Five candidates are in the race for seats on the Forest Hills Board of Education.
Up for grabs are three seats, two of which are currently held by politically conservative members Bob Bibb and Sara Jonas. Neither is seeking reelection.
The other seat was held by fellow conservative Katie Stewart, who resigned from the school Board earlier this year when she moved out of the district. Current member Mark Bell was appointed to the Board to replace her.
Bibb, Jonas, Stewart, and former member Linda Hausfeld campaigned together in 2021 on an anti-Critical Race Theory platform as the "Four for Forest Hills." Hausfeld's two-year term ended in 2024. She did not run for reelection.
After the four were elected, they immediately brought culture war issues to the forefront, voting to ban diversity initiatives and programs, and engaging in political spats with community members in the district.
In 2023, voters in the district elected two liberal college professors to the Board, Wendy Strickler Biederman and Jason Simmons, who campaigned on a social justice platform.
Now, voters will decide what direction the Board of Education will go next. School board races in Ohio are nonpartisan, but all candidates in this race have received party endorsements.
Hamilton County Democrats have endorsed candidates Jeff Nye, Jeremy Ward, and Erin Walczewski.
The Hamilton County GOP endorsed candidates Mark Bell, Forest Heis, and Jodi Harding. Harding suspended her campaign in September after two separate incidents where sheriff deputies were called to her home for alleged underage drinking were brought to light.
WVXU reached out to all of the candidates on the ballot and asked each of them to answer the same three questions. Responses are presented alphabetically below. Answers have only been edited for style and clarity.
Mark Bell
The school board in recent years has been defined by political and ideological disputes. How can the new board overcome this and find some common ground?
In recent years, the school board has too often been consumed by political and ideological disputes. That has taken energy and attention away from what matters most — providing the best education and opportunities for our students. I believe the way forward is to keep our focus on common ground. Every parent, regardless of their politics, wants their child to learn in safe classrooms, have access to great teachers, and be prepared for the future. As a board member, I make decisions based on facts, financial responsibility, and student outcomes — not partisan agendas. I also believe in respectful engagement, even with those who disagree with me, because when we listen first and look for solutions together, we can rebuild trust and create a healthier culture. Our community deserves a board that models collaboration, steadiness, and accountability rather than conflict.
FHSD has received high ratings for its academic achievement. How can the school board help maintain this success while remaining fiscally responsible long-term?
Forest Hills has earned high ratings for academic achievement, and that success is worth protecting. At the same time, we must do so in a way that is fiscally sustainable over the long term. My professional background in finance gives me the skills to evaluate budgets and forecasts with a critical eye. I believe the board must prioritize investments that directly impact student learning — things like classroom resources, teacher support, and evidence-based academic programs. At the same time, we must continually review administrative and overhead costs to ensure we remain one of the most efficient districts in the state. Long-term planning is also critical: addressing aging facilities, preparing for changing student needs, and ensuring financial transparency for taxpayers. When we make smart financial decisions grounded in accountability and sustainability, we create the conditions for continued academic excellence without placing an unfair burden on our community.
Are there areas where you think the district isn’t doing enough for students, teachers, and/or the school community?
Forest Hills is a strong district, but like any district, we have areas where we can do better. One of those areas is student support. As the parent of a child with Rett Syndrome, I’ve seen firsthand the value of inclusion and the importance of providing strong support services for students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Our teachers do incredible work, but we can give them more tools and training to meet the diverse needs in today’s classrooms — from special education to mental health challenges. Another area for improvement is communication and transparency. Families need clear, consistent information from the board, and they need to feel that their voices are heard and valued. By strengthening support for students and teachers while rebuilding trust with parents and the community, we can ensure that Forest Hills doesn’t just maintain its success but continues to grow stronger for every child.
Forest Heis
Heis did not respond to repeated requests to participate.
Jeff Nye
The school board in recent years has been defined by political and ideological disputes. How can the new board overcome this and find some common ground?
