David Boyle: Leftists attempt to take over Fairbanks School Board

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By DAVID BOYLE

The Oct. 3 Fairbanks school board election is critical for keeping parents in charge of their children. 

If the leftists win, Fairbanks will be getting a board that welcomes Critical Race Theory, DEI, and the belief that they know better than parents or guardians.  

The three leftist candidates are Bobby Burgess, Meredith Maple, and Tim Doran.

The moderate/conservative candidates are April Smith, Maggie Matheson, and Michael Humphrey.

And once again, money is flowing into the state from Outside interests to affect the election results. The leftist candidates have outraised the more moderate and conservative candidates by $40,819 to $26,547.

Much of the funding for the left-leaning candidates has come from the “Putting Alaskans First Committee,” which is funded mostly by government union PACs, including the NEA-PACE teachers union.  The contact person and treasurer is Joelle Hall of the Alaska AFL-CIO labor union.

Here is its most recent APOC report:

“Putting Alaskans First Committee” sounds like a good organization, right? But most of the funding for the “Putting Alaskans First Committee” comes from Outside Alaska organizations. Here is a quote from its website where it even says that “A majority of contributions … came from outside the state of Alaska”: 

“Paid for by the Putting Alaskans First Committee, 3333 Denali St. Ste. 125 Anchorage, AK 99503. I, Kim Hays, Chair approved this message. Top three contributors are UNITE AMERICA PAC of Denver, CO, LIUNA Political Fund of Washington, DC, and NEA Advocacy Fund of Washington, DC. This NOTICE TO VOTERS is required by Alaska law. I certify that this advertisement is not authorized, paid for, or approved by the candidate. A majority of contributions to Putting Alaskans First Committee came from outside the State of Alaska.”

Why do Outside organizations from Denver, Colo. and Washington, D.C. have such an interest in the Fairbanks school board election?  

Why are the campaigns of Burgess, Meredith, and Duran funded by these Outside interests?  

It appears as if the leftist candidates are running a pretender campaign, hiding the values they really represent. Their campaign pages are plain vanilla and say very little about their values and beliefs.

Do you want your children to be masked in class? Candidate Burgess would probably push to mask your children. If you had seen him at the latest school board meeting, that would have to be your conclusion:

April Smith is Burgess’ opponent and has opposed the masking of students and the closure of schools during the pandemic.  All three leftist candidates running now criticize her for that stance. Smith has also opposed Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies in the school district. Most of the opposition to April Smith has come from the transgender/gender identity community, which favors hiding a student’s gender transitioning from parents.

The conservative candidates are being attacked for their “focus on culture wars” and not academics, when in fact, the Left has brought the culture wars to the classroom in its attempts to indoctrinate our children. 

And their attempts to replace parents with radical leftist ideas have awakened mama bears.

The Fairbanks Education Association, which is the teachers’ union associated with the NEA, has endorsed Burgess, Doran, and Maple. That’s because the union believes the focus of schools should be on equity and inclusion and most of all, increased funding. The ABCs seem to be buried somewhere in their agenda.  

Even the radical environmental organization The Alaska Center (For the Environment) has endorsed the three leftist school board candidates.

Fairbanks voters, do you want these three teacher-union endorsed candidates negotiating union contracts and raising your taxes?

Burgess, who is running against incumbent April Smith, believes the only way to improve K-12 education is more funding. He believes the Alaska Reads Act is okay but there is not enough money to implement it. He quotes the usual “flat funding” complaint that the teacher’s union has pushed for the past few years, without acknowledging that extra funding is awarded to schools year after year, outside of the base student allocation.

Meredith Maple is running against Maggie Matheson.  She is married to Kell Gitter who was a female in 2013.  Here is a quote from article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 1, 2013: “Kelly Gitter’s shoelaces were frozen, and her socks were wet after she played for the first time in the Springfest Rugby Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the University of Alaska Fairbanks”. Having transitioned to a male, Gitter and her/his wife Maple are raising their adopted child.  

Meredith Maple states on her web site that “Pre-K programming not only prepares students for Kindergarten, but also improves their lives permanently. “  Apparently, Maple believes it is the responsibility of teachers to “program” children in their values, not parent’s values. 

Michael Humphrey is a conservative candidate running against Tim Doran. Tim Doran is currently on the board and is a retired teacher/principal.  Humphrey states on his website that, “Children have the right to be secure in their bathrooms and private spaces, in their sports, and in the values imparted to them by their parents without facing new values proposition from positions of authority at school.”

