Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of candidate profiles Idaho Education News will publish ahead of the May 19 primary election. We’re highlighting competitive races impacting education policy. Click here to see our Elections webpage featuring a list of all candidates and much more. Click here to see your voter information. Follow our elections blog for breaking news and insights.

District 16 is poised to have another public education advocate in House Seat A to replace outgoing Rep. Soñia Galaviz.

The Boise Democrat and school teacher is leaving the House for a run in the Senate to replace Sen. Ali Rabe, who is not seeking re-election in the reliably blue district.

Two young Democrats with backgrounds in education will face off in the May primary for the House seat. The victor will face Republican Jackie Davidson in November.

Jeffrey Watkins is a West Ada public school teacher and union leader who says the Legislature is preventing Idahoans from achieving the Idaho dream. He has some thoughts on the district and state response to the “Everyone is Welcome Here” poster controversy last year.

Megan Woller is the executive director of the Idaho Head Start Association. She wants to be the Legislature’s champion for early childhood education and said lawmakers are focusing too much on culture war issues.

Woller appears to have support of establishment Democrats. The campaigns of House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel and Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow have contributed to Woller’s campaign.

As of April 7, Woller has raised $9,515 through 44 contributions. Watkins has raised $4,530 in 32 contributions, according to data in Idaho Sunshine.

The candidates say they would have different strategies for getting work done as a Democrat in a Republican supermajority.

Woller says her 14 years of experience in the nonprofit sector will come in handy if she’s elected to the Legislature.

As executive director of the Idaho Head Start Association, she reports to 10 board members, each with different personalities and priorities.

“Exercising diplomacy and negotiation skills is something that I already do in my line of work,” she said.

Woller said she grew up in a working class family in rural Emmett. Her father worked in construction and mining, and she’s a second-generation Mexican American on her mother’s side. Her grandparents were migrant farm workers and her grandma Consuelo sorted potatoes for Simplot.

From a young age, she said she had a sense of justice for disenfranchised groups, which manifested into her nonprofit career.

Head Start is a federal program that President Lyndon Johnson created as part of the War on Poverty. Woller said the program uses a “two-generation approach.” It provides early education and preschool to kids, as well as services for parents.

“It really helps the whole family with a hand up,” she said.

Even though she’s never been elected, Woller has some legislative experience. She substituted for Rabe, D-Boise, last year while on maternity leave. This year, she substituted briefly for Rep. Anne Haws, also D-Boise.

“I have existing relationships through that and through the advocacy work that I’ve done in this and other nonprofit roles,” Woller said.

If elected, Woller said she wants to become the champion in the Legislature for early childhood education and would supplement the work that K-12 advocates are already doing.

There are vast societal and economic benefits of early education for every Idahoan, she said, whether or not they have young kids.

“When kids are prepared before they enter the K-12 system, they do that much better,” Woller said.

In an interview the day before the end of the legislative session, Woller said she thinks lawmakers this year put too much attention on culture war issues. She said the transgender bathroom bill and flag bill that prompted the city of Boise to remove its pride flag exemplify government overreach.

“It seems the opposite of small government,” she said.

Woller said she has big dreams but is also practical and realistic.

As a Democrat in a Republican supermajority, she said she would negotiate and keep an open mind to find some good things that the GOP is doing. She would try to collaborate across the aisle.

“I want to do that and show that I am collaborative and a team player,” Woller said. “I think that little by little, that earns people’s trust and buy in.”

Woller, 32, said she always thought she would run for office but not until she would be closer to 50. Her experience as a substitute in the Legislature expedited her decision to run.

“I’ve come to realize that our Legislature needs younger voices,” Woller said. “We need the voices of families that are raising kids today.”

Watkins said Idaho delivered on its promise when he was growing up, but that’s changed.

His parents were well-paid at Micron, he received a quality public education and had access to good healthcare. Now, he said the Legislature is trying to prevent as many as possible from getting “the Idaho dream.”

“Many of the people that I’ve spoken to on the campaign trail see the Idaho Legislature as their No. 1 obstacle to living a good life,” Watkins told EdNews.

If elected, Watkins said he would work to strengthen the rights of unions, fully fund Medicaid, halt the growth of school vouchers and protect immigrants and LGBTQ+ Idahoans. But he’s aware of how much a Democrat can accomplish in a Republican supermajority.

He said he would take a multi-pronged approach as a minority member. He would build relationships and negotiate behind the scenes while also being “incredibly vocal” to the media, constituents and in committee meetings about the real harm that bills would cause.

“We should be fiercely critical of poor legislation,” Watkins said. “This year, I feel like Democrats are doing a much better job of that.”

Watkins is a science teacher at Meridian Academy, a nontraditional public high school that is a part of West Ada School District. He is active in the teachers’ union, serving as the high school director of the West Ada Education Association. He clarified at the beginning of the interview that he was speaking as a candidate and that his opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the union.

He regularly attends the district’s school board meetings and wears glasses with rainbow colors.

Rainbows have been an issue in West Ada School District over the past year. District leaders last year ordered a middle school teacher to remove two posters from her classroom, one that read “Everyone is Welcome Here” and another with words of affirmation in rainbow colors. The move was in response to a bill regulating flags and banners in schools.

While Watkins was frustrated at West Ada’s response to the posters, he said the district was doing what state lawmakers required. He said his contempt is directed toward the Idaho Legislature.

“This is especially fresh today for me, with the passing of the bathroom bill and the passing of the anti-flag bill, and just the constant attacks on our LGBTQ+ community,” Watkins said in an interview last week.

EdNews asked Watkins if anyone in the district has asked him to remove his rainbow glasses. He didn’t answer directly but said he once wore the glasses and a pride pin to an Idaho Education Association lobby day. Social media users criticized a photo of him. At the next school board meeting, Watkins said a trustee approached him, provided their phone number and told Watkins to call if that happened again so they could shut it down. He didn’t name the trustee.

“I don’t know that other teachers would even know to think that they’d have an ally in the school board that would come to bat for them,” he said.

On the work that unions accomplish, Watkins said the West Ada union response to the classroom poster issue led to a better district policy on removing flags and banners.

In addition, he said unions have helped in a lot of advocacy cases where teachers reported something that was harmful to a student, but the direct supervisor did not address it properly. He said that’s where union representation is important.

“If you don’t have the support of the association, if you don’t know that you have an organization at your back ready to protect you from retribution potentially, are you going to have that courage to whistle blow on your boss?” Watkins said.

Watkins, 28, said he is frequently the youngest person at political events. He said that drives him to stay involved.

“I do really appreciate running as a young person, because young people right now have much different pressures on them than the age demographics that are more likely to be represented by our current Legislature,” he said.