As no Democrats are running for the office of Yavapai County Superintendent of Schools, the winner of the Republican primary between Steve King and Kara Woods will presumably be the district’s next head after incumbent Superintendent Tim Carter retires at the end of the year, having held the position since 2005.

King is basing his pitch to voters on his previous experience, while Woods is making the case that King’s experience would be a continuance of the status quo.

Steve King

“The first rule that you take an oath to when you take the office is to uphold the law, and I take that very seriously, and the law is the law, and we follow the law,” King said, describing himself as a constitutional conservative.

King has worked for Arizona school districts for 30 years, starting as a teacher’s aide. He became the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District Superintendent in 2017 and announced his resignation from the district in

March 2023, serving until COCSD promoted Jessica Vocca this year. He has worked in both public and private schools and has founded three different charter schools.

“I grew up in Phoenix,” King said. “My family and I moved up to the Verde Valley and Yavapai County 23 years ago. We still live in the same house … I raised my family here in the Verde Valley, they’re all grown and gone. I’m married and my wife is also in [education]. We’ve been married for 32 years. Personally, I like the Verde River [and to] go canoeing.”

King said the three biggest challenges for schools in Yavapai County are recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers, “making sure that our children have every opportunity to grow into becoming productive citizens” and ensuring that schools are not places of political indoctrination.

Both candidates have called for topics such as critical race theory to be excluded from schools in Yavapai County, something that no superintendent in the Verde Valley, including King, has said is occurring in previous interviews with the Sedona Red Rock News.

As for his tenure as superintendent, King said he was proud of introducing phonics-based reading instruction, more afterschool programming and greater vocational training.

“I think those are important opportunities for kids [and] I’d like to see [afterschool Programming] expanded,” King said.

“The role of the county school superintendent in doing that is limited, it’s a support role. We don’t tell school districts what to do. But I certainly believe that that is a very important aspect and a role for our schools to play.”

King pointed to COCSD’s establishment of Verde Tech High School in 2022, which trains kids for future jobs in the urban-industrial workforce, and collaborating with the Valley Academy of Career and Technology Education to offer in-classroom teacher training to high school juniors and seniors as evidence of his support for job training. 

“I’m the most highly-qualified candidate with an extensive knowledge base on school law, curriculum instruction, finance budgets, and proven leadership,” King subsequently said.

Kara Woods

“I am a conservative, I am registered Republican, I do believe politically that boys are boys and girls are girls,” Woods said, saying that she would support using the gender assigned at birth for students in grades K through 12. 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a 2023 bill that would have compelled schools to refer to transgender students by their biological names or pronouns. Similar bills failed to reach the floor in 2024. There is no state law on the issue, so individual districts currently set their own policies.

Transgender youth who are allowed to use their chosen name across school, work, home and among friends experienced 71% fewer symptoms of severe deppression and a 65% decrease in suicide attempts according to a 2018 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health. 

Woods has served one term as a board member for the Prescott Unified School District after relocating to Prescott in 2013. A former 23-year STEM teacher with degrees in mathematics and physics from Ripon College in Wisconsin, she has taught in public and charter schools and is a local business owner.

“[I’ve] been married too many years to count, 37 years,” Woods said. “I have two children, three grandchildren. They almost all live in Prescott here with us … My philosophy of education is that we as a county need to get back to the basics. Get back to teaching math, science, reading, writing, fact based history, English.”

She said improving test scores, increasing classroom attendance and reducing student behavioral referrals are the three biggest issues she sees with Yavapai County schools.

“I’d like the kids to be acting a little bit better,” Woods said. “I think if we incorporate a love for the United States, a love for America, that we’re all Americans together. We’re not victims. We are not oppressed or oppressors. We can accomplish it.” 

Her campaign website suggests hiring teachers “willing to promote a love of country and our state’s conservative values.”

Students will want to come to class if high standards are expected of them, Woods said of the attendance issue, which she also said would translate to higher standardized test scores.

“If we can get [them] to be teaching  from bell to bell, and actually teaching and not asking the students to investigate by themselves, than we should be able to improve test scores,” Woods said. “It’s not that hard. When I was teaching, I could get 75% to 80% to pass.”

Woods cited her term on the PUSD board and small business experience as her preparation for the budgeting aspects of the job.

“I have not helped to administer vocational education, per se. I know it’s important. But I have not been directly involved with that,” Woods said.

“You should vote for me because I really feel like education is going in the wrong direction. I am willing to change that direction,” Woods said. “And my opponent is pretty much an exact copy of what we have right now. The same education, the same background. So if you want the same thing that we have right now, then don’t vote for me. If you’d like to change back to the basics, getting scores up and attendance up and getting referrals decreased in classrooms, then vote for me.”