Humphrey also believes in the teaching of core subjects and a rigorous focus on academics.

So, it’s up to Fairbanks voters: Do you want boys who identify as girls to use girls’ bathrooms?

Fairbanks, do you believe a student’s pronoun usage and transgenderism should be hidden from parents?

Do you believe diversity, equity and inclusion are more important than teaching a child how to read?

You have a clear choice.

Here are the moderate/conservative candidates:  Michael Humphrey, April Smith, and Maggie Matheson.

Here are the leftist candidates: Bobby Burgess, Meredith Maple, and Tim Doran.

Remember, elections do have consequences. 

Electing these leftists will dramatically change the education of your children.  

You need to get out and vote.  

Vote for your children and grandchildren. They are depending on you!

David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.

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67 COMMENTS

  1. You may not like it, but the reality is the left is out working the right. Again.

    The left pours money in from outside. The right complains. Until the right gets serious about raising money and supporting candidates nationwide, this crap continues.

    • This is the comment I was looking for. April is great at complaining and posting paragraphs of nonsense on Facebook and then deleting it all day, but not great at outreach or fundraising. I hear about it afterwards not before, they aren’t putting in the work, I never see them in the community, I see Bobby and Tim everywhere I turn.

        • We need better options IMHO. We have the Three Angry Cows, Tammie, Maggie and April, clearly closeted gay Michael Humphries who spent his whole budget on a gender-panic inflatable walrus while marching his entire bedraggled family through town? Where are the leaders? Decision makers? People who look at our opponents and come up with a plan? It’s embarrassing to see all this flailing and it’s why a lot of us changed our affiliation to Independent. We are a young family still getting started or my husband would run, but something has to change.

          • “Three Angry Cows”. I’m sorry your parents failed in teaching you proper manners. I feel sorry for your kids’ future with that kind of temperament in your household. I do know if you were a student at FSD and opened your mouth like that in the classroom, the teachers would properly send you right to the principal’s office, no questions asked. Get a grip.

    • Sorry David, it’s not about “the left outworking the right”. It’s about the right outworking the right. CRT is not being taught in K-12. Most Democrats & Independents are smart enough to figure this out for themselves.

      Funny though, the mission statement of the Alaska Policy Forum is “OUR VISION IS AN ALASKA THAT CONTINUOUSLY GROWS PROSPERITY BY MAXIMIZING INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND FREEDOM”

      Yes. FREEDOM . Unfortunately, if it were up to the anti historical politicians like those that exist in Florida, history being taught in their schools is now a censored / altered version that professes the institution of slavery benefited African Americans.

      • You have no idea just how badly, how completely, and massively owned yourself.

        It was glorious to watch. You a graduate of the Biden School of Alternate Reality?

      • Its not just the CRT but the graphic queer porn that the left seems to be hooked on and is often found in the libraries of elementary and middle schools paid for by taxpayers.
        The school board would not allow these books to be read aloud at meetings during open public comment sessions because of the gross graphic content.
        Queer porn belongs in Adult bookstores! Not public funded elementary schools.
        Nothing but sick puppies pushing this BS.

    • I don’t know the first two, but I worked with Tim for a number of years and he’s very fair and hardworking, students really liked him because he was respectful, not a bully. I will be voting for him based on how he worked with difficult situations and because he listened to criticisms and made positive changes in how our workplace runs. I still work at Denali Elementary and people talk and ask about him, he’s a good person.

  6. Fairbanks you need to wake up and
    Stop these blurred vision snakes in the grass people or you will be in a constant state of confusion with the power hungry woke visions.

  7. This statement is a lie: “Most of the opposition to April Smith has come from the transgender/gender identity community, which favors hiding a student’s gender transitioning from parents.” Opposition to April Smith’s candidacy is widespread in the Fairbanks community. Different people have different objections to her as has been described in multiple letters to the editor, blog posts, TikTok videos, Community Perspectives, and at school board meetings and forums. Opposition focuses on: her right wing religious zealotry; her refusal to support comprehensive sex education; her continuous votes against acknowledging various history months; her refusal to lobby for funding from the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly; her support of a “controversial issues” policy that polices teachers’ speech; her push for the state to censor books both in school libraries and public libraries; her stated disdain for teachers; her false claims of indoctrination; her racist speech related to Alaska Native school children; her false claims about diversity initiatives; her false claims about critical race theory; and her solicitation of emails from outside her district to counter the Fairbanks’ community’s widespread endorsement of masking during the height of the pandemic. In this article, David Boyle makes some astounding leaps of logic, e.g. assuming without evidence that Bobby Burgess would be in favor of forced masking just because he chose to wear a mask during a school board meeting or that the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District would necessarily change its parental notification policy if Burgess, Maple, and Doran are elected.

