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Independent Candidates Offer Option to Electing Republican Activists to BOE

In the face of the Republican Board of Education (BOE) slate sweep by local grassroots advocates who oppose race-based education, the Independent Party has chosen to put forward its own alternate slate of candidates to offer voters an option to electing the GOP newcomers.

In a statement released last week, the Independent Party said the “unprecedented” decision to put forward three unaffiliated candidates is a direct response to the five Republican nominees who call their organization Truth in Education (TIE), characterizing those candidates as “far-right” with “extreme views about our public education curriculum.”

At press time, TIE had not responded to an email seeking comment on the announcement.

The three Independent candidates are Kristy Faulkner, a molecular biologist and PTO co-chair; Noel Petra, a real estate executive who has been involved in numerous other town boards and commissions; and Jennifer Baldwin, a public defender and PTO member.

The Independent Party is also cross-endorsing two Democrats, allowing people to vote for a full slate of five without including any TIE members, who will take the full Republican row on the ballot barring any primary challenges after they soundly defeated the incumbents at a caucus late last month.

TIE is part of a larger movement across the country that has focused on what they have called “critical race theory,” claiming that various racial equity initiatives and gender-inclusive practices are tantamount to Nazism. They held a contentious rally at the Community Center earlier in the summer and have harshly criticized current BOE members and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Freeman for using literature and making statements in support of racial diversity and race-based initiatives.

Freeman and the BOE have repeatedly asserted that Critical Race Theory, a post-graduate academic framework that grew in law schools in the 1980s, is not taught in Guilford schools. Some lessons or readings might have extremely broad relationships to these things, Freeman previously told the Courier, but he has denied unsubstantiated claims by TIE members that this material is somehow targeting White students or is divisive and politically extreme.

Bill Bloss, a former Democratic BOE chair and lawyer who is advising the Independent candidates, told the Courier that he thinks it is “vital” that voters have a moderate alternative to the single-issue campaign of TIE and called their accusations against the school system “fantasy.”

“It’s hard for me to understand where they are getting some of their claims,” Bloss said.

Guilford’s minority party representation rules require a 5-4 split on the BOE. With one Republican incumbent not up for re-election, potentially the three Independent candidates could fully block TIE and take these seats.

Bloss said the mechanisms of local and state election law allow for this alternative that can be used when a relatively small number of people seize power in one party or another, adding that he thought it was unlikely Guilford voters at large would be as open to TIE’s rhetoric and values as the Republican caucus was.

Petra, in a phone conversation with the Courier, said he is completely uninterested in debating “critical race theory” or confronting TIE members, while making it clear that their bid for the BOE inspired him to run.

“The only reason that I’m running is that I want to make sure we protect the level of quality of our school systems,” he said.

A longtime resident of Guilford running for elected office for the first time, Petra said the idea of the Independent Party slate is to give the town a “moderate” and non-partisan alternative to the TIE slate, seeking to emphasize the broad success of the schools over multiple decades.

He said in his experience, there was nothing “in reality” to substantiate the claims that TIE members have made about Guilford curriculum, and that he hoped to serve independently and with the mandate of the “majority” of residents, who have confidence in their educational leaders.

Education is what brought his family into the town, he said, and the schools as they are have bolstered the whole town’s property values and state-wide reputation.

“My whole reason for being a candidate is to make sure we have well-informed and well-intended, non-political members on the BOE,” Petra said. “I don’t want to bring politics into our schools. I want to protect our schools, keep them safe, and make sure our children are prepared to meet what is now a very diverse world that they’re going to go into.”