student outcomes is not the answer.
Amy Cawvey, Republican Kansas State Board of Education winner
Destry Brown, a Fort Scott Republican who retired after 42 years leading that town's school district, carried the southeast district with 69% of the vote. Democrat Heather Guernsey finished 37 points behind.
The two rivals shared common ground: both said race and gender are appropriate classroom topics and that curriculum guidelines should come from the board rather than lawmakers. That divide surfaced this year when the Legislature sought to require an annual fitness test, a citizenship test, daily recess and lessons on the harms of communist, fascist and socialist regimes.
Jean Clifford of Garden City, a retired Air Force attorney who served one board term from 2019 to 2023, won the board's largest district, beating Democrat Lorie Wood 73% to 27%. She credited her emphasis on student achievement.
In central Kansas, Republican Alana McWilliams of Abilene defeated Democrat Ann Zimmerman of Salina, 63% to 37%. McWilliams founded Designed to Learn, a Wichita reading tutoring center for students with learning disabilities, and has said she homeschools her three children, two of whom have dyslexia, because public schools did not teach them to read adequately.
