The filing deadline has passed, and the field is now official for the four Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board seats on the November 3 ballot. Nine candidates filed across the four districts — but one of those seats has, in effect, already been decided.
Stephanie Braden is the lone candidate in District 4. Barring an unlikely legal complication, that makes her the winner by default, set to take the seat without opposition. The remaining three districts will be contested, including a District 2 race that grew to three candidates and a District 1 contest that now spans three different ballot labels.
This is the first HSE election held under Indiana’s new partisan-races law. Under Senate Enrolled Act 287, signed this spring, school board candidates may run with a party label or with none at all; previously, every HSE board race was strictly nonpartisan. Of the nine candidates, two filed as Republicans (Greg Wright in District 1 and David Turk in District 3), one filed as a Libertarian (Anthony Jason Wren in District 1), one as an independent (Braden), and the remaining five chose no party affiliation. Indiana is the 10th state to allow partisan school board elections, making this fall’s vote an early test of how — or whether — party labels reshape these traditionally low-key local races.
The candidates
District 1 (1 seat) is the only three-way race with three different labels on the ballot.
Faiza Maqsood (No Party) is a 20-year Fishers resident whose three children all graduated from HSE; she has held leadership and treasurer roles with organizations supporting students and families, including IPS Sidener Academy, the Julian Center and Wheeler Mission.
Greg Wright (Republican), a dentist and small-business owner, says he is running at a pivotal time as the district navigates budget pressure, staffing and enrollment changes; his campaign site is wrightforhse.com.
Anthony Jason Wren (Libertarian), one of the last to file, is the first third-party candidate in the field and had no findable campaign web presence as of this writing.
District 2 (1 seat) drew three no-party candidates.
Josh Perry is a 2007 HSE High School graduate and Purdue alumnus who now works as a commercial underwriting manager for Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance; he and his wife are raising two children who attend Harrison Parkway Elementary, and his campaign emphasizes steady, balanced leadership and purposeful spending.
Cyrus Keck, also a Harrison Parkway parent, has been a regular school-board-meeting watcher and is running on financial accountability and administrative oversight, citing concerns over the district’s charter-school rollout; he says he filed without a party because “our school board should not be about politics.”
Ferras B. Abdalla was among the final filers and, like Wren, had no findable campaign web presence as of this writing.
District 3 (1 seat) is a contest between a newcomer and a veteran.
David Turk (Republican) is a real estate developer and father of three who moved his family to Fishers in 2021; his platform centers on protecting HSE’s special-education programs, retaining teachers and responsible budgeting.
Michelle Fullhart (No Party) is no newcomer — first elected in 2014, she served two terms and was board president in 2019. A longtime district educator, she has been an outspoken voice on the recent teacher contract, saying teachers “feel disrespected” by the agreement.
District 4 (1 seat) is settled.
Stephanie Braden (independent), a registered nurse of more than 16 years and a 25-year member of the U.S. Army Reserve, is unopposed. A mother of five whose children have all attended HSE schools, she has campaigned on academic excellence, fiscal responsibility and empowering educators.
Reminder: each candidate runs only within their own district, and voters cast a ballot only in the district where they live. View a map of the four districts at this link.