Opinion: A look at November 2025 SW Washington school board races

Dick Rylander examines Southwest Washington’s upcoming school board elections, noting a lack of responses from unopposed and incumbent candidates and urging voters to seek more information. File photo

Area resident Dick Rylander shares what information is and is not available on local school board candidates

Dick Rylander
for Clark County Today

In a matter of weeks you will be receiving a ballot. You’ll be offered the opportunity to vote for people to represent you in various elected positions. Today, we would like to call your attention to school board races in Southwest Washington – specifically nine districts.

When you read the voters pamphlet you may find some information of value … or not. There are 21 school board races. 14 of those are uncontested. Those people are running unopposed. Seven races are contested with two choices.

We queried people to find out what they wanted to know from or about the candidates. That generated a list of 12 questions. That list was emailed and/or physically mailed to each of the candidates. We provided a follow-up email reminder five days prior to the deadline. The candidates were given just under 30 days to respond (the cut-off was midnight Sept. 26).

We received responses from candidates in contested races but not a single response from any candidate running unopposed. We then went through the online voters pamphlet from the elections department: https://clark.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/updated-2025clarkcountygeneralvp_web.pdf

We found some interesting things. Two candidates chose not to provide even basic information.

In the case of the Vancouver Board race position #2: Sandra Zavala-Ortega:

Elected Experience – No information submitted
Other Professional Experience – No information submitted
Education – No information submitted
Community Service – No information submitted
Statement – No information submitted

In the case of the Washougal Board race position #2 Jane Schmidgall Long:

Elected Experience – No information submitted
Other Professional Experience – No information submitted
Education – No information submitted
Community Service – No information submitted
Statement – No information submitted.

Most incumbent candidates chose not to respond to the 12 questions posed even if there is another option.

Why don’t those running unopposed or incumbents answer questions? Perhaps because they have nothing to gain and don’t want to provide information that may be used in some way against them? Perhaps because they are overwhelmed with emails asking for their response and they don’t choose to answer some or all of the inquiries?

Do those running unopposed feel their past experiences (in the case of incumbents) speak for them? Do they think it’s an automatic vote and they will be elected no matter what?

Why are so many positions unopposed? If we vote for people we know little or nothing about because they are the only choice on the ballot, are we saying we don’t care? Do we get what we deserve? Years ago I decided to write in a candidate in races I felt that I didn’t have enough information on. I write: NOTA (None of The Above).

We’ve gathered what information we can find for these candidates in the nine districts at our blog site: https://swweducation.org/southwest-washington-state-school-board-candidates-nov-2025/

We encourage you to reach out to candidates and ask your own questions and then share what you learn so we can all be more knowledgeable voters.