Clark, Tapia-Hadley Garner Win Arlington School Board Seats

Updated:

ARLINGTON, VA — With all precincts reporting, Zuraya Tapia-Hadley (D) and Kathleen A. Clark (D) received the most votes in the four-way race for the two open seats on the Arlington County School Board, according to unofficial results reported by the Virginia State Board of Elections.

Tapia-Hadley and Clark ran against James Vell Rives IV (F) and Paul C. Weiss.

With 54 of 54 precincts reporting and election night ballot counting completed, unofficial results have Clark and Tapia-Hadley leading with the most votes:

• James Vell Rives IV (F): 25,946 (14.47%)
• Paul C. Weiss : 30,452 (16.98%)
• Zuraya Tapia-Hadley (D): 53,691 (29.94%)
• Kathleen A. Clark (D): 66,685 (37.24%)
• Write In: 2,482 (1.35%)

Provisional and post-election ballots are the only votes left to count. The first are ballots that voters cast if they were registering at the polls on Election Day. Post-election ballots are those that are postmarked by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5 and received by the local general registrar no later than 12 p.m. on the third day following Election Day, according to the state board of elections. Ballots that have the correct postmark but are not received by the deadline will not be counted.

Tapia-Hadley's campaign received $83,164 in contributions, according to the latest state finance filings as reported by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Projecr. She not only received the most donations in the school board race, she more than doubled the $31,632 raised by Rives and the $28,812 in donations received by Clark.

Weiss' campaign received $14,166 in donations.

For full coverage of the election in Virginia, go here.

Tapia-Hadley is a senior government affairs and public affairs professional with 20 years of experience. She has two law degrees, a master of laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and an undergraduate degree in law from the Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico, one of the top private universities in Mexico.

Rives has 20 years of experience both as a psychiatrist and a church choir director. He is serving his sixth year on Arlington Public Schools' School Health Advisory Board, a position he was appointed to by the school board. He also served as the advisory board's co-chair in 2021-2022. For six years, he was as an Arlington County election officer and was appointed assistant chief in 2021 by the County Electoral Board.

An internal auditor at Gap Inc., Clark has worked as an internal auditor Gap. Inc for more than 16 years, as 10 years of store management experience. She graduated from East Carolina University with a bachelor of science degreee and was a double major in Spanish and business management.

Weiss, who is running as a Democrat, has 36 years of experience in education and has been teaching the last 22 years at H-B Woodlawn.

This year's ballot included a proposed amendment to the Virginia Constitution and four Arlington County bond questions, one of which directly impacts Arlington Public Schools:

Shall Arlington County contract a debt and issue its general obligation bonds in the maximum principal amount of $83,990,000 to finance, together with other available funds, the cost of various capital projects for Arlington Public Schools?