Final day of school board filing quiet

Candidates for two seats on the Oklahoma City School Board will run unopposed in February, while District 5 incumbent Ruth Veales will face two challengers, records show.

The final day to file papers failed to produce a challenger for District 4 board member Mark Mann or District 7 candidate Jace Kirk.

Kirk filed papers Monday to succeed Ron Millican, who is not seeking a third term. Millican represents 10 schools in south Oklahoma City.

The three-day filing period ended Wednesday for candidates in 18 Oklahoma County school districts, including Edmond, Putnam City and Midwest City-Del City.

Voters go to the polls Feb. 13 to elect candidates to serve terms ranging from three to five years.

Veales, who filed Monday along with Mann, is seeking a third four-year term as the panel’s District 5 representative. She represents 14 schools in northeast Oklahoma City.

She will face Nichell Garcia-Braddy, 45, and Willie T. Kelley, 69, a retired teacher and coach who led the Douglass High basketball team for two decades.

Reached Wednesday, Kelley said he would bring more than four decades of teaching experience to the panel.

“I feel like District 5 is not being represented like I think it should be,” said Kelley, a Spencer resident. “I’ll give them an insight they’ve never had before.”

Kelley said discipline is the biggest issue facing schools in northeast Oklahoma City that struggle academically.

Veales has said she wants to continue fighting to close the achievement gap among “academically underserved” black students.

Garcia is a single parent with a finance background who served a year as PTA president of Martin Luther King Elementary School.

She said Tuesday she feels “strongly about taking care of the schools in this cluster.”

“I don’t feel like that’s being done right now,” she said.

Mann was appointed to fill the District 4 seat vacated by Paula Lewis after Lewis was elected board chair in February. He represents nine schools in south, central and north Oklahoma City.

He will serve the remaining two years of the current term.

Kirk, 35, is assistant director of Faith Works of the Inner City, a nonprofit ministry that partners with Shidler Elementary School in the Oklahoma City district.

Kirk could not be reached for comment.