Bridging gaps and finding common ground takes hard work, and the only way to do it is to put in time engaging with the community to build relationships and restore trust. This is something I do every day as a lawyer — the other attorneys I work with represent clients whose interests are directly opposed to mine, but we work together professionally to understand each other and try to identify our clients’ shared interests. Our board needs to be much better at communicating its interests and preferences with the public, but even more so it needs to be better at listening to the public and understanding the public’s interests and concerns. I have addressed the board multiple times on this subject in recent years. Renewing the district’s standing in our community will be one of our board’s top priorities for the next four years.
FHSD has received high ratings for its academic achievement. How can the school board help maintain this success while remaining fiscally responsible long-term?
Forest Hills has consistently delivered above-average academic achievement at below-average costs, but the continued underfunding of our public schools by the Ohio General Assembly makes that harder and harder all the time. (As I wrote in the Enquirer last year, while our state representative and state senator here in Forest Hills are both strongly supportive of fully funding public education, if Ohioans as a whole want to delay or avoid local school levies, then we collectively need to send different people to Columbus.) This is one of the reasons that it’s so important for the board to have a good relationship with the community — people need to know that the board is doing everything it can to be as effective and efficient as possible with its resources. The board also needs to re-establish good relationships with both state and local officials to ensure it’s maximizing the resources available to the district. The district should continue to pursue inter-building collaborations to keep costs down, and should work with other community resources, including the Forest Hills Foundation for Education to help fund programs and opportunities.
Are there areas where you think the district isn’t doing enough for students, teachers, and/or the school community?
Our board has consistently failed to put students at the center of its decisions, choosing instead to play politics with our kids. That’s taken the form of passing a resolution opposed to anti-racism, painting over student art, considering non-public proposals to sell one of the high schools, and terminating the district’s award-winning treasurer without explanation, among other things. Elevating politics over education distracts from the district’s educational mission, makes administrators’ jobs harder (according to a study cited by NPR), and above all makes students feel less welcome and safe. Our board needs to return its focus to the students, making sure that education and wellness — not politics — is its top priority, to make sure that our schools are safe, welcoming places for all of our kids to learn and grow.
Erin Walczewski
The school board in recent years has been defined by political and ideological disputes. How can the new board overcome this and find some common ground?
Our school board can help bridge ideological divides by highlighting the fact that strong schools make a strong community. That’s true even for people who don’t have kids in public schools or don’t have kids at all, because public schools support a robust workforce, stable property values, and the kind of community that attracts and retains people generation after generation. It’s important for the school board to listen to community input from a variety of sources, but we also cannot let the passions of one group dictate the rules for the entire district. I entered this race because Forest Hills deserves highly qualified school board members who will put the best interests of the students and our community above partisan concerns.
FHSD has received high ratings for its academic achievement. How can the school board help maintain this success while remaining fiscally responsible long-term?
We have amazing teachers and staff, and we need to ensure that they have the resources they need to continue to provide an excellent education to the students of Forest Hills. One key way to do that is for the school board to advocate for the full implementation of the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), which has been the law in Ohio for over three years but has yet to be fully realized. The FSFP helps direct public money to public schools, which is what it takes to maintain the success Forest Hills has been able to achieve already in academics, athletics, and the arts. We have already done the hard work of creating an award-winning public school district, now we need to fight for the funding to keep it.
Are there areas where you think the district isn’t doing enough for students, teachers, and/or the school community?
I would like to see the district make information about access to assistance for low-income families or families experiencing a financial hardship more readily available. We already have good systems in place for when a family cannot afford the fees to participate in Camp Kern, or go on the 8th grade class trip, or pay a sports or theater fee, but in my opinion the information is too hard to find, especially for families whose need might be temporary, such as being affected by a layoff at work. I would like our default to be automatic inclusion of information about how to request a fee reduction or fee waiver for financial hardship for any school activities that require payment.
Jeremy Ward
The school board in recent years has been defined by political and ideological disputes. How can the new board overcome this and find some common ground?
