About half of Milwaukee voters will elect new school board members April 6, with no incumbents running for four open seats.
Two of the races have only one candidate on the ballot: Walker’s Point Center for the Arts executive director Marcela Garcia for the south side District 6 seat now held by Tony Baez; and recently retired Milwaukee Public Schools teacher Harry Leonard for the southwest District 7 seat held by Paula Phillips.
The north side District 4 seat is contested between Silver Spring Neighborhood Center Opportunity Youth Program Director Aisha Carr and North Side Rising organizer Dana Kelley.
Running for District 5 on the east side are Alex Brower, director of Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans; and Jilly Gokalgandhi, Equity in Education team member at American Family Insurance Institute.
Brower and Kelley, members of the Milwaukee chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are running on a socialist slate and are backed by the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA), the union for MPS staff.