Union backed candidates sweep Milwaukee School Board elections
A slate of candidates backed by the Milwaukee teachers union swept elections for four contested seats on the Milwaukee School Board on Tuesday.
School Board Vice President Larry Miller easily defended his District 5 seat Tuesday night, beating out challenger Kahri Phelps-Okoro.
The most competitive race was District 4, where two-term board member Annie Woodward narrowly defeated challenger Aisha Carr, a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher.
On the city's south side, Latino activist Tony Baez defeated community advocate Jonatan Zuñiga for the District 6 seat while newcomer Paula Phillips defeated former teacher Joey Balistreri for the District 7 seat.
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Both south side seats were open after Tatiana Joseph in District 6 and Claire Zautke in District 7 served single terms and did not seek re-election.
Miller, Woodward, Baez and both Phillips and Balistreri received financial support from the teachers union.
The Milwaukee School Board has nine members. The winners will serve four-year terms.
Miller has served on the board since 2009 and co-authored resolutions to create a new ethnic studies curriculum and to designate district schools as a safe haven for children of immigrants and refugees.
Phelps-Okoro is a former MPS reading specialist and is connected to the Phelps family that runs JCP Construction.
Woodward, 77, is a retiree of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. She successfully fought against closing schools in her district and pushed to return North Division to a traditional high school model after the district experimented with placing three small schools within it.
Carr, 29, is an ethnic studies teacher at the district's James Madison Academic Campus. She previously worked for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Milwaukee and also for former Sen. Russ Feingold in Washington D.C.
Baez, 68, is a bilingual education proponent who wants MPS to expand its language offerings. He also wants the district to phase out standardized tests as a way to gauge academic performance and create other ways to assess students.
Zuñiga, 23, graduated from the MPS charter school Carmen Schools of Science & Technology and then received a degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Phillips, 28, is a project coordinator for the women's initiative at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She campaigned around improving the district's reputation, creating access to high-quality schools and building more transparency with the MPS budget. Phillips is engaged to state Rep. Daniel Riemer (D-Milwaukee) and said she wants to advocate for MPS at the state level.
Balistreri, 27, taught through Teach for America in Florida and coached teachers in Indianapolis. When he wed his husband Michael Balistreri, he married into a familiar last name locally: His mother-in-law spent four decades in MPS and his father-in-law is a former Rufus King principal who was then elected to the Milwaukee School Board.
