May 2025 Electoral Endorsements: Zone 6

Voters have two quality candidates in this race. Theo Wilhelm is a K-12 classroom teacher with 25 years of experience; Ross Tomlin, the incumbent who was appointed by the board last year, is a career educator with administrative experience at the community college and education service district level. Both would serve the students, teachers, support staff and the rest of the District well. We’d prefer to see these two candidates run against each other in an environment where one is not handed the benefit of an appointment by his peers, but due to the departure of school board member Melissa Barnes Dholakia, who left the Board in an unsuccessful attempt to become deputy superintendent, we’re left with one of these candidates having the advantage of the incumbency.

Both candidates see looming budget challenges as a major concern for the District. Both see student engagement and belonging and achievement gaps as serious challenges. We appreciated Wilhelm’s assertion that at present, technology policies in the district are not being adhered to with fidelity from one classroom to the next. Schools face major challenges in reigning in the use of cell phones and other technology while also preparing students for the modern world. But in that regard, we simply appreciated Tomlin’s approach more. Tomlin, who spent much of his career in Career and Technical Education, has a more balanced approach to how technology could be harnessed in schools. He was the only candidate among BLPS candidates to mention artificial intelligence and to consider how it might be used in schools. We support the prevailing sentiment among candidates that technology needs to be a tool that’s used within reason, but in Tomlin we also saw the ability to approach that with the nuance the topic requires. The Board will be well served in either regard here, but our endorsement goes to Tomlin.