At the beginning of the year, the Maricopa County Democratic Party (MCDP) established the Future Leaders of Arizona (FLOA) program, underscoring the importance of electing new leaders to important educational governing boards.

Today, we want to highlight one of those important members of the first FLOA cohort, Laura Metcalfe.

Laura is a first-time candidate who decided to run for a seat at the East Valley Institute of Technology. This public school district serves the East Valley and is a joint technological education district with programs available to students at member high schools.

After attending our FLOA program, Laura has crossed many candidate milestones in just a few months. They include:

• Filing a candidate Letter of Interest
• Collecting nearly half of all required signatures
• Joining her Legislative District to collect signatures
• Establishing a campaign website
• Professional candidate photos taken
• Opening a campaign bank account
• Submitting endorsement applications
• Attending campaign finance training

Laura is just one example of the many future candidates we have trained to run their campaigns in Maricopa County.

Whether it's an elementary school, high school, or even the community college governing board, we're ready to help elevate first-time candidates to these essential local education boards.

We can't wait until extremist Republicans gain control of these vital governing boards. We must ensure that all students in Maricopa County public schools have adequate representation.

In Community,

Nancy Schriber