After nearly a decade’s absence from the local political scene, two slates are on the November ballot, one for the school board and the other for the library board. Eight candidates are running for each nonpartisan body. Two incumbents, a three-person slate, and three other people are competing for three seats on the school board. The library board has four open seats. A four-person slate and four nonaligned candidates are eager to serve.

The slates couldn’t be more different. The AADL slate says the library is great and has ambitions to make it greater by remaking the downtown branch–possibly with a millage. The AAPS slate is endorsed by the teachers’ union and shares the union’s frustration at the conservative tilt in state education policy–and the school board’s acquiescence to it. Its leader says they want to address overcrowded classrooms, underpaid teachers, and unwanted standardized tests–though he admits some of that can’t be done at the local level.

“The board seems to accept the right-wing education reform agenda of making things difficult for teachers and imposing standardized tests we don’t need,” says Hunter Van Valkenburgh, the school slate’s founder. “The proper response to the test is ‘Why are you subjecting students to this waste of time?’

“I knew a long time ago that I wanted to get on the board and change things,” continues Van Valkenburgh, a lawyer. He ran two years ago and says he’s “running again because the problems are still there. The slate is for electoral purposes. My wife is a teacher. Jeff Gaynor has been outspoken on the same issues, and when he retired [from teaching], he could run without conflict of interest. We recruited [parent] Harmony Mitchell.

Van Valkenburgh disdains the incumbents for accepting the dictates of Michigan’s conservative state legislature. Board chair Deb Mexicotte “may be behind the things we don’t like. Parents have been opting out of [state-mandated] tests, and the board’s response was to punish all those parents.” He dismisses incumbent Simone Lightfoot–“we disagree with the votes she casts”–and incumbent-backed candidate Don Wilkerson because, with his bachelor’s in business and master’s in accounting he has “too much of a pro-business attitude.”

He rejects the way the board runs its meetings. “Now you get three minutes, and then it’s sit down and shut up. The meetings go very late to when a lot of community members can’t be there. Some votes take place after midnight. And all the seven-zero votes are strange. It makes you think they were decided beforehand.

“We have three goals,” Van Valkenburgh explains: “reduce class size, hire more teachers, [and] be more equitable [to employees]. The district has gone after the worst compensated, like the custodians. Meanwhile the administration is still there, and the people at the top keep the money or even more.”

Though the slate objects to the standardized tests, Van Valkenburgh admits there’s “nothing we can do. But if parents wanted to opt out, I would let them and tell the state board of education, ‘You need to come up with something different.'”

The Ann Arbor Education Association has endorsed Mexicotte and Lightfoot in previous elections. But after the incumbents backed superintendent Jeanice Swift in confrontations with the union over the teachers’ contract and the International Baccalaureate program, they’re now targets. The union has “endorsed all three of us,” Van Valkenburgh says. That’s because to effect real change, “we have to all win.”

And if they don’t win? “We’ll still be raising hell,” Van Valkenburgh replies.

Though the incumbents aren’t campaigning jointly, Mexicotte has endorsed both Lightfoot and Wilkerson (who, like Van Valkenburgh, first ran two years ago). Retiring trustee Andy Thomas supports all three.

A thirteen-year board veteran and current chair, Deb Mexicotte says she’s running again because “we have things like the International Baccalaureate program that need to be seen through to completion. Plus we have to rebuild our fund balance.”

For Mexicotte, the biggest problem the schools face is “financial instability” caused by the state’s reduction of funding for the public schools. “Michigan needs to reprioritize what’s important,” she says, pointing to a recent report that fourth-grade reading scores fell from twenty-eighth to forty-first nationally between 2003 and 2015.

Though she shares some of the slate’s criticism of state policies, Mexicotte says she has two problems with the group’s campaign.

“I am concerned with the narrow range of issues,” she writes in an email. “What isn’t being focused on here are the major areas of Board work, such as student achievement and increasing the financial well-being of the district. I also have some concerns about real and perceived conflicts of interest as Mr. Van Valkenburgh will be unable to vote on matters such as teacher contracts.”

“There is a conflict of interest of casting a vote on my wife’s compensation,” Van Valkenburgh acknowledges. “I’d have to abstain from voting on the teachers’ contract. But when [the contract] comes to the board, it’s already a done deal so it won’t matter.”

Mexicotte says she supports seven-year incumbent Simone Lightfoot because “she brings an important voice to the table for those students who are underserved.” And she also supports Wilkerson because he “has shown a real and sustained interest in the schools.” Due to an internal miscommunication, we were unable to interview Lightfoot in time for this issue.

