Candidates face no competition for 3 Washington Township school board seats

This voter guide was co-published by Chalkbeat Indiana, Mirror Indy and WFYI as part of a partnership to increase coverage of township school districts in Marion County and cover the 2024 school board elections.

Three candidates are running for a position on the school board for the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township, a district in the northern part of Indianapolis. 

The district has an enrollment of around 10,500 and 58 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Around 40 percent of students are Black and 22 percent are Hispanic. 

In recent years, the district has struggled with racial disparities in test scores. Last school year, 97 percent of White students in the district passed the IREAD exam compared to 81.5 percent of Black students. 

Concerns around how the district educates students of color have faced district leaders for years. In response, charter school network Paramount Schools of Excellence opened a K-8 all-girls school in the district earlier this year, arguing they could provide a higher quality education for Black girls than what is available in Washington Township. Local residents and district officials tried to stop the school from opening — questioning its need and location. 

The district’s longtime superintendent Nikki Woodson, who has been running the district for 13 years, plans to retire at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. 

This election 

Three seats on the board are open — District 1, District 3 and at-large — and none are contested. The board is made up of five people, each holding a four-year term.

Who votes and how to vote

All voters within the Washington Township school district can cast a ballot for all of the races. 

Voter registration is open until Monday, Oct. 7. To register to vote or to check your status, go here.

Early voting begins on Oct. 8 at the Indianapolis City-County Building at 200 E. Market St. Additional early voting sites can be found online.

On Election Day on Nov. 5, Marion County residents can vote at any of the county’s voting centers, which can be found online.

Meet the candidates

At-large
There is one open seat.

Tracey Krueger (incumbent)
Krueger, 66, has been on the board since 2020. She is a self-employed nonprofit consultant. All four of her adult children attended Washington Township schools. 

Krueger is running for reelection to be involved in the transition to a new superintendent and focus on “ensuring the district remains strong against efforts to diminish its critical role in our community.” She wants to continue to focus on shrinking the achievement gap and supporting the influx of non-English speaking students. 

District 1
There is one open seat.

Deirdre George Davis (incumbent)
Davis, 51, manages poison prevention outreach and education for the Indiana Poison Center. Davis is also a full time student pursuing her doctorate in business administration for healthcare. She has a B.S. in biology pre-med from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Three of her children attend or graduated from Washington Township Schools. Davis wants to be reelected, so she can create policies that benefit schools for her children and all township students. She values the diversity of the district and sees the variety of academic and extracurricular options as some of the greatest strengths. 

Davis sees the district’s opportunity gap as one of the biggest challenges, and she acknowledges that won’t close overnight. She says leadership works diligently to ensure students receive necessary services and education to succeed. 

District 3
There is one open seat.

Steven Thompson
Steven Thompson, 33, is an information technology  leader and lecturer at IU Indianapolis. He has a Bachelor’s degree in education from Indiana University and a masters in technology from Purdue University. He has one son in eighth grade who attends school in the district. 

Thompson is on the board of directors for AYS, a nonprofit for serving youth before and after school. He is also a volunteer at the Eastwood Middle School Parent Teacher Organization and helps represent children in court cases.

Since high school Thompson was interested in the school board when he was involved in school improvement committees. He wants to provide a different and younger perspective to Washington Township. 

He believes equity is the biggest challenge in the district, specifically the achievement gap. 

WFYI education reporter Sydney Dauphinais covers Marion County schools. Contact her at sdauphinais@wfyi.org.