Each of five candidates for office is well-qualified and capable.

For all the hot takes spilled in the past month about Des Moines Public Schools, many about how poorly the district is supposedly run, the campaign to help run the district has been decidedly sleepy.

Timing could be one reason. Candidates had to file to run for school board by Sept. 18, and it wasn't until Sept. 26 that Superintendent Ian Roberts was taken into custody on a deportation order, the first in a whirlwind of revelations about ways he had misrepresented himself throughout his career in Des Moines and elsewhere. He now faces trial on federal charges of lying and illegally possessing firearms. If federal agents had taken action weeks earlier, perhaps a more fiery election season would have followed.

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