    • Why would Mr. Burgess wear a mask to the Sept 5th school board meeting when there is virtually no covid in the area? If Mr. Burgess wears a mask when the chances of getting covid are extremely small, wouldn’t he then support the masking of students when there is more covid apparent in the community? Remember, it has been shown that wearing a mask does nothing to prevent the spread of covid. Was anyone else wearing a mask to that same board meeting? Were any of the current board members wearing masks at that same meeting?

      • Your APF professes FREEDOM. Yet you are somehow threatened by his FREEDOM to wear a mask where and when he wants. It’s really none of your business. Too bad so many faux Republicans want to get up in everyone’s business who don’t think and act like them.

        • He never claimed to be threatened. He just shared an informed opinion based upon experience. It is you that “wants to get up in everyone’s business who don’t think and act like them.”

          Knock it off, put your mask back on, and go back to your mouth breather exercises.

        • I get that he has the freedom to choose to wear a mask whenever. But most of us had no choice during the so-called pandemic. We were mandated to wear masks or stay home. BTW, do you believe Mr. Burgess will vote to mandate mask-wearing for students? Will he also mandate Covid vaccinations for students and staff? Does Mr Burgess wear a mask when he is driving his vehicle? And what the tarnation does APF have to even do with this article? Please explain your deflection. TY

          • I’m willing to bet my PFD that Bobby Burgess is into BDSM (masks are more and more a thing in that ‘community’ as it it’s seen as advertising your sexual kink) and that he has a hard drive full of CP. The way he dresses is childish, immature and colorful, the preferred costume of a practiced and overt pedofile. His preference is most likely pre pubescent boys, ages 6 to 12.

            I’m not trolling.

          • “I get that he has the freedom to choose to wear a mask whenever.”

            And yet your compulsion to “deflect” at every turn gets the better of you.

            It is sad having those like Fire (see above) living in said altered dimension.

        • I keep seeing this everywhere!! They are pretending to be patriotic and obsessed with freedom, but when the rubber hits the road they want **their own special agenda** enacted, just like the Libs!

          This is what people mean when they say there’s no difference between the two parties. Both of them are fighting tooth and nail to gain control of the government so they can enact their own special agendas— instead of giving power to the people and letting us decide for ourselves.

          When April Smith voted to take rights away from charter schools to years ago, she did so because she wanted to force her own special agenda upon them, and only when she got caught in the act and called out, by actual Patriots, did she tearfully claim that she “didn’t know what she was doing at the time”, with the issue is extremely black and white: do we let charter schools decide their own mask policies or do we force them to follow the school board?? April voted for them to be forced to follow the school board, because she thought that they would vote to allow mask choice, which they didn’t, so instead she was exposing our charter schools to control of the school board. It cannot be overstated what an egregious overstepping of government that was and April Smith herself did it, or tried to with help from Maggie Mattheson, her little weed-vaping voting companion who doesn’t pay attention enough to serve as either a check or a balance for April Smith.

          We need to get rid of both of them, women of their stature do not belong in positions of power, especially when they have already shown themselves to be pushing their own special agenda instead of enabling freedom upon everybody.

      • Or maybe he was covid positive? I was covid positive last week and wore a mask because I know lots of unvaccinated elderly people.

          • He’s wearing a mask, which is the same thing my surgeon wore when he replaced my right ventricle. I think you’re going to be fine. George, calm down.

      • You didn’t provide enough information for us to know the answers to these questions either. You are hoping to stir up fear instead which is not how we will win this election. Tell us why he is a worse candidate with reasons, not blind conjecture. This article is an embarrassing Boomer rant with no substance.

      • If you had done even the littlest research you would know he wore a mask because he was ill and didn’t want to spread his germs. You know, showing concern for others.

