Three conservative challengers file 11th-hour write-in campaigns for Spokane Public Schools board

A week before Election Day, three conservative hopefuls registered as write-in candidates for uncontested seats on Spokane Public Schools board.

Russell Neff, Joanna Hyatt and Laura Lucas were frequent voices at board meetings in 2020, making vocal their dissatisfaction with how the district responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Activism during this time spurred Neff to create a private Facebook group called “Open Spokane Schools,” with around 2,600 members.

Someone posted on the group a photo of their ballot with Hyatt’s name filled out against incumbent Nikki Otero Lockwood, alongside Neff against incumbent Nichole Bishop and Lucas running against incumbent Jenny Slagle. It caught on, the trio said, and they heard from others online and in person who wanted to see conservative representation on the left-leaning board.

The trio had to register as write-in candidates with the county for their votes to count.

“It was frustrating to see that nobody’s running against these candidates to challenge their poor record,” Hyatt said. “So jumping in felt sort of like a no-brainer, that at least people deserve to have an option.”

Hyatt said she’d like to see a conservative on the board to balance the liberals currently making up the dais. Debate spurs innovation and the best ideas, she said.

“There isn’t a full, balanced, open conversation at the school board level,” Lucas agreed.

Neff is a vocal opponent of the district’s $200 million bond on ballots. The district solicited him to write the “against” statement on voters’ pamphlets. He’s a recurring speaker at board meetings, often the only one in physical attendance, speaking in praise of his daughters’ teachers or pointing out homeless people near schools.

In an interview Sunday, the trio said their priorities are fiscal conservatism and academic excellence. “Education not socialization,” Neff said.

Neff proposed the district seek smaller tax asks with smaller project scopes. Rather than try to accomplish dozens of projects under the schools’ $200 million bond, they should zero in on one project for less of a price tag.

“It’s going to be our children and their children that are going to absorb that debt, is that fiscally responsible?” Lucas said.

The district spent around $19,500 per enrolled student in the 2023-24 school year, the last time the figure was updated on the state’s database. The district’s 2024-25 test scores indicate 47.3% of students met consistent state grade-level standards in English, 37.5% in math and 39.5% in science.

Neff said the return isn’t worth the cost to taxpayers.

“If our performance is that bad, I could argue that something needs to change then because we can’t continue to spend money and get low results for academic performance,” Neff said.

Eyeing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the district, Neff said he’d like to set up a metric to see if they’re beneficial to students.

“The DEI is costing a lot of money, but we’re not getting the evidence in the data. That isn’t transacting to educational excellence in math or English scores,” Neff said.

The trio said they’d also advocate to bring school resource officers back to school campuses for safety, a role that the board removed in 2020 and replaced with ununiformed safety personnel without arresting power.

Election Day is Tuesday.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to change the assessment scores to a different dataset from the state’s database, which reflect “consistent” grade level knowledge compared to “foundational.”