In 2022, four candidates ran for HSE School Board as conservatives, and they defeated their woke, leftist opponents by an average of 18.5 points. That’s a clear repudiation of the leftist candidates and all of their worst behavior: they kept secrets from parents, they were complicit in the sexualization of children, and they promoted explicit racism. Thank God that we voted these people off the board.
Since this victory, despite some unfortunate setbacks, much that we hoped for has been accomplished. Here is a rundown of the most significant accomplishments:
A number of the worst offenders of the last few years no longer work for HSE:
Superintendent Yvonne Stokes
DEI Chief Nataki Pettigrew
“Mental Health Coordinator” Brooke Lawson
Principal Stacey Swan
The CCHA law firm
The Board cancelled the creepy Panorama survey
The Board repealed the absurd “microaggressions” policy
New Superintendent Pat Mapes cancelled the ridiculous “equity coach” program
There is no longer a radical DEI page on the HSE website
There have been no more racist and anti-American staff trainings
Political propaganda is no longer allowed to be displayed in classrooms (e.g., BLM flags, Pride flags, etc.).
There is still more work to do, but this is a significant improvement. Many of the worst offenders in the district were held accountable, their major woke projects were ended, and they were replaced with academically focused administrators like Superintendent Patrick Mapes. The future of the district is bright.
The 2024 Election: Three “At Large” Seats
In 2024, there are three seats on the board up for grabs, and these are “at large” seats, which means that everyone in the city can vote for all three. For each of these seats, the choice is between two candidates:
John Stewart vs. Sarah Parks-Reese
Suzanne Thomas vs. Terry Tolle
Greg Lannan vs. Latrica Schooley
I will discuss each of these candidates below. The short version of the story is: I am enthusiastically endorsing John Stewart and Terry Tolle. Greg Lannan is a more complicated story, as we will see, and while I strongly oppose his opponent Latrica Schooley, I cannot endorse Mr. Lannan. Let’s look at the details.
Vote for John Stewart over Sarah Parks-Reese
Ms. Parks-Reese has been on the board since 2020, and she has been complicit in all the worst behavior I mentioned above. And her bad behavior continues down to the present day. For example, just a few weeks ago, she appeared at a “drag show” aimed at kids: a performance in which grown men dressed up like women and writhed around on stage in a sexual fashion, just off of the Nickel Plate trail, in full view of the public. The sexualized performance was set to Disney music, and little children passed cash to these men as if they were strippers. Ms. Parks-Reese’s involvement in such an event is the latest evidence that she is an unacceptable candidate and should be soundly defeated at the ballot box, just as her woke friends were in 2022.
John Stewart is just the guy to hand her this defeat. Mr. Stewart wants to continue the conservative plan to refocus the district on academics and parental rights instead of bizarre identity politics. For example, he told me that “the primary focus of classroom environments should be on the curriculum and educational content rather than political or social movements advocated by the teacher.” He believes that this sort of approach preserves both an environment of open dialogue and a sense that all students are welcome irrespective of their views on controversial social and political issues.
Accordingly, Mr. Stewart agrees with the current district leadership that ideologically driven displays of political propaganda should not be allowed in the classroom, he agrees with the repeal of the absurd “microaggressions” policy, and he agrees with the decision to end the “equity coach” program. These are all central aspects of the politicization of HSE schools that was accelerated under Ms. Parks-Reese’s tenure on the board. Mr. Stewart will continue the plan to depoliticize the district and refocus on academics.
Among the unfinished business of the board are the issue of Critical Race Theory in the classroom and the promotion of “drag” (i.e., sexualized cross dressing) in the libraries for kids as young as fifth grade. I asked Mr. Stewart about these issues, and he told me that he does not support the continued promotion of CRT in the classroom, and also flatly disagrees with the promotion of “drag” to fifth graders.
I was impressed with Mr. Stewart’s thoughtful and forthright answers to my questions. I haven’t known many people who speak with such straightforward honesty when running for public office. He has my enthusiastic endorsement, especially given the terrible behavior of his opponent over the last few years. Electing John Stewart will be a huge improvement at HSE, and a massive win for our kids.