    • I don’t like the way April lies. I see her do it on Facebook, she did it at the school board when she tried to get control of charter schools during covid. Remember that? She hasn’t addressed that, and I don’t trust a person who says one thing and does another thing. She voted to take power from charter schools, which was the whole reason they were invented, and then she spent a whole two meetings claiming she didn’t mean it that way but she already voted that way, it was just deemed a bad vote. Saw her true colors that time because she started crying and everything, it was so fake. Charter schools want autaonomy and that’s the whole point, someone who wants to grab power like that I am wary of.

        • That’s great. But we’re talking about the local borough election and so far the Republican candidates have done almost no fundraising, no door knocking. I haven’t seen any signs bigger than a dinner plate, so if you have anything to add about our local community and how we need to work together that would be great.

          Your obsession with an old man possibly smelling children almost ten years ago is getting strange.

          • And the image they keep bringing up is one of a loving grandfather kissing the top of his granddaughter’s head to comfort her at her father’s funeral, but they’re ok with the last president saying if his daughter wasn’t his daughter he’d probably be dating her. This is simply another deflection away from the topic at hand, i.e. local elections, because they can’t put up a roster of viable candidates.

    • Sine Anahita, (Martha)
      You are have been coordinating a large, nonstop, campaign of ABUSE, LIES, HARRASSMENT and GANG STALKING against April Smith and her family since even before she elected to the school board. Every single person in this borough sees you do it on a daily basis. The genetic sub humans, like yourself Martha, cheer it on and revel in the putrid filth you spew. But you have a alot of decent people who are disgusted by you and afraid of you, just like you intend and enjoy because you are a BULLY and an ABUSER.
      I’m not afraid of you, Martha.
      I’m not afraid of jail either. I’ve been there a few times.
      Hold onto that thought.

  8. Seems appropriate that the individual amount of the Outside donations from ‘Blueprint Interactive’ of Virgina included the numbers 666… 😈

  9. Michael Humphrey’s campaign finance report notes a flurry of Outside donors who donated money in the days immediately following his entry of the inflatable walrus float for the Golden Days Parade. I assume that these donations–20 in all–came from his plea on X/Twitter for money from Outsiders after his endorsement by Matt Walsh.
    ‘https://aws.state.ak.us/ApocReports/IndependentExpenditures/IEForms.aspx

    • He only got a few likes and shares on that post, by other low-profile users, and Matt Walsh never reposted or acknowledged him in any way. I think he was hoping someone on the National level would take note of his stunt, but nope.

      He perhaps is too small, both literally and figuratively, to take note of.

  10. The trolls are out in force on this one. Understand, when you are a radical leftist everyone who won’t lick your boots is a “right-wing religious extremist”. Ignore the labels from the trolls. Michael, April, and Maggie are running because they care about kids and academic instruction. Their opponents care about woke social engineering and fat pay raises. April cried at that meeting because she was threatened by evil people trying to bully their evil agenda on a school board that didn’t understand that they were fighting the devil. My soon-to-be daughter in-law is a teacher in the FNSB SD – they were offered a 1% pay raise. Admin got more, I don’t know the exact figure. Where is all the money going? Certainly not to maintenance! Why is the NEA pushing alt-left policies and instruction and downplaying academics? Margaret Thatcher had it correctly: “Socialism is wonderful until you run out of other people’s money to spend.” Why do communist-run countries around the world shun the alphabet agenda? Because even Vladimir Putin understands that no culture in history has survived the open approval of alphabet behaviors. Fairbanks, we’re the latest battlefield in the war to destroy America. We can’t afford the cost of the communist agenda and we can’t afford the cost of throwing away another generation of our children. The NEA tells their members that their agenda is pay raises and less work while downplaying their social agenda. Liars. Why are so many unions trying to destroy America – and kill the goose that laid the golden egg doing it? Good teachers should be paid well – but remember you are servants of the parents and charged with educating our children with skills and abilities that will make them productive citizens, not self-centered idiots dependent on government largess to survive. Please vote for Michael Humphries, April Smith, and Maggie Matheson – good people who put kids and their parents first. Sign me “Taxed Enough Already”, and pissed off at the way they spend and waste it. Perhaps we parents should organize a protest at the Fairbanks NEA office…

    • Respectfully, we don’t know anything about most of the “conservatives” because they don’t have any information online. Vague platitudes don’t win elections anymore than complaining on Facebook, or posting nothing at all like some of the assembly members. April posts that she supports paying teachers more, then posts a quote from 2 years ago when she said they don’t deserve more money, the very next day. She’s a watchdog for parents, but we should trust teachers? Maggie has said nothing! I know next to nothing about her! No one has any plans or anything other than gender panic and fear. It’s such a shame when we have all these people homeschooling and doing so well, we have so much new and budding info and tech that we could bring to the school board. I’m not even sure I will support this years “conservative” candidates across the board because of lack of action in the past.

