Meet the 5 candidates running for Blue Valley School District Board of Education
A former Blue Valley superintendent, educators and an ousted school board president are all on the ballot for the Nov. 4 school board election for Blue Valley, ensuring the Blue Valley Board of Education race is filled with people engaged in the community and veteran educators.
The candidates are running for three seats on the seven-member board of Blue Valley Schools Board of Education, an unpaid position in Johnson County. Board members meet monthly publicly to govern the school district.
Two board members are incumbent candidates running for re-election. District 4’s Sonya Evans filled a 2023 vacancy on the board but is now running unopposed for her first full term.
Johnson County’s website lists all candidates running for election this year, and voters can see sample ballots on the Kansas Secretary of State’s website.
Find more coverage of Johnson County politics on KansasCity.com, or sign up for a free newsletter with news for the county.
District Member 4
Sonya Evans
Dr. Sonya Evans, a registered Democrat, joined the Blue Valley Board of Education in 2023 to fill a vacancy and is now running for a full term. According to her biography page on the school board’s website, she has several education specialist degrees, and was previously involved with the Blue Valley Strategic Planning Committee, several boards with the Blue Valley Education Foundation and the advisory board for the Center for Advanced Professional Studies.
Evans and her husband have lived in the Blue Valley School District for over 25 years and have had two sons graduate from Blue Valley schools.
Evans has been endorsed by Stand Up Blue Valley, a non-partisan political action committee made up of parents and the Blue Valley community.
District Member 5
Gina Knapp (Incumbent)
Gina Knapp, a registered Democrat, was elected in 2021 to the Blue Valley Board of Education and served as board president during the 2024-2025 school year. She currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer for the YMCA of Greater Kansas City and has held executive roles at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis, the Kauffman Foundation and other organizations, according to her biography page on the school board’s website.
In 2021, Knapp told The Star her oldest child, who is hard of hearing, inspired her to run.
“We’ve had quite a journey with getting him the accommodations he needs as a result of his special needs,” she said. “Realizing how much you have to advocate for your kids to get them what they need, and the research you have to do, really surprised me.”
Knapp has been endorsed by Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidates and Stand Up Blue Valley, a non-partisan political action committee made up of parents and the Blue Valley community.
Steve Roberts
Steve Roberts, a registered Republican, was a member of the Kansas Board of Education District 2 from 2013 to 2021, according to the Kansas Secretary of State. He most recently ran for Kansas’ 3rd U.S. Congressional District in 2024, but lost to Democrat Sharice Davis.
Roberts was previously a math teacher, according to his campaign website, but publicly states — as a way to illustrate the issue of low teacher pay — he instead now drives for rideshare companies because it pays better. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in education.
Roberts aims to reduce classroom sizes, as well as to open teaching jobs to experts in fields they seek to teach, even if they don’t have degrees in teaching. He believes great teachers should be paid a high-end salary after three to four years on the job, and wants to transition teaching unions to professional organizations.
If elected, Robert hopes to embrace technology but allow students to work on problem-solving, eliminate traditional ordinal grades, decrease school reliance on property taxes and stop labeling children “by color” in school and switch from free and reduced lunch to lunches paid with taxes.
District Member 6
David Benson
Dr. David Benson — a registered Democrat — was an educator for 44 years in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa and the superintendent of Blue Valley School District from 1993 to 2004, according to his campaign website.
He was awarded superintendent of the year in 2001 and the Federal Congressional Record in 2004. Benson was a Kansas representative from 2019 to 2020, where he served on the financial institutions, pension, education and K-12 education budget committees.
Benson is a member of several local boards, including the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce, Heart of America United Way for Metropolitan KC and is president of the board for United Community Services of Johnson County.
Benson has been endorsed by Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidates and Stand Up Blue Valley, a non-partisan political action committee made up of parents and the Blue Valley community.
Jim McMullen (incumbent)
Jim McMullen — a registered Republican — has been on the education board since 2022, previously serving as vice president until his removal in 2022, and has centered his campaign on advancing the reading curriculum, emphasizing western civilization science, philosophy and foundational literature, according to his campaign website.
If re-elected, McMullen hopes to continue to solve problems through the lens of developing minds, bodies and spirits and pay attention to where district money is allocated, especially when it comes to building projects and technology. McMullen has both a foreign science degree and a law degree. He was previously a middle school and high school teacher in Mississippi, but now owns a merchant banking firm in Overland Park.
In 2022, McMullen was removed from his position as vice president of the Blue Valley School Board, after facing pressure to resign following a series of social media posts that many deemed anti-LGBTQ and transphobic.
The Board voted 5-2 to strip him of his title in response to the posts, which included his response to a message from then-President Joe Biden marking the Transgender Day of Visibility, in which McMullen tweeted: “President embracing child abuse.” According to previous reporting, he then posted about “the poison that is gender ideology” and asserted it was not okay to “say gay in schools.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM.