Vote for Terry Tolle over Suzanne Thomas
Suzanne Thomas is the incumbent in this seat, and she does have a positive record. For example, she voted to end the “microaggressions” policy, and she voted to end the Panorama survey. She also opposed the “mental health” grant in early 2023. The mental health department at HSE was guilty of seeking to socially gender transition children at school while lying to their parents about it. They needed to be held fully accountable before receiving millions of dollars to expand their services. To Ms. Thomas’s credit, she seemed to understand this.
Unfortunately, there are some significant concerns about Ms. Thomas. First, she would not answer my questions, so I cannot report her position on propaganda in the classroom, the end of the “equity coach” program, the issue of CRT in the classroom, the promotion of “drag” for children at HSE, or her attitude about the leftist “pride” agenda. Second, she is endorsed by the teachers’ union, which is endorsing the two woke candidates. (It is worth noting that, in an email provided to me by a source close to Ms. Thomas, she says she was surprised by this endorsement. She also said that she explained to the union that she is a conservative. Still, I’m concerned about the union’s influence, especially in light of her sudden unwillingness to speak to me.) Third, Ms. Thomas has struggled to work well with the other conservative board members, at times running into personal conflicts that have significantly lowered morale on the board.
I believe that Terry Tolle, Ms. Thomas’s opponent, is a better choice for the seat. Dr. Tolle was on the board from 2015 to 2018, during what now seems like a different age. Like John Stewart, Dr. Tolle is a commonsense conservative who supports the current board’s effort to roll back woke political activism at HSE. Specifically, he told me that he supports the decision to remove activist political propaganda from the classroom and the decision to end of the “equity coach” program. He also agrees with the repeal of the “microaggressions” policy and agrees with the decision to end the district’s relationship with Panorama.
I believe that Dr. Tolle will bring a spirit of professionalism and collaboration to the board. I believe he will continue the agenda of returning the district to an academic focus rather than a focus on left-wing politics. I believe his presence on the board will promote transparency to parents and continue the long effort to rebuild the trust with the community that was damaged during the woke years.
Some conservatives have expressed concerns to me about Dr. Tolle, and I want to address those concerns.
First, when Dr. Tolle previously served, he voted to accept the Lilly grant that was used after his time on the board to supercharge DEI initiatives in the district. I asked Dr. Tolle about this, and he expressed disapproval at the way the money was used after he left the board. As Dr. Tolle put it, in 2021, the district “took a left turn” with the money, and began to use the funds on initiatives that were not part of the original intention of the board in accepting the grant. No doubt we have the woke board that served in 2020-2022 to thank for this. I think it is unreasonable to blame Dr. Tolle for the craziness of those years. If he had still been on the board, he would not have authorized using the money to push a leftist agenda.
A second concern that some have raised about Dr. Tolle is that, near the end of his term in 2018, he expressed strong approval of Allen Bourff’s performance as superintendent. Subsequently, Dr. Bourff’s tenure was marred by the wide range of woke nonsense that we have been trying to roll back over the last few years. It is not an exaggeration, in fact, to say that Dr. Bourff was responsible for the whole woke revolution at HSE, since he allowed it to happen on his watch. Naturally, then, conservatives wonder what Dr. Tolle thinks about Dr. Bourff’s performance now. I asked him about this, and he told me that, in retrospect, Dr. Bourff was not the leader that HSE needed during this trying period, when political polarization was at a peak. I admire this willingness to reassess his previous judgment in light of what has transpired, and I think this speaks very favorably of Dr. Tolle.
Dr. Tolle has spoken of his desire to “end the drama” among the board members and to even get along with those in the district with whom he has political disagreements. I think that this is a wise approach, and I believe that Dr. Tolle will stand up for conservative values in a professional, respectful, and constructive way. Like John Stewart, Terry Tolle has my full endorsement.
Greg Lannan vs. Latrica Schooley
Neither of these candidates is an incumbent: they are running to fill the vacant seat left by Sarah Donsbach, who is not running for reelection.
