By Staff Reporter |

The Higley Unified School District (HUSD) community must choose between two candidates to fill a governing board vacancy, per a new court ruling.

The Maricopa County Superior Court ruled last week that voters must choose between two write-in candidates, Kathleen Richards and Travis White, who appear to have gotten special notice of a board vacancy after board member Scott Glover waited to file his resignation until July 20, 2026, the same day as the candidate filing deadline.

District policy requires board members to give resignation letter copies to the superintendent and the board prior to the effective resignation date. However, Glover not only waited until the morning of the candidate filing deadline to notify the superintendent, he waited until one minute before the candidate filing deadline to notify his fellow board members of his resignation.

Approximately two hours after Glover filed his resignation letter, Richards and White arrived at the superintendent’s office to file as write-in candidates for the vacancy.

Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs decided to fill the vacancy through appointment, rather than election, given the timing of the write-in filings.

“Because the seat was not otherwise scheduled to appear on the 2026 ballot, the timing of the vacancy created an extraordinary situation: few who knew about the vacancy had a narrow window to file for the seat, while the broader Higley community had no opportunity to learn that the seat was even available,” stated the county superintendent’s office.

A week later, White sued Boggs to force an election in which only he and Richards would be the eligible candidates.

Since Richards and White were the only individuals to file prior to the deadline, only those votes with their names will count. 

Richards is a private music and substitute teacher who has previously run for the board, and has served on the HUSD Citizen’s Committee. 

White is the director and deputy chief information security officer for Shutterfly. Federal Elections Commission records only reflect a few small donations to Democrats in recent years: Sen. Bernie Sander’s 2020 presidential campaign and former congressman Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign.

Although school boards are nonpartisan, the two write-in candidates have hinted at their political affiliations. 

Last January, Richards stated in a Facebook post that supporters of President Donald Trump and those not actively protesting his administration don’t deserve to live.

“We have a president who wants to rewrite the history that is taught to our students so that it makes cis white men more palatable,” said Richards. “If you have been able to sit for the last two weeks and be quiet, I question your morality, your humanity, and your place in this world sharing oxygen with those of us who will go to that for the marginalized in our communities.”

In a May board meeting, White defended the independence of teachers and said that student proficiency wasn’t as low as portrayals of data would indicate. 

“To suggest that our teachers just teach what they were hired to teach without evolving is a recipe for stagnation. When a teacher finds an amazing tool at a conference, they don’t go rogue, they bring it to their leadership because they’re professionals who care about student achievement,” said White. 

White said the district’s “A” rating nullified the low proficiency rates in math and English Language Arts: 61% and 55%, respectively. 

“It’s one thing to have a different vision for our schools. It’s quite another to manufacture a crisis using alternative facts. When it’s claimed that 50% of our students are not proficient, it isn’t just misrepresenting a spreadsheet, it’s actively disparaging the hard work of our teachers and the achievements of our children,” said White. 

Richards and White volunteered together on Yes for Higley Schools, a nonprofit political action committee urging a favorable vote on an override for HUSD. Voters rejected the override.

Boggs justified her decision to seek appointment over election to fill Glover’s vacancy in a post-court ruling press release issued on Friday. 

Boggs implied that the two candidates had enjoyed special access to information that inherently deprived the Higley community the proper opportunity to access the ballot. 

“I was not willing to simply look the other way when the circumstances gave a small number of people an opportunity that thousands of other Higley residents did not even know existed,” said Boggs. “I acted because I believe every qualified member of that community deserved a fair and meaningful opportunity to be considered for the seat.” 

The timing of the resignation has led some community members to suspect that Glover’s departure was intentionally timed to wrest control of the board. 

Board member Anna Van Hoek echoed those speculations. 

“Nothing says defending democracy quite like secretly coordinating with a sitting Board member while denying everyone else in the community an equal opportunity to compete for the seat,” said Van Hoek. 

However, board president Amanda Wade disputed the claims. 

Wade did express frustration with Glover’s failure to follow board policy on resignations and his decision to wait until the day of the candidate filing deadline, but denied that his tardiness and lack of communication were part of an intentional political maneuver. 

“Mr. Glover’s actions and decisions he made in this resignation process are his alone,” said Wade. “I do have a hard time with a sitting board member recklessly implying actions made by the district, Higley Educators Association [sic], and other board members because they are unhappy with choices Mr. Glover made.”

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