Mccann, Barlow In A Dead Heat Candidates Tied, But Couldn’t Be More Different

One of Joanne McCann’s supporters summed up her predicament when he left her campaign party late Tuesday night.

“It looks like, uh … it looks like, uh … it looks like … you’ve got a chance.”

By 11:30 p.m., McCann and her opponent, Don Barlow, each had about half the votes in the race for Spokane District 81 school board.

“It’s so close!” said McCann, darting from one overhead TV to another in search of the latest results at the Bayou Brewing Co. party she shared with mayoral candidate John Talbott. “Why aren’t they showing it?”

Barlow sat up late at his South Hill home, long after his party guests and hors d’oeuvres were gone.

“I knew it was going to be close,” he said. “I was supposed to be on TV in the morning if I won. I guess I’ll sleep in.”

While the early results were almost identical, the candidates could hardly be more different.

Barlow wants to keep Spokane schools on the track they’re on, while McCann thinks big changes are in order.

A victory for McCann could shake up a pretty agreeable school board.

She is an outspoken critic of the state’s education reform plan - which is the foundation for many decisions made by District 81 administrators.

She helped form a parents group that fights education reform, and she’s a familiar face in legislators’ offices in Olympia, where she frequently lobbied against reform bills.

McCann, 63, has taught in public and private schools. She was principal at St. Francis School and most recently supervised student teachers at Gonzaga University.

Politics are nothing new to Barlow, who has run unsuccessfully for school board before. He’s also lost races for City Council and freeholder.

But he keeps trying, he says, because he thinks he has a lot to offer, especially to public schools.

Barlow, 59, is an Ottawa tribal member and traditional dancer. He ran Indian education programs at District 81 for 12 years, and he also worked as Idaho’s Indian education director.

His most recent work in Spokane public schools ended in 1991, when he was principal at Crosswalk, a school for street kids.

Since then, Barlow has worked out of his South Hill home as a mental health therapist.

In the September primary, McCann got about twice as many votes as Barlow. On Tuesday night, he was celebrating a much closer race.

“At least I’m narrowing the gap we had in the primary,” he said. “We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

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