School Board candidate Kerra Armstrong runs on accountability and wanting to help parents

Kerra Armstrong says she is running for the school board so parents don’t have to fight the district alone.

“I really want to hold people accountable for different things and hold the board accountable,” Armstrong told the Ledger.

Armstrong is running for the District 3 seat on the Blackford County Schools board. She faces Board President Phil Jones in the Nov. 3 general election. Jones has held the seat since at least 2010 and has been board president since 2017.

Armstrong filed June 18. The county’s candidate notice lists her as a Republican and Jones with no party. She spoke with the Ledger recently regarding her campaign.

A parent’s view

Armstrong has children across the district’s programs, from high-ability to special education. She said that gives her a wide view of the schools.

“My kids are in all different facets within the school, and so I get to talk to so many different people,” she said.

She said getting her children the services they needed, in both high-ability and special education programs, was a struggle under a past administrator. She went through the chain of command. She said that included contacting a school board member, who never responded. In the end, she hired an advocate for her youngest son.

She said that if someone had helped when she first asked, in first grade, her family would not be where it is now. “We could have mitigated a lot of that if someone would have held him accountable,” she said.

She said she had to teach herself how special education works, including IEPs and what families can expect.

“And not all parents have those resources,” she said.

She said she recently talked with another mother who has also had trouble getting services for her children. She said she believes experiences like theirs are one reason families are leaving the district.

She said most parents she met who dealt with the former special education director had similar experiences. She praised the district’s current director, Ms. Price.

“She has been absolutely amazing with my interaction with her,” Armstrong said.

She said the larger question remains.

“Why are we allowed to be out of compliance and know they’re out of compliance and there’s no making sure that people know that.” she said.

Spending where it counts

Armstrong said she wants to know whether the district puts its resources and people where it all does the most good.

“Are we sending them in the correct place to make sure that we’re hitting our max potential, right?” she said. She called people the district’s “number one asset.”

Career and technical education

Armstrong wants the district to grow its career and technical education classes.

“We do not have enough welders and plumbers and millwrights and electricians, large animal vets,” she said.

She said the school gets extra state money for each student enrolled in a CTE class. She said she came from a school with a large vocational department, and she wants Blackford to look for resources to build its own.

She said students are now competing for jobs with people around the world.

“How do we set them up so that they’re ready to have that competition and they’re ready to be employed and be productive and be successful,” she said.

Telling the district’s story

Armstrong wants the schools to market what students do well. She pointed to FFA teams that place at the state level, the band and plays at the new art center.

“We should be throwing that all over every social media page that we have,” she said.

She said the district should post events far enough ahead for families to plan. She tied that marketing to keeping students in the district and drawing new ones.

How she would serve

Armstrong said she does not claim to know every detail of how the district runs.

“I can definitely tell you that I do my research before I go,” she said. “I’m going to ask questions. Some of them are uncomfortable, some of them are comfortable.”

Public service

Armstrong is a member of the Blackford County Area Plan Commission and its representative on the Board of Zoning Appeals. She was BZA president in 2022 and has been vice president since August 2025.

She is also a member of the Blackford County Farm Bureau Inc. She served as its president for several years and is now vice president.

Ag Day

Through the Blackford County Farm Bureau, Armstrong helps organize Ag Day at Blackford Primary School and Blackford Intermediate School. The spring event introduces students to the range of work in agriculture.

Each year’s event centers on one animal. Past themes have featured pigs, goats, cows and bees. This year, the focus is on chickens, she says. Blackford FFA and Blackford Purdue Extension teach lessons in breakout sessions.

“This might be the only time the students will have live exposure with the animal of topic,” Armstrong said. “It is an event I look forward to every year.”

The race

Armstrong's opponent, Jones, has been the District 3 board member since at least 2015 and board president since July 2017. He ran unopposed in 2018 and 2022. He also represents the school board on the Area Plan Commission.

Ledger invitations

The Ledger offered every county-level candidate on the November ballot that's competing for their seat a chance to talk about their campaign.