Ogden school board race features teacher, community advocate
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- The two hopefuls for the District 2 seat on the Ogden school board, from left, incumbent Douglas Barker and Stacy Bernal.
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- District 2 in the Ogden school system, shown in purple.
OGDEN — The race for the District 2 seat on the Ogden school board features a junior high school teacher vying for his third term and a community advocate aiming to bolster her civic involvement.
Douglas Barker said at a community forum earlier this month that one of his focuses as a board member has been creating career tracks in schools outside the college track — in vocational occupations, for instance. A history teacher at South Ogden High School, which is in the Weber School District, he first won election to the board in 2014 and reelection in 2018.
Stacy Bernal is challenging Barker for the seat, her first bid for elective office, with a message focused on advocating for those on the edges of power. She currently serves on the Ogden Diversity Commission and, as the mother of an autistic teen, created a local advocacy group focused on the population, Awesome Autistic Ogden.
“I just want others to think about those who don’t have a voice at the table,” she said. She pointed to autistic kids and Latinos, while her campaign website also notes she’d focus on LGBTQ+ students, the disabled, lower-income kids and, broadly speaking, all kids.
The website of her business, See Stacy Speak, which provides diversity training, offers a nod to her focus on empowerment. “Stacy is passionate about empowering individuals and organizations to live their biggest and best lives. She’s an outspoken advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion and representation and she’s known to challenge the status quo on occasion,” it reads.
District 2 covers north-central Ogden, from the city’s eastern edge west to Wall Avenue and north from 12th Street roughly to Second Street. Ballots have been mailed and voting culminates Nov. 8.
Barker didn’t respond to Standard-Examiner queries seeking comment on his candidacy and doesn’t have a campaign website or other readily accessible social media presence focused on his vision as a candidate. In an Oct. 5 candidate forum for school board hopefuls, though, he indicated that another focus aside from promoting interest in vocational occupations has been replacing Ogden’s older schools. City voters in 2018 approved an $87 million bond to that end.
Bernal, for her part, said she wanted to expand her involvement to the school board as she got a taste of how city policy is made as a member of the Ogden Diversity Commission. She also serves on the Ogden-Weber Technical College Foundation Board of Trustees and has also been working as a substitute teacher in Ogden schools.
Aside from groups she sees as marginalized, Bernal also said advocating for teachers is a priority. Many instructors, she said, have expressed a sense of not being heard and as being unfairly maligned as some critics across the country have raised their voices of late against public education.
“There’s just this idea that there’s propoganda in the classroom, there’s grooming,” she said, calling such criticism off the mark. “None of those things are actually happening. Teachers, they just want to do their job, they want to be paid fairly for what they’re doing. They love their students.”
Bernal also points to her two kids currently enrolled in Ogden School District schools as a plus in her candidacy. None of the sitting board members have children currently enrolled in Ogden schools.
“I think that brings that extra perspective. I think it would make a difference in decisions that were made,” she said.
The District 4 seat on the Ogden school board is also contested. The candidates are incumbent Amber Allred and Jeremy Shinoda.