Landslide win for Coretta Mallet-Fontenot in SBOE District 4

Current SBOE District 4 representative, Staci Childs made the decision to step down from her current position to direct her focus towards her campaign for Texas House in District 131. Her decision triggered an election that was conducted Aug. 15 to fill the now vacated Democratic ballot spot for the upcoming November election. Childs' decision to step down this summer prevents Gov. Greg Abbott from being able to fill that unexpired term with another right-wing sympathizer in January after Childs was sworn into the House. 

To conduct this election, a quorum of precinct chairs in District 4, organized by the Texas Democratic Party, met virtually to vote on the matter. This resulted in the landslide vote to place the current NAACP Houston Branch PAC Chair and 27-year classroom veteran in Houston ISD, Dr. Coretta Mallet-Fontenot in the vacated ballot spot.  

As part of her announcement to vacate, Member Childs endorsed Tashiana Tucker, a former teacher and charter advocate, for the position. Though five total candidates announced their intention to seek the nomination, when the quorum gathered to fill the vacancy on the ballot, Mallet-Fontenot received a supermajority from the precinct chairs – a result that signals a growing move away from charter-friendly leadership in Houston. 

Drawing on her 27 years of classroom experience, if elected, Mallet-Fontenot plans to address the running deficit budget within District 4 schools to prevent additional teacher layoffs, program and service cuts, and overall school closures. She also plans to hold TEA Commissioner Mike Morath accountable for his takeover of Houston ISD, which has resulted in the plummeting performance of many elementary schools within the district. 

Mallet-Fontenot’s success in this election offers hope in a time marked by politicized attempts to place limits on students' ability to learn comfortably. Mallet-Fontenot provides a bulwark against the Republican caucus efforts to enforce book bans, rewrite curricula away from educational growth, undermine the First Amendment to forcibly indoctrinate students into Christian ideology, and erase the lived experiences of minority groups.