Registered Republican voters will have a choice of who they want to represent the party in November for a seat on the Kansas State Board of Education.

The 10-member board oversees public K-12 education in the state.

The board’s duties include setting education policy for elementary and secondary schools, establishing academic standards, overseeing educator licensure and instituting a statewide accreditation system. The board also appoints a statewide education commissioner.

While the state board sets statewide standards, local school boards make decisions about specific curricula and materials used in schools. Meanwhile, it is the legislature and governor who determine and approve school funding levels from year to year.

Board members serve four-year terms and are elected to 10 geographic districts. The District 3 seat on the Aug. 4 primary ballot for Republicans covers southern Johnson County and northern Miami County.

The seat represents the Blue Valley, Gardner Edgerton, Olathe and Spring Hill public school districts in Johnson County.

The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat Amy Diediker in November. She faces no opposition in her party for the Aug. 4 vote.

The current District 3 board member is Michelle Dombrowsky, who is vacating the position to campaign as the lieutenant governor for gubernatorial candidate Charlotte O’Hara.

This candidate guide will focus on the two candidates running in the contested Republican primary. Only registered Republicans will be able to cast ballots in this race on Aug. 4.

The profiles below were compiled using information from the candidates’ websites, their social media accounts, responses to the Post’s questionnaire, Ballotpedia profiles and the candidates’ answers to other questionnaires, including those published by local chambers of commerce and nonprofit news outlet The Beacon.

Jim McMullen

• Political experience: Readers may remember Jim McMullen of Overland Park for his one term on the Blue Valley school board, from 2021 to 2025. He lost a reelection bid for that position last year. Notably, in 2022, the board voted to remove him from the vice president seat over now-deleted social media posts about transgender issues. McMullen stood by those posts and has said he believes “gender ideology” harms children. In the past, he also served on the board of the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce.
• Personal and professional life: McMullen lives in Overland Park, and his campaign biography says he is a lifelong Johnson County resident. An attorney by training, he has noted in past campaigns that he taught middle and high school English early in his career. He later founded Royal Blue Capital, an Overland Park-based investment banking firm. His campaign website says he is a father of five and grandfather of three.
• Platform: McMullen’s campaign slogan is “Knowledge First. Free State. Free Minds. Classic Roots.” He says public schools’ primary purpose is equipping students with a foundational body of knowledge through rigorous curricula and classroom learning focused on achievement, particularly in reading, math and history.  In the chambers’ questionnaire, he said he is tired of “stupid educational fads,” including diversity, equity and inclusion, and trauma-informed discipline. He wants the state board focused on setting high academic standards and giving local boards autonomy. He says he respects the rights of parents to be involved in their children’s education and parents “must always retain the right to know” what is happening in schools. He also supports barring personal electronic devices from classrooms at all levels.

Campaign website

Steve Roberts

• Political experience: Roberts previously served two terms on the Kansas State Board of Education, from 2013 to 2021, representing District 2. Since then, he has made multiple unsuccessful runs for elected office, including U.S. Senate in 2020, state treasurer in 2022, U.S. House in 2024 and Blue Valley school board in 2025. In all those campaigns (save the Blue Valley race, which was nonpartisan), Roberts ran as a Libertarian.
• Personal and professional life: Roberts lives in Overland Park and is a licensed teacher and professional engineer, according to his answers to previous questionnaires. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in education from Grand Canyon University. He says he has taught in both public and private schools and is currently tutoring students in math and physics.
• Platform: Roberts bases much of his campaign rhetoric on a document he calls “Steve’s Talking Points,” a 2017 memo he wrote that emphasizes increasing teacher salaries and lowering class size without raising taxes. He says teachers should be paid “as professionals” and advocates for a merit-based salary system in which the best teachers earn the most and are evaluated, in part, by student, peer and administrative feedback. When asked by The Beacon what his top three priorities are, he replied, “Read.” He says the board should assess its approach by asking parents and students — not teachers and administrators — how things are going. Notably, while on the board, he voted for social-emotional character development standards but now says he would vote “no.” Roberts did not respond to the Post’s reader-based questionnaire.

Campaign website