NAMPA, Idaho — The Nampa School District welcomed a new face Wednesday to the Board of Trustees after appointing Jason Su to a vacant zone 3 seat.
Conservative-backed candidates swept a three-seat November of 2021 Nampa School Board election. The district’s Board of Trustees is made up of five seats total. Tracey Pearson was part of the that group; though, she later resigned in June 2023 for personal reasons undisclosed by the district.
In an interview with the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), Pearson explained she is against critical race theory, mask mandates, social emotional learning and transgender people using the bathroom of their choice.
Since the November of 2021 election, the Nampa School Board passed a policy to ban classroom conversations about gender identity, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and gender expression. The board also voted in May of 2022 to ban 22 books permanently from the library for allegedly containing pornography.
"I have to bring up the bible, because I hate to hear the bible compared to those books because America was based on the Judeo-Christian - the bible. And there is a lot of good. These books have no good," Pearson said in support of the book ban.
Her replacement, Su, runs in stark contrast. He works at the Meridian Library District (MLD); MLD has fought off book-bans themselves. Community members petition for county commissioners, unsuccessfully, to entirely dissolve MLD.
Su did not want to conflate the two when speaking to KTVB; however, he is firmly against book bans.
"It comes down to the First Amendment rights issue. And I believe everyone should have access to materials," Su said. "That's the beauty in the character of our country, is everyone has their story to tell. I would never want to be the person that says 'you can't hear this person's story for whatever reason.'"
Su is a self-described small-town conservative. His top priorities revolve around teacher retention and school funding. That includes passing bonds and levies to maintain and create district facilities.
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