Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Candidates have begun to file for the six Omaha school board seats up for election this fall.
To date, three challengers and two incumbents have filed with the Douglas County Election Commission.
The 12-member board is set for its largest turnover in 30 years after four incumbents — Mary Ellen Drickey, Sandra Jensen, Kersten Borer and Nancy Huston — decided not to seek re-election.
The deadline for incumbents to file was Wednesday. Everyone else has until March 1 to file.
James English, 67, a retired teacher, will challenge Freddie Gray, who is seeking re-election, for her Subdistrict 2 seat in northeast Omaha.
He has spent much of his adult life working for OPS.
English served in teaching and assistant principal positions at Technical High School and Monroe, Morton and Bancroft Junior High Schools and worked for the district's adult high school program. He retired from the district in 1995 but has continued to tutor children privately in math.
He said he wants to serve on the school board to help ensure that every child in Omaha gets a quality education.
This is English's third recent attempt at public office. In 2009, he unsuccessfully ran for the Omaha City Council. In 2010, he also unsuccessfully ran for a spot on the Omaha Public Power District board.
Danyelle Baratta works for the reEnergize Program in Omaha and Lincoln, a U.S. Department of Energy grant-funded program administered by the City of Omaha.
She is running for the open Subdistrict 8 seat representing southeast Omaha. Drickey, who has been on the board since 1996, currently holds the seat.
Baratta, 33, graduated from Omaha Central High in 1996. She studied management at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and by May, she expects to finish an online master's degree in business administration in sustainability from Marylhurst University.
Baratta said she's running because she wants to take a bigger role in her community. In a few years, her 10-month-old son will enroll in an OPS elementary school.
She said she wants to help the district boost its test scores and learn more about how OPS spends its money.
Incumbent board member Mary Morrissey is the only candidate to file so far for the Subdistrict 6 seat representing a portion of southeast Omaha.
Previously, Omaha attorney Randi Scott filed for the Subdistrict 12 seat in northwest Omaha, which will be left open by Jensen's departure from the board.
Contact the writer:
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