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Endorses Greaves

The race

This school board election is on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot for the Wake County Public School System (Wake County, North Carolina), the state's largest district at roughly 160,000 students. Four of the board's nine seats are on the ballot — Districts 1, 2, 7 and 9 — and all four races are contested and nonpartisan. A sourcing note, because an earlier lead got this wrong: a GoodParty listing carried Districts 4 and 6 as up in 2026; that was a stale lead and it is wrong. Districts 4 and 6 are not on the 2026 ballot. The corrected district set is confirmed in our gap-close record and agrees across INDY Week / the Assembly Network, Carolina Forward's sample-ballot guide, and Voter's Pulse's official-record listing. Only voters registered in Districts 1, 2, 7 and 9 cast ballots in these races.

The board's current majority is 7–2 Democratic, per INDY Week, which frames the parties' usual positions plainly: Democrats generally press for more state funding, LGBTQ-student protections, and opposition to the state private-school voucher program; Republicans generally press for parents' authority over what their children read and learn, and against diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools. The Wake County GOP is backing four Republican candidates, one per district, per INDY. The Wake County Association of Educators (NCAE) endorses the four candidates on the other side: Zavala, Gordon, Segal and Swanson.

The candidates

### District 1 (open — incumbent Cheryl Caulfield, one of the board's two Republicans, is not running again, citing family and health)

Bonnie Greaves — Republican-backed. A political newcomer with no campaign website found, who told INDY she taught special education in public schools for 15 years and worked as a federal analyst for Disability Determination Services; her children graduated from Wake public schools. Her stated aim: "elevate our special education programs," and to "ensure that every child — regardless of their learning needs — receives the support they need to thrive, and every teacher feels valued enough to stay." Credit: 15 years of classroom special-education work is the deepest school-level résumé in the district. Dirt: none found.

Jasmine Zavala — teachers-union endorsed. A district graduate who worked as a policy analyst for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, then taught elementary school with Teach for America in Eastern North Carolina; she now manages her family's Wake Forest restaurants, volunteers as an immigration specialist, and runs an online community for Latinos in Wake Forest, per INDY. She ran unsuccessfully for the Wake Forest Board of Commissioners last year. Her endorsers include the Wake Forest mayor and two former school-board chairs, plus the Wake NCAE slate. Her announcement centered on ensuring every child "no matter their background" gets resources, alluding to immigration enforcement near schools. Credit: classroom time plus policy work. Con, on this page's doctrine: her frame is the equity-and-enforcement-shield frame of the current majority, not parental authority or academic basics.

Sebrina Pierce — Democrat, first-time candidate. No campaign website; she told INDY she is a longtime Wake resident with a background in "business and family collaboration," that her children attended district schools, and that she wants to expand the district's entrepreneurship programs. Credit: a concrete program idea (entrepreneurship). Con: the thinnest documented file in the district beyond that single proposal.

### District 2

Christina A. Gordon — incumbent (appointed early 2025; first run for a full term), teachers-union endorsed. Gordon works for the North Carolina Association of Educators — the teachers union — as a professional learning specialist, taught elementary school in Wake and Durham, and has three children in Wake public schools, per INDY. Documented board record: she has served through two budget cycles and voted against the final budget both times, taking the position that she will not support any funding cuts that impact students and teachers. Both columns: Credit — an educator-parent who has been consistent about protecting classrooms. Dirt, on this page's doctrine — a sitting trustee employed by the teachers union voting on that union's members' budgets and contracts is a structural conflict voters should see plainly; and a trustee who votes no on every budget that contains any cut, in a district that must pass a budget, is declining the governing part of the job. Fiscal stewardship means choosing; two consecutive no votes on the final product is a position, but it is not stewardship.

Ann Schubarg — Republican, first-time candidate. No campaign website found; per INDY, her LinkedIn lists her as a district substitute teacher and a Harris Teeter personal shopper. Credit: she works inside district classrooms as a substitute. Con: no published platform was found — her file is the Republican backing and the substitute-teaching work. Unproven, not a demerit.

### District 7 (open — incumbent Chris Heagarty, a Democrat of nearly eight years and former chair, is not running again)

Jacob Arthur — Republican. An attorney working as a legislative assistant in the NC General Assembly (for Rep. Jonathan Almond, per INDY; his questionnaire lists the General Assembly as his employer) and a district parent and graduate. He ran for this seat in 2022 and lost, and stayed engaged on achievement, budget, special education and facilities. His documented platform is the most detailed in all four districts: a "Wake Framework" tying "every new discretionary investment" to "measurable improvements in student outcomes, transparent public reporting, and continuous improvement," with top priorities of stewardship, transparency, and trust. The Wake Libertarian Party's candidate review — an outside assessment, printed as such — adds that he sees excessive administrative/bureaucratic spending in public education, believes federal education money can undermine local control, wants curriculum determined locally with parent and teacher input concentrated on academics, and holds that schools should not facilitate a student's gender transition without parental involvement and should not punish students for declining to use transition-affirming names or pronouns, while supporting opt-outs at parental discretion. Credit: legal and budget-process experience plus the race's only measurable-outcomes discipline. Dirt: none found; he is a repeat candidate, which on this record reads as persistence, not opportunism.

Amita Gupta — Democrat, first-time candidate. A district parent and president of the Mills Park Middle School PTSA who owns Wize Computing Academy franchises in Cary, Apex and Morrisville (K-12 computer-science courses). Her site promises competitive teacher pay, STEAM and digital-literacy investment, and expanded school mental-health resources, per INDY. Credit: an education-business operator and PTA president — she teaches children for a living, in the private market parents choose. Con: her platform is spending commitments without Arthur's outcomes framework.

