Filing is busy for Edmonds school board seats

The Edmonds School Board will have a busy election season this year, including a primary race for the position of Director District 3.

The primary election is scheduled for Sept. 16 and the general election will be held Nov. 4. The two candidates with the highest number of votes in each primary race will continue on to the general election.

Up for the position of Director District 3, which is being vacated by school board member Judy Janes, are Carrie McAfee, Gary Noble and Bob Reedy.

McAfee, 44, is a self-employed interior designer and owner of McAfee Interior Design with five children in the district. McAfee herself is an Edmonds-Woodway graduate. She has been part of the site council for Martha Lake Elementary for two years, served on the Educational Council at Lynnwood High School and has been involved with the PTA for 13 years. She is also a recipient of the Golden Acorn award for her work in the district. In addition, McAfee is involved with both Cub and Girl Scout troops in the district.

If elected, the concerns McAfee would like to work with in the district include building a new Lynnwood High School and working on legislative representation. Changing the state-mandated 60 percent super majority needed to pass bonds and levies in the school districts is also another concern for McAfee.

Gary Noble, 55, is an electrical engineer and project manager at Boeing. Noble has worked as a volunteer in the district for 17 years, including tutoring math at the middle school level, as part of a parent group and a parent representative on the Lynnwood High School Instructional Council, and the district’s Citizen’s Planning Committee for eight years. In addition, Noble attended the 2001 Snohomish County Leadership Class.

“I have always been interested in what the real inside problems with the district are,” Noble said.

Noble added that if elected, he would like to work on improving support and training for teachers and staff, keeping a close eye on fiscal accountability and responsibility and being a strong advocate for improved educational funding. He would also like to work on increasing support to teachers and providing opportunities for all students to be successful.

Bob Reedy, 49, works as an insurance agent for Aetna Insurance Company. In 1999 Reedy ran for a position on the Lynnwood City Council. When he heard the school board position would be open this year, Reedy said, “I thought that would be something I’d like to do.”

Reedy has worked with the district’s Evening Academy at Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood high schools for a dozen years. In addition, Reedy said that living in the district since 1956 gives him a strong sense of history and knowledge of “how the district has changed and how susceptible the school district is to the economy.”

Reedy attended Spruce Elementary, the Alderwood and Cedar Valley elementary schools, Lynnwood Junior High and Edmonds High School. Reedy also graduated from Edmonds Community College in 1972.

Patrick Shields, who currently serves as the school board’s legislative representative and represents district 5, is going for that same position and is uncontested. Shields was appointed to his position on the school board in October 2003 after board president Larry Ehl resigned. Shields has five children in the district.

Chuck Anderson and Doug Fair are vying for the position of director District 1, which is being vacated by school board member Sally Fabro.

Anderson, 45, works as a service delivery coordinator for Quest Communications and has three children in the district. He has lived in the area for a total of 14 years, and has worked with kids for more than three decades.

For one year, Anderson taught at a private school in Southern California, and currently serves as a volunteer working with kids at Westgate Chapel in Edmonds.

“I have always had a heart for kids and for them learning,” Anderson said.

If elected, Anderson said he would like to “help create an atmosphere in the Edmonds School District for kids to grow and learn and become what they want to be.”

Doug Fair, 44, is a self-employed attorney in the Edmonds area. He has two children in the district and has lived in Edmonds since 1985. As a volunteer with the Edmonds School District’s Citizens for Schools group and an Edmonds Community College Foundation board member, Fair said it seemed like a “natural outgrowth of what I have been doing for the last several years.” Fair has also served as co-chair for two years on the parent-teacher organization at Madrona K-8. As a stay-at-home parent, Fair said that if he is elected, he could offer the school board his experience with his children’s education as well as a parental view of the district.