Classroom signs, vouchers: Statewide issues shape school board race near Boise
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- Idaho school voucher and classroom display laws dominate 2025 West Ada trustee races.
- Challengers support “Everyone is welcome” sign; incumbents talk compliance, reading scores
- School board appoints trustee to fill vacancy as November election nears.
The place for politics in Idaho classrooms and on their walls. The flow of public dollars to schools — including private ones — across the state. These are some of the statewide issues shaping school board races on Tuesday’s ballot in Idaho’s largest school district.
Voters in the West Ada School District will choose between an incumbent and a challenger for each of two seats on the five-member board. The candidates have positioned themselves around hot-button topics including private-school vouchers, access to books, and whether signs with inclusive messages should be allowed in classrooms.
Challengers Meghan Brown and Dara Ezzell-Pebworth have been the most vocal about their support for inclusive signs and distaste for vouchers, while incumbents Angie Redford and Lori Frasure, who chairs the board, have made their views less known.
Local school trustees have little say over some of these issues, according to Shelly Johnson, the president of the West Ada teacher’s union.
The West Ada Education Association conducted interviews with the four candidates vying for spots at the helm of the 40,000-student school district. Johnson said discussions gravitated toward vouchers and touched on the scrutiny the district faced after ordering a teacher to remove a sign stating “Everyone is welcome here” from her classroom — a decision later supported by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.
“They don’t have any direct link to making that decision at the state,” Johnson said in a phone interview with the Idaho Statesman, referring to the 2025 law allowing taxpayer dollars to be allocated to schools of choice and nonpublic schools.
But Johnson said candidates’ stances were still important to the association, because “If they fully support that program without accountability and oversight, then, are they really supporting public education? I think that’s where the larger question kind of comes in.”
“Because they’re going to be making all the decisions for their local public education,” Johnson continued. “Do they have some other reason for running or another priority that doesn’t align with protecting public education?”
Johnson said the association felt “confident” endorsing just one candidate: Brown.
‘Are they really supporting public education?’
Candidates also reported hearing from voters about these issues while door-knocking and in an October forum by the League of Women Voters of Idaho.
While door-knocking, Brown told the Statesman, she noticed voters frequently asked about vouchers. “Even though that’s not something that a school trustee, you know, would have a vote on … they do ask about it,” said Brown, a substitute teacher in West Ada. “I say I never support vouchers, that I think it will always weaken public schools.”
That’s also something Brown got to express during the forum, which only the two challengers attended, according to the league’s co-president, Jean Henscheid. “Both candidates are strongly opposed to sending taxpayer money to nonpublic schools,” Henscheid said in a text message to the Statesman. “They indicated that there are so many underfunded aspects of public schools,” including special education and infrastructure, she said.
Brown is running against Redford for the Zone 3 seat, which sits generally east of Eagle Road and south of Chinden on the Meridian-Boise border. A third candidate, Anna Marie Young, withdrew from the race in September but missed the deadline to keep her name off the ballot. She said in an Instagram post that she supports Brown.
On her campaign Facebook page, Brown posted a clip of Redford speaking about vouchers on the local The Ranch Podcast.
“I’m generally supportive of it,” said Redford, who is seeking her second term after being elected to the board in 2021. “Let’s see how it plays out. Let’s see how it works, you know? We don’t really know how well it will work or if there will be negative consequences until it’s, you know, actually put in place, and we can see what happens.”
In response to a question about vouchers as part of a Statesman candidate questionnaire, Redford spoke about academic performance in the district and said taxes have been reduced since she entered office.
In a follow-up email to the Statesman, Redford said that the tax-credit law isn’t in her “wheelhouse.”
“School boards don’t have any authority over state legislation or how those decisions are made,” she said. “My focus remains here in West Ada — ensuring we’re using our resources responsibly, supporting our teachers and students, and continuing to provide the high-quality education our community expects.”
In Zone 1, which encompasses part of Meridian west of Meridian Road, Frasure and Ezzell-Pebworth are set to face off.
Like Redford, Frasure also champions low taxes. When asked about vouchers in the Statesman questionnaire, Frasure noted that West Ada has nine schools of choice plus Career and Technical Education programs and said she plans to “steward taxpayer resources” toward those programs. Frasure was not available Tuesday for further comment.
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Challengers vocal on ‘Everyone is welcome’ sign debate
Brown and Ezzell-Pebworth say they were inspired to run after West Ada made headlines for its stance that the “Everyone is welcome here” sign, which had images of hands with different skin tones, violated district policy.
“I was in a (parent-teacher organization) meeting … when I first became aware of how everyone was very disturbed on the district’s choice to challenge the poster, and that it was becoming a larger issue,” Brown said by phone. She added that her PTO president had emailed Redford and received no reply. “It’s a general trend that’s disturbing that no one replies to parents in Zone 3,” she said.
Brown questioned Redford and Frasure’s alignment on issues like the district’s display policy, which was updated in July. The policy, which both trustees voted to adopt, incorporated language reflecting a 2025 law regulating flags and banners on school property and upheld the decision that the “Everyone is welcome here” poster cannot be displayed.
According to Brown, voters in Zone 3 “don’t want to be represented by someone who couldn’t stand up for children in that way or separate themselves from national politics, or (was) afraid to say, ‘Children’s skin tones are not political.’”
Brown said that frustration over the district’s response to the sign is something she’s heard “across the board” during canvassing and said if the decision on the sign were up to her, she would’ve allowed it to stay up.
Ezzell-Pebworth also described being galvanized to run by the sign controversy.
“In recent years, I have watched conversations about our schools grow increasingly divided, with more focus placed on debates over a teacher’s poster saying ‘Everyone is Welcome’ than on how we can support students, staff, and families,” the 27-year-old social worker and West Ada graduate said on her campaign website. “Hearing community concerns and witnessing these shifts made me realize it was time to step forward.”
In a phone interview with the Statesman, Ezzell-Pebworth added that concerns about the district’s display policy, a lack of clarity around bullying and harassment procedures, and the desire to protect access to books are the three most common themes she’s heard while campaigning.
“Community members don’t feel like they’re being heard at the school district,” she said.
In the Statesman questionnaire, Frasure and Redford didn’t say whether they believed the sign belonged in the classroom or not. Instead, when asked about the controversy, Frasure emphasized that teachers in West Ada are “succeeding” in educating students “from every walk of life” and that district policies comply with the law.
Redford, in turn, cited some stats: West Ada students in kindergarten through third grade have a “record high” reading proficiency rate of 82%, she said, higher than in the neighboring Boise School District. Those rates are high for Black and African American, Latino, and Asian and Polynesian students, Redford said.
“West Ada is deeply committed to the success of every student, and our academic performance reflects that commitment,” she said.
Both candidates have similar campaign websites with identical statements lauding “transparent book and display policies to keep families informed.”
School board appoints third trustee without much talk on issues
A third seat on the school board is changing hands after Trustee Lucas Baclayon resigned in September, citing family health concerns.
On Monday, Oct. 27, the board voted unanimously to appoint Evelyn McCullough, a special education substitute teacher in West Ada, to take Baclayon’s seat in Zone 2, which includes parts of southern Ada County.
The meeting included interviews of four candidates plus board deliberations — and no mention of issues like school vouchers or the “Everyone is welcome” sign. Board members, including Frasure and Redford, said they appreciated McCullough’s classroom experience and knowledge of special education.
Learn more about this race and other local elections at IdahoStatesman.com/Election. Find Treasure Valley candidate Q&As in the Statesman’s Voter Guide.
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
