A Texas school board has voted out three conservative members in Mansfield.
Why It Matters
Voters in Mansfield Independent School District (ISD) overhauled the school board in the May 3 election, with challengers unseating incumbents—including the board president and secretary—in all three contested races.
Texas is among the states that have seen a recent rise in book bans, with the Lone Star State issuing 625 bans during the 2022-23 academic year. The vote also followed a charged election season, fueled by heightened outside political involvement and growing debate over the influence of partisanship in local school governance.
What To Know
Ana-Alicia Horn, a data management professional in the event ticketing software industry, defeated incumbent Keziah Valdes Farrar in the race for the Mansfield ISD school board.
Horn secured 60.3 percent of the 12,356 votes cast, unseating Valdes Farrar, a Realtor and current board president who had served since 2021.
Jason Thomas, who manages road and bridge operations in Tarrant County’s Precinct 2, unseated incumbent Craig Tipping in the Place 3 race. Tipping, a one-term board member with experience in physical therapy and roofing sales, secured 41.98 percent of the 12,269 total votes to Thomas’ 58.02 percent.
Jesse Cannon II, the director of visual and performing arts for Fort Worth ISD, won the race against incumbent Bianca Benavides Anderson, a sales consultant completing her first term on the board. Cannon led with 58.6 percent of the 12,163 votes cast.
More than 63,000 ballots have been cast in Tarrant County, representing 5.14 percent of registered voters. Overall voter turnout in the county reached 98,564, or 7.99 percent.
Incumbent Mayor Michael Evans was reelected to a third term, defeating Julie Short, a member of the City Council.
One Republican said after the loss, “Mansfield has gone to Hell.”
State Democrats argued that the results were a sharp rebuke of Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Texas school voucher policy.
The election fell on the same day that Abbott signed new legislation making more than 5 million students eligible to receive state funds for private school education.
The state is set to allocate $1 billion over the first two years of the program to provide education vouchers for families. With the law’s passage, Texas becomes the 16th state to extend public funding eligibility for private school tuition to all students.
It comes after the Texas Senate approved legislation that sought to increase parental control over the books available in public school libraries.
Senate Bill 13, filed last month by Republican state Senator Angela Paxton, passed with a 23-8 vote and now advances to the Texas House for consideration.
If enacted, the bill would shift final decision-making authority over new library materials from school librarians to local school boards. It would also establish a process allowing parents to request the removal of specific books, which would be taken off shelves pending a school board review.
What People Are Saying
Democratic Texas state Representative Chris Turner wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “There is something poetic that the day Greg Abbott signs his voucher scam into law, reform candidates in Mansfield ISD are running the table. Voters are angry about the way our public schools have been treated in #txlege and want strong, pro-public education leaders.”
Activist Carlos Turcios wrote on X: “Horrible News in Mansfield Texas. The Radical DEI Left has flipped the conservative school board. Mansfield ISD has capitulated to the DEI-LGBTQ Left.”
What Happens Next
The new school board members will likely push for policies that align with their pro-public education platform, potentially challenging some of the recent state legislation on school choice and curriculum.
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