After a hard-fought campaign, voters in Loudoun County have selected two new school board candidates from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum.

Seats representing the Leesburg and the Broad Run Districts were on the ballot this election season, each with three candidates—one with Democratic backing, one with Republican backing, and one an independent—vying for the role.

In Leesburg, progressive candidate Erika Ogedegbe, a higher education data architect who was supported by the Loudoun Democratic Party and the political action arm of the local teacher’s union, won election by a significant margin — just shy of 10 points ahead of her Republican opponent, Michael Rivera, a sheriff’s deputy. Lauren Shernoff, a literacy educator and independent candidate, finished with 28% of the vote. (Ogedegbe’s employer is American University, which holds the license to WAMU/DCist.)

In a statement, Ogedegbe thanked her supporters and said she planned to put together a community town hall — a campaign promise — soon.

“I look forward to being a new and positive voice for our children on the school board and am eager to get to work once the election is certified,” she said. “I’m working on plans for my first meet and greet and will share details once I’m officially on the board.”

The final election results are expected to be certified today.

In the Broad Run District, Tiffany Polifko, a conservative endorsed by the local GOP, narrowly defeated Nick Gothard, a 22-year-old progressive who previously ran the Loudoun Democratic Party. In the unofficial count, Polifko, an LCPS parent and behavioral analyst who works with autistic children, won the race by 98 votes, with 6,844 ballots to Gothard’s 6,746.

“Tonight, I reflect on years of advocacy for children and families that prepared me for this position. I thank everyone who supported me throughout my campaign,” Polifko tweeted on Monday. “Let’s get to work!”

Gothard conceded the race on Monday. He thanked supporters in a statement posted on Twitter.

“We may have come up short this year, but I know that this community will continue to fight for our true values,” he wrote. “I’ll always be right by your side.”

Polifko ousted Andrew Hoyler, the Broad Run incumbent, a centrist on the school board who ran as an independent. Hoyler, an airline pilot and LCPS graduate, was originally appointed to the role when the previous Broad Run representative died.

The school board contests were one of the first electoral tests for the county after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin spotlighted Loudoun schools during his election campaign last year. He criticized the suburb’s attempts to address persistent racial inequities and policies allowing transgender and nonbinary students to go by the names and use the facilities matching their gender identities. Youngkin continued that focus in his first year in office, suggesting that public schools in Loudoun and across the commonwealth have lost their drive towards excellence in their efforts to design school experiences and curricula that acknowledge students’ identities. Youngkin and Virginia’s attorney general Jason Miyares are also investigating Loudoun County Public Schools following the mishandling of two sexual assaults by the same perpetrator at two of the county’s high schools.

The political controversy prompted a partisan divide in Loudoun centered on the school board and stoked by extensive coverage by Fox News and other conservative outlets. Conservative parents accused the school board of indoctrinating their children. Left-leaning parents pushed back, labeling the conservative movement an attempt to break public trust in the school system and to push for school choice.

Ogedegbe and Polifko fall on opposite sides of that debate. Ogedegbe has generally been supportive of LCPS’s current direction in addressing equity issues, which she defines as “understanding that students have different needs, and as a public school system, we need to meet those needs, and that might mean different resources to be able to meet the needs that students have.” She wants schools to continue to collect and analyze information about why students of color, English language learners, students in poverty, and students with disabilities fall behind their peers on many measures — and she doesn’t believe doing so detracts from the core education of Loudoun students.

“What I’m hearing from others is just a singular focus on [divisive topics] and then saying, ‘Well, if you’re for equity, then you’re not for general education requirements, you’re not for literacy or making sure that our core academics are strong,’” she told WAMU/DCist in October. “It should go without saying that the primary goal of a public school system is to educate our students.”

Ogedegbe originally ran for the Leesburg seat because she wanted to show that the division and anger around the public school system was not representative of “who we are as a community, that we are supportive of our schools.” But she also offered criticism of the current school board’s limited public engagement and pledged to correct that if elected.

“I do believe that there is a place for formal school board meetings,” she said. “But when parents or community members come and they have the opportunity to say their piece for 1 to 2 minutes, there’s no exchange. And I think it’s really important to provide other mechanisms for communication.”

Polifko, meanwhile, focused her campaign on parents’ rights and removing “identity politics” from schools, both now-familiar conservative rallying cries to address what she and other conservatives see as a leftward tilt in public education. She has also said that she’d advocate for children with special needs if elected, and wants to use her knowledge as a behavioral analyst to help teachers dealing with behavioral challenges in the classroom.

Polifko got into the race after reviewing a lesson from her son’s English class on the possible racial motivations behind a series of shootings in massage parlors in Atlanta, which mostly killed Asian women — a focus on race that she identifies as evidence of “critical race theory” in K-12 education. She’s shared those concerns frequently on ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s show The War Room, characterizing the school district’s decision to pay a consultant group to examine the state of racial bias in LCPS as “administrative bloat” in a recent episode.

Polifko has been highly critical of LCPS superintendent Scott Ziegler, and suggested in October that her first move on the board would be to explore terminating his contract. In an email to WAMU about her plans in light of her win, though, she didn’t directly confirm what she plans to do in her new job.

“I’m first hoping to be working with members of the board to better understand their positions, as I recognize my perspective comes from that of an outsider looking in,” Polifko wrote.

She is also on the leadership team of Parents Against Critical Theory, one of the conservative organizations that frequently accuses the school board of indoctrinating students with liberal ideas. The group was behind a constant flow of online posts — more than 10 blog posts on its website on Election Day alone — that attacked Democratic candidate Nick Gothard, suggesting he was too young and too progressive for the role. “It’s officially unicorn season, and there is no bag limit,” PACT tweeted ahead of Election Day, along with photos of Gothard, who is gay, and Rep. Jennifer Wexton, who has been publicly supportive of the local LGBTQ community. Polifko has said she has no involvement with the group’s social media presence.

“Tiffany’s win sets the model for how We The Parents take back the entire Loudoun County School Board and beyond in 2023,” PACT said in a statement posted on their website. “We won, that’s the official PACT statement.”

The existing school board, which is officially a nonpartisan body, reflects community political divisions, but majorities on the board have previously voted in support of some left-leaning priorities like transgender-inclusive policies in schools. Ogedegbe and Polifko will take their seats on the board this week.

This story has been updated with a statement from Tiffany Polifko.