One local candidate running for Reno City Council Ward 5 Tara Webster sent an email expressing frustration to Mario Fitzpatrick from the Washoe Education Association Board of Directors after he indicated the WEA decided to endorse another candidate.
In her email shared with local media, Webster wrote: “May I ask what qualifications WEA was looking for in an endorsable candidate? I am the only Ward 5 candidate who is a K-12 educator, actively engaged in education outreach, and who has pursued a doctorate in Education. I am also the only current candidate at large in Northern Nevada advocating for early childhood education, who fought to open a pre-k school in Northwest Reno that serves low-income learners.
As a strong advocate for public K-12 education, I am concerned that two WEA-endorsed candidates and one interviewee received donations from Academica, a funder of Mater Charter Schools whose expansion was recently opposed by WCSD. Further, K-12 charter schools threaten public education funding, historically segregate already marginalized communities, and were recently reported to be underperforming across Nevada. “
Our Town Reno previously looked into Academica donations to Kurt Thigpen who was running for Assembly District 24 before dropping out. We noted that Academica Nevada, part of the Academica charter school management company giant which administers more than half of Nevada’s 55,000 charter school students, while Thigpen has been a member of the Nevada State Public School Charter Authority since an appointment in 2022.
In that Substack post we also noted “the Washoe County School District recently expressed concerns over one of the Academica schools Mater Academy of Northern Nevada receiving unanimous approval from the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority to open a second facility in Golden Valley, saying it could be detrimental to tax-funded public schools.”
In her own email from today, Webster wrote “I would be remiss to not acknowledge that another candidate with an education background, Lily Baran (Ward 1), was not provided accommodations to interview and was overlooked for endorsement over her non-educator opponent.”
She concluded, “If either myself or my peer are missing key qualifications based on our attached applications and interviews, or are not connected to the right people, I want to ensure we can work towards meeting WEA's expectations in the future. “
In follow up texts to Our Town Reno, Webster wrote she's taught educators across the US, Costa Rica, Cambodia and was a guest for that in China, has taught everything from k through college, wrote papers on topics spanning trauma in education to ocean diversity, and even had dinner with acclaimed science communicator Bill Nye on several occasions.
Our Town Reno wrote Fitzpatrick for a response but did not hear back.