My number one goal in running for school board is to return the focus of our school board to the students, staff, and schools themselves. To do this, professionalism and experience are required. I have worked for over 20 years in public schools in the Cincinnati area, and in that time have gained an incredible amount of experience working with teams of diverse stakeholders to make tough decisions that will affect students and staff. These teams are diverse in roles of stakeholders, expertise, and also experience; however, everyone shares a common goal — to reach the best decision for students. This type of work requires maturity enough to know when you might be wrong, to know when you aren’t the expert in the room, and to handle disagreements professionally and not personally. I am not only experienced in this role but willing and ready to work with anyone who gets elected so that our board’s focus returns to the things that matter to our schools and our community.
FHSD has received high ratings for its academic achievement. How can the school board help maintain this success while remaining fiscally responsible long-term?
Remaining fiscally responsible in 2025 requires being a willing advocate for public schools with our elected officials. This means continuing to pursue things like lawsuits challenging vouchers in Ohio, which take millions of dollars from public school districts like ours and funnel them to private entities through private schools which somehow escape the same oversight, scrutiny, and rules that public schools in Ohio must follow while receiving these tax dollars. This also means working with and engaging legislators both local and in Columbus to fight for our school funding, and against the many harmful bills and budget items that threaten to decimate public school funding in Ohio. As legislators in Columbus continue to shrink the percentage of school funding that our state tax dollars provide, the weight of school funding continues to fall more and more on homeowners’ shoulders via property tax levies. Per the Ohio Education Policy Institute, in 1999, the state of Ohio paid for roughly 47% of the base cost of education. This fiscal year that percentage will be 38%, and by 2027 the share is projected to drop to 32% (Ohio Education Policy Institute). This burden is compounded by bills introduced by legislators in Columbus which look to do things like requiring more than a simple majority of votes to pass local levies. These types of bills will further negatively impact school funding (not to mention other local services like police and firefighters). Maintaining our success long-term requires being an advocate for public education in Ohio. I have spent most of my 23 years in education advocating for public schools with our elected officials, and will continue to fight for our district, our students, and our schools as a school board member.
Are there areas where you think the district isn’t doing enough for students, teachers, and/or the school community?
There are three main areas where I believe we have a lot of room to grow as a district in regards to students, teachers, and the community. First, our district’s actions over the last four years have made some of our students question how welcome or included they are in our schools. This is and will always be unacceptable. Public schools are for ALL students. Period. As our school board rushed to fight national culture war battles, our actual students here in Forest Hills were left to wonder why a school board would cancel an optional Diversity Day, or why they would paint over a mural that was created to promote acceptance and make all students feel welcome in our schools. When the adults in charge make it a point to erase inclusion, it is logical for kids to wonder who isn’t welcome and why as a response. This is exacerbated when the adults making these decisions are unaccountable and unavailable to the public. Emails on all of these topics went unanswered, repeatedly, by the majority of the board responsible for these decisions.
This brings us to the second area we need major improvement. I believe that a majority of our school board for most of the last four years has done a disservice to our community with their lack of communication and lack of transparency. To try to sell a high school in private session, out of the view of the public, goes against everything that a school board is supposed to be. A school board should be a logical extension of the community, filled with people from within the community who are experts in education and school finance, that work WITH the community in plain sight. This includes communicating openly, honestly, and often, even when it’s uncomfortable. Lastly, I know that our staff is well aware of how our previous board viewed them. Repair of the relationship between our staff and school board is also necessary. Forest Hills has hired INCREDIBLE teachers, administrators, counselors, custodians, administrative assistants, coaches, and bus drivers over my 20 years living in the district. And while the recent board turmoil and decision-making has turned some local teachers off from applying here, I believe that we can become a destination district for education professionals again very soon by starting to repair that relationship. I want to work to support and empower our staff who do the important work every single day with our children. This means respecting them as professionals and working with them to make sure that they have the support and opportunities for professional growth to continue to improve their craft, ensuring that our district is providing the best education possible to our children.
