Progressives capture four seats on Ankeny School Board

2023 Ankeny School Board Candidates

By Ty Rushing

November 7, 2023

Progressive candidates—Katie Claeys, Shelly Northway, Amber Romans, and Amy Tagliareni—won four out of five open seats on the Ankeny School Board in Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial results. Conservative candidate Stephanie Gott also won a seat.

Eight candidates were vying for four at-large seats with four-year terms, including a four-person bloc of right-leaning candidates and a three-person bloc of left-leaning candidates. Here are those unofficial results (winners in bold):

Nick Bourne, 5,494 votes
Katie Claeys (incumbent), 7,059 votes
Stephanie Gott, 6,413 votes
Christian Holtz, 581 votes
Shelly Northway, 6,928 votes
Joshua Palik, 5,647 votes
Amber Romans, 6,198 votes
Ryan Weldon (incumbent), votes

A fifth seat was also open, to fill the remaining two years on a vacated school board seat. Tagliareni defeated Amy Guidry for that seat, 6,955 to 5,688.

Ty Rushing

Ty Rushing is the former Chief Political Correspondent for Iowa Starting Line. He is a trail-blazing veteran Iowa journalist, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and co-founder and president of the Iowa Association of Black Journalists.

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