Let’s get one thing clear about this race from the start: like Sarah Parks-Reese, Latrica Schooley participated in the “drag for children” event, so no reasonable person should put her in a position of authority over children. If you are of the mindset that you should vote for one or the other of these two candidates, then you should definitely vote for Mr. Lannan. However, I have concerns about Mr. Lannan as well, and I think it is important to explain these concerns for the record.
Mr. Lannan was selected as a candidate by Fishers One, who was originally going to run Amanda Shera, a clear conservative and a friend of mine who would have been an excellent choice. According to sources at Fishers One, Mayor Scott Fadness favored Greg Lannan over Amanda Shera, and a strategic decision was made by the Fishers One leadership to acquiesce to Mayor Fadness’s wishes on the grounds that he might use his influence to prevent Fishers One from effectively fund raising.
In my opinion, this was a mistake. As I noted above, the four conservative candidates won by an average of 18.5 points in 2022. Conservatives don’t need Mayor Fadness’s money or his support, and Fishers One should have kept their eye on the ball and continued along the path that produced a blowout victory in 2022.
It is important to realize that the Mayor speaks out of both sides of his mouth on the issues that most concern us. For example, in August 2023, concerning our movement to end the sexualization of children at the Hamilton East Public Library, he told Larry Lannan that:
It’s been disheartening over the last several years really to see the amount of kind of big ‘P’ politics and also small ‘p’ politics that have entered into a community that for so long was absent of that … there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get petitioned by someone to make a statement about someone, some issue, some initiative. They want me to yell out about this, that, or the other thing. And I got to the point where I realized it’s just more ammunition for a fire that’s already stoked well enough … we’ve been really disciplined at the city to say “I’m not going enter into every single one of these cycles of outrage to affirm or add ammunition to whatever you’re pursuing.” And so we’ve really tried to stay fairly disciplined, and fairly focused on creating a great place to live, even in the midst of all this chaos and noise.
Here, Mayor Fadness implies that he wishes to largely stay out of what I would call “culture war” issues like what came up at the library, which he evidently regards as “noise”. Meanwhile, Mayor Fadness told me at a town hall event this summer that he has “no problem” with using city resources to promote “Pride Month”. Mayor Fadness seems to know exactly how quickly he can move the needle to the left on our local culture, and he moves it exactly that fast and no faster, all the while falsely implying that he wishes to largely stay out of these issues.
Because Greg Lannan was selected by Mayor Fadness, I am concerned that he will take a similar perspective. Mr. Lannan did not respond to my emails, which sought to find out his position on cultural issues. As far as I can tell, his campaign has not spoken on these issues at all, so I do not know where he stands on them.
Despite this, Mr. Lannan’s social media posts suggest that he does have a conservative streak. For example, in 2023, he publicly condemned an anti-Catholic hate group:
He subsequently condemned the current Chair of the Hamilton County Democrat Party, Jocelyn Vare, for comparing her political opponents in Fishers to KKK members:
He also said Ms. Vare was lying when she falsely claimed that City Council Member Tiffanie Ditlevson was guilty of violating the open door law:
Anyone who is willing to make these kinds of bold statements in public during this period, when we desperately need people to speak up, earns some respect from me. And, as I’ve emphasized, his opponent is completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, however, since Mr. Lannan has evidently not been willing to speak on the major issues, I do not feel that I can endorse him. As I said above, if you think you should always vote for one of the candidates who are running for a given seat, you should clearly vote for Mr. Lannan. I do not agree with this perspective: I withhold my vote when neither candidate meets the minimum requirements, and that’s my judgment here.
Vote for Tolle and Stewart!
Early Voting starts today, 10/8. Make sure to vote for John Stewart and Terry Tolle. Make sure not to vote for Latrica Schooley or Sarah Parks-Reese. As for Greg Lannan, I would recommend reviewing the above information and voting your conscience. My own plan is to vote for John Stewart, Terry Tolle, and nobody else.