  12. I hope Fairbanks stays true to its independence from depravity from afar! Why should Fairbanks become submissive order takers from afar also.

      • Google has you with the Alaska Policy Forum. In the past APF was funded by outside money, Donors Capital Fund. Are you not trying to influence the Fairbanks School Board election? So are you not a hypocrite doing the same as the left?

        • I would also like to point out that I looked up David Boyle and he is not ever lived in Fairbanks. Have you ever been to Fairbanks, David? It looks like you got 5% of the vote when you ran for school board in Anchorage, what makes you an expert on Fairbanks?

        • I haven’t been with the Alaska Policy Forum since 2017–6 years ago. I am not a hypocrite. And all 501c3s have the legal right to not disclose donors. So, do not trust Google. And in the past, the APF was funded by mostly small donors in Alaska. Unlike the teachers unions that send most of their members’ mandated dues money to Washington, DC. Did you also know that the NEA is the big push behind hiding gender transitioning students from parents? Why is that? Check this out for the facts: https://mustreadalaska.com/nea-pushes-transgender-identity-agenda-in-alaska/

  14. Local contributions can never keep up with the unlimited funds put up by outsiders grooming our state as a sick hobby. More people need to research the candidates rather than the advertising. Or we should localize local elections. Local contributions only would be a fair approach. Outside interests have been running our state long enough.

    • That’s why the right needs to set up a similar funding mechanism.

      Like it or not, out of state influence isn’t going anywhere.

      • It’s funny you say that the guy who wrote this article has a full-time job for the Alaska policy forum which is a special interest group that is funded by dark money. You really can’t make this stuff up. The question is who paid David to write this?? Was it the lady also from Anchorage who moved to Florida 3 years ago and has been running this site from Florida? Or is it April Smith desperate in a bid to somehow win over! Moderates despite her meltdowns and tantrums in the last couple years?

        • Bill, Bill, get the facts straight. I was a full-time volunteer for 9 years with the Alaska Policy Forum. Have you ever volunteered full-time for 9 years or more? And best of all, no one paid me to write this article. I do my own research just as I did before. I write on K12 education issues because I love our Nation, our State, and all kids. Maybe we could sit down for a cup of coffee and discuss issues/policies and how to fix our broken K12 system.

    • More than likely cant be voted out due to the endless supply of outside stolen dark money (krypto scam)
      Best option is private schools. That is the only way to know they are safe from the peds.

  16. Tim Doran, give it up. You had your days in the sun. You’re an old man who needs to let someone else serve on the school board.

  18. During Covid , some Administrator from the teachers union got up with no medical background and announced the schools were closing in Fairbanks . I was astonished at her comments and lack of expertise . Totally a political move on the Fairbanks NorthStar Borough to fall in line with lower 48 . I am thinking , this is not why we live here . This gal was more than a spokesman and it was her decision . Looking back it was a horrid decision .

    Our Grandkids are in private school in Fairbanks and they did not close . I asked my eight year old Granddaughter how school was going at Christmas . She said fine . I asked her anyone got sick or died at school and she said, no . The kids had sores around mouth like acne and she commented on that and did not like the masks .

    So next time ask an eight year old not some lower 48 transplant administrator from the school district . The May get the right answer . Crazy , nutty times . Now trying to put some more leftist in with outside funding . Thanks for exposing this !

  19. Civil war anyone. ??? One way and the only way to clear up this mess. It’s all so simple. God, family, country if the first 2 fail at your house then our country is a loss. If your kids identify as a cat you have lost all 3. The freak show we live in currently is amazing. It won’t last much longer.

  20. We are for Truth. We live in Fairbanks. The excellent David Boyle piece was right on. No person could have presented the case for Fairbanks better. Boyle investigated and did his research well. We also agree with Rich Thorne, Trig and Doug Glenn’s comments. Their observations were beneficial. They learned how to think not what they should think. Please pray for this election.

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