Voters in West Ada’s Zone 3 picked a new face with an inclusive voice, after the district received national attention this year for ordering a teacher to remove a poster featuring multiracial hands and the words, “Everyone Is Welcome Here.”

Teacher Meghan Brown took a decisive victory over incumbent Angie Redford, earning more than 60% of the vote Tuesday.

In Zone 1, Board chair Lori Frasure fought off challenger Dara Ezzell-Pebworth, a social worker. Frasure won with 54% of the vote.

Brown told EdNews her victory shows that West Ada School District leadership made a mistake by ordering teacher Sarah Inama to remove the poster from her classroom.

“Now they’re trying to be heard,” Brown said of West Ada voters. “And I hope everyone is paying attention.”

She said her volunteers knocked on over 1,000 homes in the past two weeks.

“It was a big volunteer effort,” Brown said.

In a Zoom call with reporters at 7 p.m., Secretary of State Phil McGrane said statewide turnout was about 21%. Blaine County had the highest turnout, at 47%, heading into the final hour of voting .

Results are unofficial and collected from county websites and VoteIdaho.gov.

EdNews followed 15 notable races in seven school districts. Winners are shown in bold:

West Ada

Zone 1: Incumbent Lori Frasure (54.3%); social worker Dara Ezzell-Pebworth (45.6%).

Zone 3: Incumbent Angie Redford (32.8%); teacher Meghan Brown (61.2%).

The two challengers, Ezzell-Pebworth and Brown, support inclusion and oppose private school tax credits. The incumbents, Frasure and Redford, are running on strong academic results and fiscal responsibility. They both declined to attend a League of Women Voters forum in October.

School board races are nonpartisan, but the races have taken on partisan tones as the incumbents embraced conservative endorsements and the two challengers received support from a liberal PAC.

Political action committees on both sides of the aisle spent a total of $15,000 to support or oppose the candidates.

The Idaho Majority Club, a PAC that supports limited government and a focus on families, spent $5,578 on mailers to support Frasure and $4,008 to support Redford, a total of $9,586. The PAC this year received a $85,000 contribution from Make Highways Great Again LLC, based in Cheyenne, Wyo.

On the other side, Idaho Students First PAC spent a total of $5,453 on mailers to support Ezzell-Pebworth and Brown and oppose the two incumbents. The PAC last year received a $20,000 donation from the National Education Association Advocacy Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based super PAC associated with the nation’s largest teachers’ union.

A third Zone 3 candidate, Anna Marie Young, appeared on the ballot, but dropped out of the race to support Brown.

Nampa

Zone 4: Incumbent Brook Taylor (59.4%); retired teacher Andy Kersten (40.5%).

Zone 5: Substitute teacher Lauralyn Salinas (59.6%); retired teacher George Halladay (40.3%).

Two retired teachers from California lost their races in Nampa.

Incumbent Taylor won a second term against Kersten, a retired educator with 33 years of experience as a teacher and administrator in California’s Central Valley.

The incumbent in Zone 5 did not seek re-election. Salinas, a farmer and substitute teacher, defeated Halladay, a retired educator from California who wanted to ban cellphones and harden graduation requirements.

Read our candidate profiles here.

Pocatello-Chubbuck

Zone 1: Incumbent Meghan Furniss (50.07%); Cami Ellis (49.93%).

Zone 2: Incumbent Heather Clarke (63.6%); Douglas Johnson (36.4%).

Zone 3: Incumbent Deanna Judy (58.8%); former trustee Dave Mattson (41.1%).

All Pocatello-Chubbuck incumbents won re-election.

The Idaho State Journal covered an Oct. 7 candidate forum. Read their coverage here.

Coeur d’Alene

Zone 1: Incumbent Rick Rasmussen (61.2%); Veterans Affairs employee Michael Burns (38.8%).

Zone 4: Incumbent Lesli Bjerke (87.3%); write-in candidate Tom Sanner (7.8%).

Rasmussen was appointed in July and now won a four-year term. He had the support of North Idaho Republicans PAC, while Burns received support from the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.

Incumbent Bjerke defeated write-in Sanner, who said he thinks the school board is not listening to constituents. The North Idaho Republicans and Kootenai County Republicans spent a combined $1,973 to support Bjerke. Read our candidate profiles here.

Post Falls

Zone 1: Incumbent Neil Uhrig (58.7%); educator Brad Harmon (41.3%).

Zone 5: Stay-at-home mom Kelli Johnson (76.1%); Thomas Barrett Jr. (23.9%).

Board Chair Uhrig, a former Post Falls police officer who currently does digital forensics for the U.S. Secret Service, won re-election.

Johnson, a stay-at-home mom with a background in special education, defeated Barrett, who said he hoped to use his business acumen to help the district. Read our candidate profiles here.

Kuna

Zone 3: Incumbent Kyrsti Bruce (52.2%); Brenda Drake Blitman (47.8%).

Zone 4: Brian Shjerve (27.9%); Freddy Wheeler (72.1%).

Bruce, who describes herself as the parental voice on the board, won a second term in Zone 3 against Blitman, who has 30 years of experience in finance.

In Zone 4, newcomer Wheeler, an attorney and pest control business owner, handily beat Shjerve.

Wheeler wants to embrace growth in the changing community and make sure it’s done right. He received support from the Building Contractors Association of SW Idaho, Building Industry Group PAC and the Idaho Majority Club.

Read our coverage of a candidate Q&A event here.

Lakeland

Zone 4: Incumbent David Quimby (61.3%); robotics engineer Chris Beaty (38.7%).

Zone 5: Restaurant owner Allison Burnett (48.7%); business owner Jeff Brodhead (51.3%).

Lakeland recently faced budget cuts, a failed supplemental levy, subsequent levy passage, and continued tension on the board. Quimby won re-election. Brodhead was endorsed by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. Read our candidate profiles here.