Two candidates emerge in race to fill vacant seat on Newport-Mesa Unified board of trustees

An occupational therapist and a businesswoman declared themselves candidates in a special election to fill a vacant seat on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s board of trustees, the Orange County Registrar’s office confirmed Monday.

The special election scheduled for June 10 will determine who becomes the NMUSD trustee representing families in Area 5, which covers neighborhoods served by Newport Elementary, Ensign Intermediate and Newport Harbor High. The term for that position ends in December 2026, and it became vacant after former school board member Michelle Barto won her bid for a seat on the Newport Beach City Council in November.

In January, the board voted 4-2 to appoint Newport Harbor High Parent Teacher Assn. President Kirstin Walsh to fill the position. But a petition garnered enough signatures to override that decision and call a special election.

The Orange County Department of Education and the Registrar’s office declined to release a copy of the petition, citing laws protecting the privacy of those who signed it. The identities of the party or parties responsible for filing and circulating the document were also not subject to disclosure via public records requests.

Walsh is one of the two candidates in the race. The other is Andrea McElroy, a businesswoman who had also been considered in January for appointment to the seat, earning votes from Krista Weigand, president of the school board, and board member Lisa Pearson.

McElroy did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Pilot.

“Our schools also need to focus on fundamentals over Sacramento’s culture wars,” McElroy wrote in one paragraph of her public campaign statement. “We must limit the indoctrinating efforts of programs like ethnic studies curriculum.”

In her statement she did not specify any roles she may have take on in support of NMUSD, but during her interview with the school board in January for the Area 5 seat, she mentioned having been a volunteer as the parent of a student who had since graduated from the district.

In a March 9 Facebook post announcing her campaign that was visible to her followers, she wrote that families expect “safety, transparency and a strong educational foundation.” Barto as well as Newport Beach Mayor Joe Stapleton and Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Kleiman have endorsed McElroy’s bid for a seat on NMUSD’s board, according to her statement.

Walsh had not announced any endorsements as of Tuesday. She told the Daily Pilot during an interview Friday that running for public office is a relatively new experience for her.

She had held the Area 5 trustee’s seat for about five weeks before the petition ousted her from the board. At that point, Walsh asked district officials if she could simply relinquish her position in order to spare taxpayers the cost of putting on a special election.

“I was torn because I felt I was a really good fit for this,” she said. “But if it’s going to cost the district half a million dollars, knowing that our kids need that money, no way. That’s ridiculous.”

But the events that set the stage for the election cannot be undone. So, Walsh will be fighting to win her seat back.

“Service, not politics, is core to who I am,” she wrote in her public campaign statement.

Walsh has been volunteering for NMUSD schools for the past 13 years. During that time she said she often found herself speaking out on behalf of her fellow parents, despite her dislike of being in the spotlight. She said she never aspired to become a public figure, but serving from a leadership position in her brief tenure as a trustee felt like a natural, organic outcome of all the work she has done to support the district so far.

Walsh described herself as an independent who believes leaders should take multiple viewpoints into account and make decisions based on facts rather than ideology. She told the Daily Pilot she was not focused on stirring conflict with state lawmakers over mandated ethnic studies curriculum and other controversial issues.

“I’m not burning my bra and running down the street,” Walsh said. “I’m not some crazy liberal.”

She said one of her priorities would be maintaining and modernizing some of the district’s older facilities. Another is campus safety, and she applauded the previous board’s approval for the installation of AI-assisted surveillance cameras that monitor schools and automatically notify authorities during an emergency.

Both Walsh and McElroy have voiced support for early career education for youth interested in pursuing trades or other career pathways instead of going to college.