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No endorsement

The race

Alameda Unified voters elect two members to four-year terms on November 3, 2026. Vote for up to two. Five candidates are running, including both incumbents whose seats are up. A separate two-year-term seat drew a single candidate, Ryan LaLonde, who is unopposed, so that office will not appear on the ballot (per LWV Alameda, whose contest data derives from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters).

The verified roster is: Joyce Boyd; Carrie Hahnel (incumbent); Gary Lym (incumbent, board president); Mike McMahon; Sarah Putnam; Ryan LaLonde (two-year term, unopposed). A separate September 2026 vacancy appointment (Erick O. Bell, appointed to Jennifer Williams's resigned seat, term to Nov 2028) is not part of the November roster.

The candidates

Gary Lym — incumbent, board president. A lifelong Alameda resident and retired accounting professor (accounting, finance and business degrees from UC Berkeley and Arizona State), Lym's published case is budget clarity: his candidate statement says the board should allocate "our limited resources to maximize student success" and bring "the same budget clarity to the School Board," deciding by one test — "How does [this] benefit our students?" He has served on school site councils at Bay Farm, Lincoln (chair), Alameda High (chair) and Encinal, tutors math as a volunteer, and co-founded the Alameda Vipers youth basketball club. Credit: a finance professional's platform aimed at the board's core fiduciary job, plus a term of service capped by the board presidency. Dirt: none found in this pass — no controversy, and the local consensus guide (Dan's Alameda analysis) picks him while noting only the absence of problems.

Carrie Hahnel — incumbent (appointed). Hahnel was appointed unanimously by this board on November 14, 2025 to fill the seat vacated when a board member resigned in September 2025, and was sworn in November 18, 2025 to serve through this election. Six community members applied; Hahnel and Phil Hu were the finalists interviewed, and after Hu withdrew the board chose Hahnel over Joyce Boyd, the third-ranked applicant. The district's release calls her "an experienced leader"; she said on appointment that she is "committed to working collaboratively with the district, the board, and partners across the city to ensure continued progress in the year ahead." Credit: an orderly, unanimous appointment and a year of service since. Dirt: none found — but her public file is the district's own appointment release; no independent 2026 platform, questionnaire, or campaign case for election in her own right was found in this pass. She asks voters to ratify an appointment, and the case she has published for it is institutional continuity, in the institution's own words.

Joyce Boyd — challenger. Boyd is a longtime Alameda schools parent advocate. Dan's Alameda voting analysis — the cycle's most detailed local guide — remembers that Boyd "fought to reopen the schools at the height of the pandemic," a documented parental-rights stance from the period when this district, like most in California, kept classrooms closed far longer than private schools nearby. She finished as a finalist in the board's own September 2026 appointment process (one of three interviewed for the Williams vacancy) before the board chose Erick O. Bell — evidence the sitting board itself scored her application credible. Credit: the reopening advocacy, attributed to Dan's analysis, and a finalist finish in the appointment process. Dirt: none found; her 2026 campaign materials beyond the forum circuit were thin in this pass.

Mike McMahon — challenger. A former AUSD trustee: his own campaign archive carries his statements from earlier cycles ("As a school board member for the past eight years, I have learned the complexities of overseeing our school district"), and he has run repeatedly since. Dan's analysis describes him as "a conservative Democrat" who "has been down this road before and doesn't seem to have much to offer." Credit: genuine prior board experience — the only challenger besides the incumbents who has actually done this job. Dirt: none documented; what is documented is serial candidacy without a new stated case for 2026 in anything this pass found.

Sarah Putnam — challenger. Dan's analysis describes an "enthusiastic campaign" that "seems to be focused just on a couple of issues" and questions whether she is "up for the wide range of topics that the school board needs to deal with." No fuller record — platform document, questionnaire, or news profile — was found in this pass. Credit: she is running an actual campaign in a five-way race. Dirt: none found; the file is thin, and thinness here is a finding about the search as much as the candidate (see Record gaps).

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Searches run: the roster sources (LWV Alameda's 2026 candidate forums page; Dan's Alameda voting analysis, which this pass read in full for this race); the district's own November 2025 appointment release and its 2026 board-vacancy process page (Hahnel's appointment, Boyd's finalist finish, the Bell appointment excluded from this roster); McMahon's own campaign archive (his earlier-cycle candidate statements); LWV Alameda's November 2026 election page (ballot structure). No 2026 candidate questionnaires, campaign sites, or newsroom profiles were found for Boyd, Putnam or Hahnel beyond the materials named; no controversy was found for any candidate. The reopening account of Boyd is a single-source recollection in Dan's analysis and is printed as such.

OUR CALL

Vote for up to two — we endorse Gary Lym; on the second seat, no endorsement. Lym is the cleanest file in the race: a retired accounting professor whose published platform is budget clarity for a board whose first job is fiduciary, now holding its presidency. The second seat is a five-way judgment among an unelected appointee with no published platform of her own, a challenger whose best-documented act is a parental-rights fight we credit but can source only to one local account, a former trustee running on an old résumé, and a first-time candidate whose file is two issues deep. That is a record a voter can weigh from this page; it is not a record this page will call beyond Lym.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage 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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