Voters in southern Johnson County will have a choice on Nov. 3 for who represents them 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 covers southern Johnson County and northern Miami County and represents the Blue Valley, Gardner Edgerton, Olathe and Spring Hill public school districts in Johnson County.

The current District 3 board member is Republican Michelle Dombrowsky, who is vacating the position after she campaigned as the lieutenant governor for GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlotte O’Hara.

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

Amy Diediker (Democratic)

• Political experience: Diediker, of Olathe, has not held elected office before. She has served as a precinct leader in Olathe and volunteered with other politically active community groups. She ran unopposed in the August Democratic primary for the District 3 seat. Diediker’s campaign treasurer is retired Blue Valley Superintendent Al Hanna, and the advocacy group Stand Up Blue Valley has endorsed her.
• Personal life: Diediker is a former elementary music teacher who taught in Junction City and De Soto, and she is a mother of three. Her youngest daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease at age 4 and has a 504 special education plan for complex medical needs. Diediker says that experience showed her how much strong support systems matter for students. She is a founding member of the Kansas City Perthes Kids fundraising event.
• Platform: Diediker’s top priorities are strong academic standards, supporting educators and fully funding schools, including special education. She says the state board should publicly side with the four Johnson County districts preparing a possible lawsuit over special education funding. She notes the Legislature hasn’t met the state’s 92% funding requirement for excess special education costs since 2011. She agrees with her opponent, McMullen, that schools need more rigor, especially in math, but she says students can’t learn if they aren’t mentally healthy. On the state’s Blueprint for Literacy, she would judge results by state and national test scores and by feedback from reading specialists, and she wants struggling schools to get experts and funding. She says local districts should decide on books, and parents should be able to choose alternatives for their own children without removing titles for everyone. She would leave school vaccine requirements to state health officials. She wants the state to publish measures like student growth, teacher retention and classroom spending.

Jim McMullen (Republican)

• 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. 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. He defeated former state board member Steve Roberts in the August Republican primary.
• Personal 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 schools’ main purpose is building a foundation of knowledge, especially in reading, math and history. He calls “whole child” approaches to education “mission creep,” and he has criticized what he calls “stupid educational fads,” including diversity, equity and inclusion and trauma-informed discipline. He opposes Johnson County districts’ possible special education lawsuit, saying “litigation is never good, except for the lawyers.” Instead, he proposes a bipartisan working group of state board members and legislators to look at both funding and costly regulations. He has called fully funding special education without cuts elsewhere “not really realistic.” He expects the Blueprint for Literacy to reverse Kansas’ reading decline and wants the board to help train teachers in phonics. He says book challenges belong with local boards, but parents always have the right to object. He would leave vaccine rules to the Legislature and state health officials. He calls Johnson County schools effective but wants simpler school financial disclosures.