3rd WL school board member selected in highly contested race

John Robinson won the third available seat on the West Lafayette Community School Corporation school board Wednesday morning, defeating incumbent Dacia Mumford by a margin of 98 votes. This information became available Wednesday at 1:46 p.m. following the count of 1,847 absentee ballots.

Incumbent Laurence Wang and newcomer Maria Koliantz held commanding leads Tuesday night, but Robinson and Mumford remained closely matched.

The Tippecanoe County Election Board released election night results at 9:22 p.m. Tuesday before reconvening at 9 a.m. Wednesday to continue counting ballots. The election board released remaining absentee votes at a meeting at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Robinson, a computer science professor at Purdue, will join Koliantz in serving his first term on the board. Wang, who is the board’s acting vice president, was reelected to a second term.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Wang said his priorities for his second term include maintaining the district’s excellent academic standing, ensuring financial accountability and improving communication with the community.

“Communication should go both ways,” Wang said. “Schools should share more information and also solicit feedback, comments, suggestions from our communities, especially when we make big decisions.”

Koliantz said she hopes to foster a greater sense of unity among board members in her first term. A fractured board, she said, can affect the perception of a district, even making it less attractive to prospective teachers or families.

In order to combat this, Koliantz said, board members need to act on common interests.

“I do think we all bring different things to the table, and we all have the kids’ best interest in mind, so we’re just getting there from a different direction,” Koliantz said. “Ultimately, when a vote is called, we need to all get behind it, whether it went our way or not, and trust that the kids’ best interest is what we all had in mind.”

Robinson, who will also be serving his first term, supports alternative pathways for non-traditional students.

“Like 90% of the students who graduate from Westside go to a college,” Robinson said. “I just want to make sure that the 10% are set up the best they possibly can.”

He pointed to current partnerships between the Greater Lafayette Career Academy and West Lafayette High School as a step in the right direction. These programs have eligible 11th and 12th graders enroll in career education programs.

Alongside the school board election, voters also approved a property tax referendum by a margin of approximately 70% to 30%.

The referendum is intended to offset expected reductions in school funding resulting from changes to Indiana’s property tax laws. The West Lafayette school board has estimated that Indiana’s property tax cuts could result in a $1.6 million annual decrease in revenue.

The measure authorizes a maximum tax rate of 57.06 cents per $100 of assessed property value for up to eight years.

The measure passed by a smaller margin than the district’s previous operating referendum in 2023, which, according to Koliantz, boasted approximately 80% support.

“I think there’s just a lot of uncertainty with, wait, why is it back on the ballot after only three years?” Koliantz said.

Wang said the passing of the referendum makes financial transparency particularly important.

He acknowledged concerns from parents about where newfound tax revenue would be spent, and said the district should seek greater community input on issues such as these.

“We want our community to understand what’s going on, how we use that money for students in the classroom,” Wang said.