“I’ve been PTO vice president and president, and [the school board is] the next step,” says Don Wilkerson. Like the slate, he wants “to focus on teacher support. We got teachers raises this year. Can we do it next year?” He thinks there’s a way. “The recent special education millage made teachers’ raises possible this year. I was a leader in the 2015 sinking-fund millage campaign, and what can we do from that standpoint?”

He unabashedly supports the current board. “I’ve seen visionary things come out of board decisions. Northside was getting smaller and smaller, and now its new programming is a source of pride for the district.”

“The schools and the school board are going in the right direction,” says Jeremy Glick, a 2014 Skyline grad. “I want to add the student perspective.” Glick also has “issues with the way chronic illness is handled. I have Crohn’s Disease, [and policy] was [made] on a teacher-by-teacher basis. I want to make sure the schools are educating the families about this, making sure students with chronic illness [have] no stigma attached, making sure teachers understand that it’s not acceptable [to say], ‘If you’re going to be in the hospital it’ll hurt your grade.'”

Rebecca Lazarus and her family moved to town and joined the district two years ago, after the school her kids attended in Dearborn closed. “When I got here, I thought everything was wonderful,” she says. “But I sat on the tech bond advisory board, and I saw some things that disturbed me.

“The conditions of the buildings are not maintained,” she continues. “The floors aren’t being cleaned on a regular basis. There’s filth in the classrooms. Kids need safe, clean buildings!”

One last complication: current school board member Donna Lasinski is running for the state House of Representatives. “If Donna goes to Lansing, she’ll need to resign and the board has 30 days to name a replacement,” Mexicotte points out. Depending on who’s voted in, that means the board of seven could have as many as four new members.

While the school board slate is driven by frustration, the library slate is powered by affection. The four women running jointly all love the library and aspire to make it stronger.

Incumbent Jamie Vander Broek, a librarian at the Stamps School of Art & Design, says she was appointed to the board last year partly because she “started going to board meetings and spoke about the amazing things the library is doing.”

“I’m running because the library is awesome,” concurs U-M business systems analyst Victoria Green.

“Every time I think about representing the library I get really excited,” adds Colleen Sherman, director of corporate and foundation relations for the U-M Health System.

And for Linh Song, head of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation, “running is part of a greater love story with Ann Arbor.”

The women knew each other and discovered “we all had an interest in running, and we thought coordinating a campaign made sense,” says Sherman. “The reason we’re running as a slate is we’d love to be each other’s colleagues,” says Green.

None has a negative word to say about the current board. “The library has made some great choices,” Green says. And Song credits the board with being “good about anticipating future needs.”

Good as it is, the slate thinks the library can be better–and sees a way to make it so.

“We’ll be behind a millage proposal to see if we could update the downtown library,” says Sherman. “The downtown library is referred to as a flagship,” adds Green. “But it doesn’t look like a flagship.” As Vander Broek explains, “they don’t have the space to do what they want to do and what they need to do and what we want to do as a community.”

“The downtown branch is a default community center,” says Song. “The library is a showcase for what Ann Arbor can do. It shows who we are.”

LuAnne Bullington wants a seat for one reason: “The Ann Arbor District Library took over the Library for Blind and Visually Disabled from the county,” she says. “I’ve been a patron since 1992, and they need someone on the board who understands and can help and bring innovations to the library.”

She’s not happy with the way things are currently. “They have a room, and someone used to staff that room. He left the state, and no one’s been hired to replace him. A lot of the equipment has been disconnected, and the board doesn’t know that this is an issue. I want to bring this to their attention and get them to hire somebody.”

Jaime Magiera, who lost a city council race last year, says he’s running for the library board because “I’m looking for the next way to contribute.” For him, the library’s “biggest challenge is infrastructure: refurbishing buildings and properties.” The downtown library in particular is “still struggling to provide the functions they would like.”

He sees the same potential solution as the slate: “The millage that failed [in 2012] would have provided those things, and [asking voters again for] a millage is not out of the question.”

Steve Simpson is running because “I want to do something in my home community.” An Ann Arbor resident who’s president of the Jackson campus of Baker College, a nonprofit focused on career education, he says he wants to help “redefine the library as a technology and cultural center. The notion of the library as a place to get books is fading, and being able to remain relevant is a huge challenge. The solution is getting the word out about what services the library offers and how it’s a central place where we can come together and align our community movements.”

John Torgersen believes the library is doing a fine job and says modestly that he doesn’t “have anything that’s more to offer than the other very qualified people who are running.” But he does see a niche he might fill: “The library provides resources to all members of the community, but it’s challenged on how to distribute equally. They are doing a great job with the branches, but we need to keep track of [new housing] developments and put branch libraries there.”