Four men and women completing their current terms on the Moorhead School Board are facing three first-time candidates in Tuesday’s election.
The incumbents include Matt Valan, current board chair Scott Steffes, Cassidy Bjorklund and Melissa Burgard. They face three challengers: Mark Rice, Azad Berwari and Marisa Ahlering.
Residents of Independent School District 152 may vote for up to four candidates to fill the four open seats.
The Moorhead school system cannot and does not endorse any of the candidates. A postcard mailed in mid-month to all homes in Independent School District 152 erroneously implied it had endorsed two of the seven candidates because the mailer’s return address and disclaimer cited MAPS. School officials quickly clarified that, by law, the district cannot endorse or support individual candidates. The president of Education Moorhead – an affiliate of Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union – subsequently admitted the mistake, calling the inclusion an editing error, and apologized for the mistake.
Matt Valan is a lifelong District 152 resident, and a graduate of MHS and Concordia College, with grandchildren currently attending the Moorhead schools. A pastor of the ELCA, he has served the Moorhead area as a faith leader since 1982, with a personal emphasis on youth and the elderly. He has served on many community boards and task forces over the years, and has chaired the school board in the past.
Board chair Scott Steffes, who is completing his third term as a member, grew up on a Clay County farm in rural Clay County, moving to Moorhead 31 years ago. He and wife Kristi have two daughters who are graduates of Moorhead High School. He spent 29 years as a Clay County deputy sheriff, retiring in 2022. The bond to build the new high school was passed during one of his terms as chair.
Melissa Burgard and her husband Rick Foster both grew up in Moorhead and graduated from Moorhead High School. They have two children, a who’s a freshman at Concordia after graduating from MHS, and a daughter in eighth grade at Horizon Middle School. She is seeking her third term on the school board, after serving as its treasurer and chair.
Cassidy Bjorklund was elected to the school board in 2017. A native of Moorhead, she is a graduate of Moorhead High School. She and her husband has three children who have gone through the school district. She chaired of the “Vote Yes” committee for the 2019 school bond referendum. She has also served as president of a Parent Teacher Advisory Council president and participated in district hiring committees.
Three newcomers are challenging the members whose current terms are ending:
Mark Rice, a lifelong Moorhead resident, is a graduate of MHS, as are his two daughters. He is a member of the board of the Moorhead Legacy Education Foundation.
Azad Berwari, who is originally from Kurdistan in northern Iraq, has lived in Moorhead since 2010. He is an assistant team leader with at the Rural Minnesota Concentrated Employment Program Office. Berwari has volunteered as an interpreter and translator. He was a vice president at Moorhead Head Start and is a member of the board of Family Healthcare Center in Fargo.
Marissa Ahlering moved to Moorhead 7 years ago when her oldest started kindergarten; she now has two daughters in the district. She has a doctorate in biology, currently serving as director of science for a conservation nonprofit. She has served on the Moorhead Human Rights Commission, the Probstfield Parent Teacher Advisory Committee, and the school district’s instruction and curriculum advisory committee.