In complete but unofficial election results on Saturday, Denton ISD school board incumbent Patsy Sosa-Sanchez held onto her Place 7 seat. PTA member, pediatric nurse and mom Lori Tays won the Place 6 seat that will be vacated by the long-serving Jim Alexander, who is stepping away from the school board after decades of service.
Place 6 attracted more candidates in this year’s race. Business owner Charlie Stinson returned to the ring after losing his bid to unseat Place 5 incumbent Charles Stafford in the 2022 election. But Stinson didn’t pack up and head back to manage millions in his supply chain company. He joined the citizen advisory committee for the 2023 bond election, which sought to borrow $1.4 billion, and he joined the district’s safety and security committee. Tays threw her hat in the ring, planning to divide her time between raising two children, working as a pediatric emergency room nurse and for the district as a PTA volunteer. Retired professor and grandmother Terry Senne also joined the race for Alexander’s post.
Of the 17,081 ballots cast, Tays garnered 53% with 9,111 votes. Senne took 32% with 5,458 and Stinson had 15% with 2,512 votes.
“I’m in awe, because when I decided to run for this position, I just wanted to help children,” Tays said. “And so I’m so grateful for my community that has stood behind me and recognize that my only intentions were to help our children and to help our teachers.”
Tays said she owes a big part of her win to her husband, who “took over my life and took the kids to all their activities and picked them up from school so I could focus on being the best candidate and on doing my job.”
Stinson and Senne couldn’t be reached for comment Saturday evening.
Place 7 drew one opponent to Sosa-Sanchez, a career educator with expertise in dual-language learning and teacher preparation. Business owner and mom Carolyn Rachaner opposed Sosa-Sanchez.
Of the 17,040 ballots cast in the Place 7 race, Sosa-Sanchez won with 60% (10,276 votes) and Rachaner finished with 40% of the vote, or 6,764 ballots.
“I have to credit my constituents,” Sosa-Sanchez said. “And my team that were very close to me and that was able to guide me and encouraged me, and stood by me through thick and thin, literally.”
Sosa-Sanchez said she thinks her campaign was successful because her focus is on the students.
“My team remembered and kept me focused on the fact that the race was not about me. The race was about the improvement of public education, and keeping public education as an equitable opportunity for all learners. And I’m so grateful for that.”
Sosa-Sanchez called the race “nerve-wracking,” as she faced an opponent with a large base of support.
“Even to the moment it has been nerve-wracking,” she said. “But the fact that we focused on the betterment of the district, focused on the needs of the students and not the deficiencies was, I think, essential.”
Sosa-Sanchez said that as she campaigned, she saw support from the families she served in her days as a teacher in the bilingual program, and that parents of students who have gone on to get graduate degrees signaled their support.
“I ran because our children deserve the best,” she said. “Not only in leadership, but the best support, the best mentoring, the best education, the best of everything. One of the things that I learned as an educator is that it’s not only about the academics, it’s about teaching a child holistically.
“When you dismiss a child’s feelings in a classroom, or in public education, you’re dismissing the child as a whole because you have already told the child your feelings don’t matter here but you still have to learn.”
Reached Saturday night, Rachaner said she was disappointed in the outcome of the election, but will continue to press for change in the school district.
“I’m disappointed, but that’s OK,” she said. “I had 40% of the vote. As somebody who, you know, is my first time running for anything, doing anything politically — so to get 40% of the vote, I think, speaks volumes about the fact that parents have some serious concerns about things here going on in the district.”
Rachaner campaigned in part about parental concerns regarding library books that some say are unsuitable for students due to sexually explicit and violent content. Over the past two years, she has joined parents in submitting challenges to about five titles. When her challenge to a graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was shared on social media, Rachaner said she received threats to herself and her family, as well as being unfairly branded as homophobic and transphobic.
“That the district chose to interfere to some degree by releasing private parent-to-school communications that led to a good amount of that negative, false information being spread about me — that’s really disappointing to me that the district would get themselves involved in a campaign like this,” she said.
Material reconsideration forms used to challenge library materials are public records and can be obtained through open-records requests.
Rachaner said, for now, she will continue working for change as an activist.
“I think the results speak for themselves, in terms of hopefully they wake the district up to the fact that parents are not happy and that we want to see change,” she said.
“I’ve been heavily involved on the activist side of things for two-and-a-half years now, and will continue to be so. If the board is not where God wants me and where God has called me to be for this season of my life, I’m completely fine with being on the activist side, and I’m just grateful that I took a leap of faith and ventured out.”
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LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and via Twitter at @LBreedingDRC.
