Appointment To District C - 8 Candidates Apply

After a member of the Washoe County School Board was elected to the Sparks City Council, by law, the Washoe County School Board will be appointing a citizen of District C to serve until the next election. Whomever is appointed it likely a swing vote on the board. You can read detailed story in the Reno Gazette Journal about the new faces on the school board.

The appointment process itself needs a full discussion, until then here are the 8 candidates who applied.

Jason Bushey - a retired Combat Engineer Staff Sergeant from the U.S. Army who currently works for a security company. His wife is a school teacher with Washoe County School District.

Felipe Escamilla - works for the non-profit educational company Khan Academy as a video producer for the online education platform, also worked for NBC affiliates in the San Francisco Bay area as a video journalist.

Marcus Hodges - a reserve university police officer and works at Reno Guns and Range. He also served as a criminal investigator in the Washoe County District Attorney's Office.

Monica Lehmann - owns a caregiving company in Contra Cost County, California.

Tamara Oswald - owner of the Tiny Turtles Early Learning Center and was a Special Education Resource Teacher with Washoe County School District.

Bruce Parks - retired NCO Staff Officer from the U.S. Army and current chair of the Washoe County Republican Party.

James Phoenix - retired Reno Police Officer and former tribal chair of Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council. He was also Chairman of the Board of Education for the Pyramid Lake Jr/Sr High School.

Timothy Zysk - retired from the U.S. Navy Reserves, a substitute teacher, and a bus driver.

You can download and review the submitted resumes of each candidate for District C here. Beyond that very little information is publicly available. Two candidates have run for the school board in previous elections, and may run again in 2026.

None of the candidates had an X account, a few had Facebook.

The Committee To Fix Washoe Schools has reached out to all the candidates with an invitation to join a ZOOM Webinar on Monday, January 6th, at 7PM. Each candidate will have plenty of time to introduce themselves and talk about their vision of education as a school board member. Regardless of who responds, the Zoom Webinar will happen at 7PM.

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