This is the first a series of interviews with candidates who want to serve — or continue to serve — the county as members of the Polk Schools Board of Education. It’s been a long time since so many people have been willing to do what is essentially a thankless job. In the past, acclamation has been the rule, or, if a seat opens does open up, the departing member finds a replacement, who is elected without competition. When’s the last time you saw a campaign sign for a school board candidate? Well, they’re out there now.
School board elections in Polk County, have become very big deals, as they have across the country. Conservatives have discovered the electoral power of cultural trigger issues, like how we should teach our kids about history — specifically the history of racism — how we deal with the needs of the tiny number of trans students who sit in our classrooms, and what do with books that explore with those kinds of issues a little more directly that some folks are used to. Progressives, meanwhile, are waking up to the need to protect public schools from those who, whether they realize it or now, are working to dismantle the entire system. Those forces are very much in evidence in Polk County.
This year five seats on the Board of Education are up for. Four of those seats — for Columbus, Tryon, Green Creek and Coopers Gap — are regular elections for expiring terms. The Saluda seat is open because the current member, Rob Parsons, was appointed by the board early this year to replace Sara Bell, who resigned before her term was up to take over the Polk County Community Foundation. Sara was only on the board briefly. She won a special 2020 election after being appointed to replace Rhonda Corley, who resigned when she left Polk County.
However, only four of the five seats are being contested. Danielle Gibbs, who represents Columbus, has no challenger. That leaves Coopers Gap, Green Creek, Tryon, and Saluda with actual races, but here’s the really interesting bit: Each voter gets to cast a vote for a candidate in each race. So it makes sense to get at least at little familiar with everyone’s who running. I’m going to do my best to interview as many of the candidates as I can, but as in many elections, not everyone is what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, a “serious” candidate, and I’m going to use my judgment, based on 20 years of working in community newsrooms, to make that call.
First up is certified financial planner Mike Ashworth, who represents Tryon and currently chairs the board. Rick Covil and Mike traded the chair and vice-chair positions recently, but Mike is a board veteran, with two children in Polk Schools. We talked at his office in Tryon at the end of August.
Resources:
The Mike Ashworth Election Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/people/Re-elect-Mike-Ashworth-For-School-Board/100083953932510/
