There’s a Boise election Tuesday. What to know about the candidates, how to vote

Boise voters will decide Tuesday between a CEO at a renewable energy company with a background in education and a mental health professional to elect as the new school board member for an open seat.

The two candidates, Krista Hasler and Matthew Shapiro, previously ran for the school board in 2022. This will be Hasler’s fourth time trying to become a trustee after she applied for the role when there were vacancies. Both candidates said they see themselves as people who would bring new perspectives that the board doesn’t have.

Four other Boise school board seats have uncontested candidates who serve on the board: Elizabeth Langley, Maria Greeley, Paul Bennion and Debbie Donovan.

Shiva Rajbhandari, a climate change activist who joined the school board as a senior in high school , is the only trustee up for election who isn’t running again. The 20-year-old chose not to run for reelection as he attends college in another state .

He said when he ran, he intended to be replaced by a current district student after he graduated and worked to establish a permanent student position on the board.

“Unfortunately, my fellow trustees did not see value in a student voice on the board,” he told the Idaho Statesman in a message.

Hasler hopes to increase mental health resources

Hasler, a licensed clinical social worker who has four kids in the district, said kids and teenagers have always been her passion. Over the past few years, she said, she’s gotten even more involved by volunteering in elementary classrooms and consistently attending district meetings.

“I didn’t think I was going to run again,” Hasler, who has lived in Boise for nearly a decade and grew up in Idaho, told the Statesman. “But the more I stayed involved, and the more I saw what was going on, I actually wanted to continue to be a part of the process and continue to help students.”

Hasler was endorsed by the Boise Education Association in this election. She was previously endorsed by the far-right Facebook group Idaho Liberty Dogs in 2022, but she has since said she didn’t seek the endorsement, didn’t know the group and doesn’t support extremism.

Her priorities include building on the mental health initiatives in the district and looking at opportunities to help students learn coping skills early on “so that they don’t get to the point where things spiral and get out of control.” She praised the district for its work in this area already, but said she’d want to be part of the conversation on how the district could continue to increase accessibility to mental health services and ensure students’ needs are being met.

Several students in the Boise district died by suicide last year. The district in the immediate aftermath put crisis teams into place, shared mental health resources and provided information to parents on suicide prevention, according to previous Statesman reporting.

Hasler also wants to bolster resources in early education and literacy and take steps to ensure students graduate with specific character skills, such as discipline, determination, being prosocial and being proactive.

Hasler has worked as a therapist in residential treatment and in addiction recovery programs. She also has a private practice specializing in anxiety-based disorders. Through the time she’s spent with her clients, she said, she has experienced “so many different parts of human needs.”

Over the past few years, she said she has been more involved in the district than her opponent, having regularly attended board meetings and workshops to better understand how decisions are made. If elected, she said, she would also draw from what she’s seen and learned volunteering in the classroom, teaching art and assisting students and teachers.

“I’m working with kids. I’m seeing some of the challenges right there,” she said. “There’s not someone coming in to tell me about it. … I’m experiencing it when I’m in the school.”

Hasler faced criticism in 2022 about some of her stances on issues such as full-day kindergarten and sex education. In 2022, Hasler wrote a letter in the Statesman that criticized the board’s decision to “add full-day kindergarten without any parent and staff input.” She said she doesn’t oppose full-day kindergarten in any way and supports sex education and the district’s policies on it.

Hasler said the role of a trustee is a nonpartisan position and that, if elected, she would aim to meet the needs of all students in the district and make sure students in every community feel “respected, dignified” and treated with kindness at school.

“This is not about politics. This is actually about kids and their education, and that is why I’m running,” she said. “The whole reason that I’ve continued to try is because I’m passionate about kids, and I’m passionate about trying to help them with their mental health and with their education.”

Shapiro focuses on community engagement

Shapiro, who has a daughter in the district, said his priorities center around engaging the community and making sure they feel a sense of ownership in their schools. He has lived in Boise for decades, has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and went “all but dissertation” in a doctoral program in curriculum and instruction at Boise State University. He previously ran for the school board in 2022 and felt his qualifications fit well with the board.

“When I saw that there would likely be a seat … open, I said, I can contribute a great deal to the district at this particular point in time,” Shapiro told the Statesman.

His priorities include looking at civics education in the district and engaging the broader community in designing the future of civics in schools. He also wants to spearhead an initiative to hold regular open forums in the district’s schools that he refers to as school councils. It would help to make Boise a leader in opening up dialogue with its schools, he said.

Shapiro said he has a “greater depth and breadth of experience” on educational issues than his opponent. In addition to his degree, he said, he helped start a charter school in Garden City, where he taught and served on the board.

He also substituted in Boise schools and worked as a special education assistant at North Junior High before getting his teaching degree. But after his daughter was born, he said, he shifted his work back to renewable energy.

“My campaign is based really on my broader background of knowledge about education, educational issues and this ethic of public participation,” he said. “A lot of the time, I think we address issues in a piecemeal fashion, a little bit at a time, but really everything’s interconnected.”

Here’s how to vote

The Boise School District has its elections every other year on the first Tuesday in September, as established in the district’s charter. The elections typically have low voter turnout, so the candidates said they have been encouraging people to vote through door knocking, putting up signs and providing information.

People are eligible to vote in the race if they have lived in the district for at least 30 days, are 18 and are registered to vote in Ada County.

Voters in the Boise School District’s boundaries will be able to cast their votes Tuesday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. at many schools in the area , or at the district service center.

Only the contested race will appear on the ballot.