Maddie Segal — Democrat, first-time candidate; Heagarty's chosen successor, teachers-union endorsed. A food-policy and nonprofit professional (director of industry engagement for the Plant Based Foods Association), a district parent serving on the District 7 Advisory Council, endorsed by Heagarty, board chair Tyler Swanson and former chair Christine Kushner, per INDY. Her listed priorities: competitive educator pay, lobbying for state funding for universal free school meals, and cross-county organizing for more public-school funding. Credit: the outgoing incumbent's and the board chair's confidence. Con: her platform is a funding-lobby platform — every item asks someone else for money; nothing in it addresses achievement, curriculum, or parental authority.

### District 9

Tyler Swanson — incumbent, board chair (Democrat), teachers-union endorsed. Elected in 2022 at 29 — the youngest board member in the district's history — after defeating conservative candidate Michele Morrow; a former special-education teacher at Enloe High School, elected board chair by his colleagues in late 2025, per INDY. Documented record: as chair this spring he led the board in rejecting the superintendent's proposal to cut millions in special-education funding to balance the budget, and he campaigns on better state funding, staff pay, and a definition of school safety as an environment "free from bullying, hate speech, or violence regardless of gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, race, or religion." Both columns: Credit — he protected special-education funding in a real budget fight, and special education is a legal obligation, not a garnish. Con, on this page's doctrine — his safety frame is an identity frame rather than a discipline-and-order frame, and his governing program is the current majority's: more state money, no voucher sympathy, DEI-adjacent definitions. He is the incumbent face of the 7–2 majority in the district where that majority's approach is most fully his own.

Cheryl Alexis — Republican, political newcomer. No campaign website found; per INDY, her LinkedIn lists her as a human resources consultant with past experience in career counseling and law. INDY's efforts to reach her were unsuccessful. Credit: HR and counseling professional experience. Con: no published platform was found at all. Unproven, not a demerit — but the thinnest file among the Republican-backed candidates.

Brian Olson — Democrat, first-time candidate. His campaign website is under construction, per INDY, which could not reach him. On the record available there is no platform to assess.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Sources searched for every candidate: INDY Week's who's-running report (July 2026) and its candidate-questionnaire index, including Arthur's full questionnaire; the Assembly Network / Western Wake questionnaire listings; the Wake NCAE endorsement page (Zavala, Gordon, Segal, Swanson); the Wake Libertarian Party's 2026 candidate reviews (Arthur's positions, printed as an outside assessment); Carolina Forward's sample-ballot guide and Voter's Pulse (roster confirmation); GoodParty listings (including its stale Districts 4/6 lead, corrected in The race above). Wake County Board of Elections / state filings were checked through Voter's Pulse's official-record listings per the inventory. No News & Observer or ABC11 candidate profile naming additional positions for Greaves, Schubarg, Alexis, Pierce or Olson was found in this pass; those five files rest on INDY's reporting, which itself notes missing websites and unanswered outreach for several of them. No individual board roll-call record beyond the budget votes attributed to Gordon and the special-education budget fight attributed to Swanson was found in these sources.

OUR CALL

District 1 — endorse Bonnie Greaves. Unproven-but-aligned: the Republican-backed candidate is also the district's most experienced educator, a 15-year special-education teacher running on the special-education competence this board keeps having to fund. Against a union-backed equity platform and a one-proposal file, that is the strongest documented candidacy in the district. District 2 — endorse Ann Schubarg. We state the basis honestly: it is thin — Republican backing and work as a district substitute teacher, with no published platform. It prevails because the alternative is documented and disqualifying on our doctrine: an incumbent who draws her paycheck from the teachers union while governing its contracts, and who has voted against every final budget she has faced. An unproven challenger is a risk; a structural conflict is a certainty. District 7 — endorse Jacob Arthur. The easiest call in Wake County: the only candidate in any of the four districts running on measurable outcomes for every discretionary dollar, transparent reporting, local curriculum control with parental input, and parental authority on transition questions. That is this page's doctrine, written by the candidate himself. District 9 — endorse Cheryl Alexis. On the same reasoning as District 2, and stated just as plainly: her file is Republican backing and professional experience, with no platform found — while the incumbent chair is the documented embodiment of the majority doctrine this page opposes, however creditable his special-education budget stand was. Between an unproven aligned challenger and a proven incumbent of the opposing program, we take the challenger and say why.

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 - INDY Week — Who's Running: Wake County School Board 2026 — https://indyweek.com/news/whos-running-for-wake-county-school-board-in-2026/ - INDY Week / Assembly Network — 2026 General Election Candidate Questionnaires (Wake) — https://indyweek.com/news/politics/elections/2026-general-election-candidate-questionnaires/ - INDY Week — Wake County Board of Education, District 7: Jacob Arthur, 2026 Questionnaire — https://indyweek.com/news/politics/elections/wake-county-board-of-education-district-7-jacob-arthur-2026/ - Wake NCAE — Elections (endorsements: Zavala, Gordon, Segal, Swanson) — https://sites.google.com/wakencae.org/wake-ncae/elections - Wake Libertarian Party — 2026 WakeLP Candidates (Arthur review) — http://www.wakelp.org/candidates - Carolina Forward — Wake County Sample Ballot, 2026 Voter Guide — https://carolinaforward.org/2026/wake/sample/ - Voter's Pulse — Candidates & Offices (official-record listings, checked Sept. 15, 2026) — https://voterspulse.org/county/nc-wake/candidates

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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