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Insufficient record — roster only

How we research: the LiberalMind standard — every candidate gets the same deep pass — service and voting record, campaign positions, local news, questionnaires and voter guides, endorsements, public statements, filings — and both columns of the ledger print: the dirt and the credits, each at the same standard of proof. What held up is stated as fact; what did not is labeled unproven or left out. Race roster: Alabama Secretary of State official sample ballot and the county parties' qualified-candidate lists, cross-checked against Wikipedia's 2026 Mobile County elections compilation — grade: official ballot base, compilation cross-check.

The race

Two seats on the Mobile County Board of Education are on the November 3 ballot — Districts 3 and 4. Mobile's board has five members elected by district to six-year terms, overseeing Alabama's largest school system: 84 schools, roughly 48,500 students, some 7,150 employees, about $15,571 spent per pupil, with 75% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Both seats are incumbent defenses. In District 3, Dr. Reginald Crenshaw (D), on the board since 2008, faces independent challenger Meika Gordon Gardner. In District 4, Sherry Dillihay-McDade (D), on the board since 2020, faces Republican Mike Fasano. One piece of district context attaches to both incumbents' oversight, printed here rather than buried: state examiners presenting the system's 2025 audit in August 2026 cited failures to follow local policies for receipt and disbursement of school monies at several schools and procurement lapses on federally funded contracts — while issuing an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. That is a management-warning record, not a fraud finding, and it belongs in the incumbents' column as the thing a board exists to catch earlier.

The candidates

District 3 — Reginald Crenshaw (incumbent, D). Credits: eighteen years on this board — first seated in 2008, re-elected across three cycles in a district voters keep handing back to him — serving through superintendents, a pandemic, and the system's long recovery. He won his party's nomination again in 2026 without a primary fight of record. Longevity at that scale, in a system whose finances the state auditors just cleared with an unmodified opinion, is a competence record whether or not it is an exciting one. Dirt: no personal misconduct, scandal or adverse finding surfaced against Crenshaw in the coverage worked — the debits against his tenure are institutional (the audit's policy-and-procurement lapses happened on his board's watch, as printed above) and the plain fact that across eighteen years he has left almost no public policy file — no signature initiative, no published platform in this cycle — by which a voter could grade him beyond continuity itself.

District 3 — Meika Gordon Gardner (independent). Credits: she got herself on this ballot the hard way. Per Lagniappe's reporting, Gardner qualified as an independent in July, after missing the January deadline to file as a Republican or a Democrat — meaning she petitioned her way into November rather than taking a party primary, and told the paper she was glad to qualify as an independent. Ballot access by petition is a real demonstration of grassroots support in a district race. Dirt: none found — and almost nothing else, either: no platform, biography, questionnaire answers or campaign coverage beyond the qualification story were retrievable in the sources worked. A challenger asking voters to end an eighteen-year tenure owes them a published case, and hers is not in the record we could reach.

District 4 — Sherry Dillihay-McDade (incumbent, D). Credits: the career file is the strongest in either race — she represented District 4 from 2020, when she was elected to her first term, and before the board she spent 37 years as a teacher in the Mobile County Public School System itself (per her account to Lagniappe): she taught in the classrooms this board governs for nearly four decades, then took the seat that oversees them. That is the exact résumé a school board seat exists for. She won the Democratic nomination for a second full term in 2026. Dirt: none personal found — the same institutional caveat as her colleague applies (the 2025 audit's lapses are her board's watch too), and her public file beyond the biography is thin: no signature policy record or campaign platform was retrievable in the sources worked.

District 4 — Mike Fasano (R). Credits: a retired Navy corpsman — military medical service is real service, and veterans' candidacies carry that weight — who qualified through the Mobile County Republican Party and won the Republican nomination for the seat. Dirt: none found; and no platform, questionnaire answers, interview or campaign coverage of Fasano was retrievable in any source worked beyond his qualification and occupation as reported by Lagniappe. His candidacy, in the public record we could reach, is a party label and a service biography.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

The deep pass on this race worked: the Alabama Secretary of State's official Mobile County sample ballot (Districts 3 and 4 on the November 3 ballot); the Mobile County Republican Party's and Alabama Republican Party's qualified-candidate lists (Fasano) and the Mobile County Democratic Party's qualified list (Crenshaw, Dillihay-McDade); Lagniappe's 2026 school-board reporting via its reporter Grant McLaughlin (Dillihay-McDade's 37 years teaching in MCPSS and 2020 election; Fasano as a retired Navy corpsman; Gardner's July independent qualification after missing the party filing deadlines); Ballotpedia's Mobile County Public Schools file (board structure — five members, six-year terms; Crenshaw seated 2008, Dillihay-McDade seated November 18, 2020); the Alabama Association of School Boards' 2026 Mobile County system snapshot (84 schools, 48,523 students, 75% free/reduced lunch, per-pupil spending, Superintendent Chresal Threadgill); the Alabama Forward / Stand Up Mobile 2026 general-election guide (which covers the county ballot); and meeting and audit reporting on the board's 2026 work (the state examiners' 2025 audit findings — policy and procurement lapses with an unmodified opinion; the board's routine contract approvals). Named gaps: neither challenger published a retrievable platform anywhere; neither incumbent has a retrievable policy record beyond tenure and biography. Those gaps are printed, not filled.

OUR CALL

District 3: ENDORSE Reginald Crenshaw for re-election (unproven / on-watch as to program — there is no program on file; the endorsement rests on eighteen years of clean, continuous service and a state audit that cleared the system's books on his watch, lapses noted). His challenger's finish is documented insufficient record: a petition-qualified candidacy with no published case. District 4: ENDORSE Sherry Dillihay-McDade for re-election — 37 years teaching in the very system, followed by a term governing it, is the deepest education file on Mobile's ballot this year. Her challenger's military service is honored here and his record beyond it is, in the sources that exist, empty.

This article is part of our complete Election 2026 coverage — every race, researched the same way. Read the full breakdown on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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