In Central Valley School Board race, one candidate wants to continue conservative course while the other seeks to depoliticize body

There will be a new face on the Central Valley School Board.

In a race without an incumbent, one candidate harkened to a previous era of school leadership that he said prioritized kids over political statements, while the other wants to continue efforts of the current board majority, outspoken against state policy and leaning conservative.

Tere Landa, 77, opted not to seek re-election to spend more time with her aging friends and family and travel with her partner.

Dr. Allen Skidmore, a physician and father of four Central Valley graduates, found he had more time on his hands since his kids flew the nest and is eyeing public office as a way to give back to the staff in Central Valley who helped his kids. He previously served on parent advisory committees at the school district on topics including hiring a football coach and sex education.

He said he’d work to “promote cooperation and less contention” between board members and the community, working to establish better communication.

“The three newest board members seem to be more interested in national politics than they are in our local students,” Skidmore said. “They’re more interested in making a statement of being, whatever you want to call it, whether it’s pro-Trump or pro-conservative, or ‘We don’t like what Olympia is doing.’ ”

A current district father and pharmacist, Brandon Arthur is mostly compelled to run because of his young daughter in the school district, he said. His priorities include defending parents’ rights to know what their kid is learning and opt children out of disagreeable content, as well as continuing advocacy against transgender girls competing in girls sports.

Arthur praised the direction the newest board members Stephanie Jerdon, Anniece Barker and Pam Orebaugh are leading the board in areas like fiscal conservatism, budget scrutiny and advocacy to “protect girls sports.”

“I think since they’ve been in, things have improved. Based on my research, it looks like they’re improving,” Arthur said. “So I want to keep that trajectory going and not get back to where we were.”

Here’s how the candidates would approach leading the district if elected in November.

District finances

School board members weigh in on the drafting and approval of district budgets, setting parameters for administrators to follow and outlining priorities in their spending. Board members also approve ballot items that authorize tax collection.

Arthur listed fiscal responsibility as one of his campaign priorities. If elected, he said he would keep a close eye on district spending.

“There are a lot of things in there that you as a board member do have the opportunity to look at and scrutinize and make sure that the funds are being appropriately allocated and we’re not doing frivolous spending,” he said.

Asked about his support of property tax collections in the form of levies, Arthur said he would need to do more research on what these levies pay for before he would support them.

Generally, educational programs and operations levies go before voters every three years. One passed in February 2024 collects property taxes at a rate of around $2.40 per $1,000 in assessed property value. Taxes collected under this levy make up around 13.5% of the district’s budget, funding staff, curriculum, special education and all extracurriculars, to name a few.

Skidmore was emphatic that levies are critical in funding schools. Maintaining staff levels and supporting activities are key to building a well-rounded education that he said residents come to expect from Central Valley schools.

“I want to keep the schools funded, to keep passing the levies,” Skidmore said. “We need to maintain a good relationship with the community, so that when the time comes that we ask for the voters to pass the levy, that they will be willing to do it.”

Academics and test scores

The importance of state test scores in evaluating a student’s learning is often debated. Arthur said results were of “utmost importance.”

Asked how he’d propose improving test scores, Arthur said he’d defer to the experts: teachers.

“If this is how we’re going to measure the success of what we’re teaching and what we’re educating our kids on, we certainly need to make sure that the test scores reflect our best work,” Arthur said.

He advocated for teaching focused on boosting test scores and topics like personal finance, rather than “controversial” subject matter, like “aggressive” sex education or information on queer identities.

“The current climate now is just a lot of things that are untraditional, that are coming from Olympia and being passed along and being incorporated into the students’ teaching curriculum,” Arthur said. “Those are things that I want to make sure that we’re keeping a pretty critical eye on, to make sure that it’s not anything that I wouldn’t want my daughter to hear or learn in the classroom.”

Skidmore questioned how much test scores reflect a student’s comprehension of learning materials or a measure of post-graduation readiness, something he thinks schools should focus more on.

“It’d be nice to have higher test scores, but I’m not sure that that’s really what we need,” he said. “What we need is to prepare our kids for the next step, whether the next step is joining the military or the next step is becoming a plumber.”

In an effort to get kids work-ready, he suggested partnering with local employers to give students more hands-on experience and warm them up to soft skills like coming to work on time.

Transgender athletes

Neither candidate supports transgender girls playing on girls sports teams, citing fairness for cisgender female athletes.

Arthur has been a repeated presence at board meetings when the topic is discussed, sharing safety concerns should his daughter play a school sport one day.

Where the candidates differ is their stances on the board’s actions on the topic. Central Valley has held several meetings, writing a complaint to the feds expressing their confusion in conflicting directives from the state and federal government. The board also approved joining a potential lawsuit against the state authority Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction surrounding its policies on transgender athletes.

Arthur said he was supportive of each of the board’s actions thus far.

“It just took them maybe a little longer than I would have liked,” he said.

Skidmore said he supported the letter the board sent expressing their double-bind, but joining the lawsuit took it a step too far.

“It’s going to sort itself out somehow in the national politics thing, and I think we don’t really need to spend our money joining a lawsuit against OSPI,” he said.

Potential federal cuts

In the first few months of the second Trump administration, the federal government paused a handful of grants in public schools that paid for teacher training, English language acquisition and afterschool programs, among other things. The Department of Education thawed those grants just before the start of the school year, but the coming years are hazy. President Donald Trump proposed reductions in these grants and others in future budget cycles.

Skidmore said he hopes these funds would be diverted through the state, which would then funnel back to local schools. He said he would discuss with the rest of the board which programs they may have to cut back on.

“We wouldn’t welcome it; we’d be disappointed, but we’d have to figure out a way to get by with less,” he said.

Arthur said he trusts whatever cuts happen at the federal level are happening for a reason, and Central Valley would have to similarly cut spending and find ways to “do more with less.”

“It’s probably for our country’s good, to be honest; it’s just my belief and the belief of the majority, right? That’s why these people who are doing it were elected,” Arthur said.

Endorsements

For her replacement, Landa endorsed Skidmore, who was her daughter’s doctor. She said he is the more moderate of the two candidates.

“I consider myself a centrist, a moderate, and that’s what I’m hoping for with the new board member,” Landa said.

Stephanie Jerdon, current board president, endorsed Arthur after meeting with him and recognizing him from his remarks at meetings.

“I appreciate that he has been following the work of our board for some time, supports the efforts we have made, and has already demonstrated that he is willing to share concerns, ask questions, and get involved,” she wrote in an email.

Pam Orebaugh also endorsed Arthur. Board members Cindy McMullen and Barker did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Arthur has the endorsement of the Spokane County Republican Party, while the Republicans of Spokane County endorsed Skidmore.