Is Christine White still running for school board? She says no, but mailers say yes
Christine White, the Johnson County pediatrician who was against masks before she was for them, looks like she’s still campaigning for a seat on the Blue Valley School Board of Education.
Yes, she dropped out in August after partners in her medical practice publicly disagreed with her anti-mask stance. White only changed her position on masks after we wrote about it.
Suddenly, she said she’d changed her mind about the importance of wearing a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. And soon after that, she announced that she was leaving the race.
Yet campaign mailers asking voters to support White’s bid went out last week, and yard signs for her went up, too.
“If her Democrat endorsed opponent wins the election,” the mailer said, “we’ll be stuck with a Radical Leftist on our School Board, who will vote her extreme national agenda into our classrooms.” Blue Valley school board elections are nonpartisan.
On Thursday, White told us that no, she is not campaigning, and doesn’t know who sent the mailers or put up the signs. “I am no longer campaigning for the school board race,” White wrote in an email. “I have not authorized anyone to use my name and photo in campaign materials.”
She has not denounced the literature sent out in support of her candidacy, though. Her campaign website remains active, and we won’t know her latest financial donation or contribution records until after the Nov. 2 election.
After leaving the race too late to have her name taken off the ballot, she promised that if elected, she would resign “to allow another community volunteer to serve in that capacity.”
On Thursday, when asked in a follow-up message whether she would serve if elected, or who might take her place if not, she did not respond.
White’s opponent, Gina Knapp, is not a radical leftist. Unlike those on the anti-mask slate that White was or is on, she does believe that wearing masks is the best way to keep kids in school. Knapp said she doesn’t have any reason to believe White is still campaigning. Either way, a vote for White is not just a waste, but a mistake.