Story, Keaton and Mackey win school board seats

Andi Story and Jason Hart were the only school board candidates at Election Central Tuesday night. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)
Andi Story and Jason Hart were the only school board candidates at Election Central on Tuesday night. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

Jason Hart and Jeff Redmond lost their bids for Juneau School Board to incumbent Andi Story, and newcomers Josh Keaton and Emil Mackey in Tuesday’s election.

Story, leading the school board race with 2,730 votes in unofficial results, will begin her 13th year on the board. She was at Election Central on Tuesday night watching the results come in with her husband and campaign manager.

“I want to say thank you and gunalchéesh to everyone out there because it takes a community. We have a lot of issues, a wide variety of needs with our children and we are a town that really stands by our schools,” Story said.

As the board works on issues like curriculum, the Summit STEM School and the teachers’ contract, Story said it also needs to work on trust.

“We have to build trust between not only families because we’re given their most precious person in school, but also that the staff feels that everyone is working towards the same direction,” Story said.

Andi Story and husband Mike watch the results come in Tuesday night. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)
Andi Story and husband Mike watch the results come in Tuesday night. (Photo by Lisa Phu/KTOO)

On Tuesday night, Keaton had almost 2,200 votes. He was at home putting his two kids to bed.

As a new school board member, Keaton said he wants to make the public feel more comfortable testifying. Keaton has gone before the board many times as a parent and was often met with silence.

“I want to change that wall of silence. I want to ask them questions and for more clarification and make them feel that their testimony is wanted and needed for us to make those decisions,” Keaton said.

Keaton also plans to focus on class sizes.

“As we move into the budget process, I’m definitely going to be focusing on trying to keep those k-2 class sizes as small as we can,” Keaton said.

Mackey got 2,006 votes in preliminary totals. He was at home following election results with a small group of friends. Mackey said he’s happy to be elected, but knows he has a big job in front of him.

“Because of both the known and the unknown – we know cuts are coming, we just don’t know big they’re going to be – I feel kind of like a bull rider. I’m on the back of the bull but who’s in charge – me or the bull? And we’re going to find out,” Mackey said.

Mackey’s said his number one job is learning the role of a board member, but he also wants to take a fresh look at middle school travel.

“We probably need to revisit this because regardless of the decision, I don’t think that, politically, it’s been accepted by a lot of people in the community and we have to put that to bed, because until we put it to bed, it’s just going to sit there and fester,” Mackey said.

The new school board meets for a regular meeting Oct. 20.

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