While the midterm elections have dominated the discussion headed into Election Day, voters will also be weighing in on hundreds of school board races across the country.
The typically nonpartisan and low-profile elections have taken on new importance over the past two years as grassroots parent activists have mobilized at school board meetings to protest school district policies on race and gender issues and the availability of books with sexually explicit material in school libraries.
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CONSERVATIVES BUILD MOMENTUM IN SCHOOL BOARD RACES AHEAD OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS
The newfound interest in school board races among conservatives has seen several groups invest substantial resources into the local elections. Prominent politicians such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and organizations such as Moms for Liberty have endorsed hundreds of parental rights-oriented school board candidates nationwide, while other groups such as the 1776 Project PAC have spent thousands of dollars to boost conservative school board contenders.
“A lot of Republican voters are parents and grandparents, and they are concerned with the state of public education and where it’s going,” 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky told the Washington Examiner earlier this year. “These people have to get up, and they have to go vote.”
Virginia
The epicenter of the parental rights backlash is widely considered to be Loudoun County, Virginia, where the school board was accused of covering up the sexual assault of a female student by a male student in the girls bathroom of a local high school. The board’s handling of the incident, which involved transferring the perpetrator to another high school where he allegedly committed a second assault, faced great criticism and became the impetus for a recall effort against several members of the board.
Two contested seats each have three candidates on the ballot. The Broad Run District seat pits incumbent self-styled independent Andrew Hoyler against Nicholas Gothard and Tiffany Polifko. Gothard has earned the endorsement of the local Democratic Party, the teachers union, and several liberal activist groups. The Loudoun Republican Party has thrown its weight behind Polifko in the nonpartisan race.
The Leesburg District seat does not include an incumbent candidate and sees Republican-endorsed candidate Michael Rivera, Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Erika Ogedegbe, and independent Lauren Shernoff vying for the open seat.
Florida
Most of Florida’s school board elections took place in August and saw a number of conservative candidates win sweeping victories. The elections garnered a special national interest after state Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) endorsed a number of school board candidates up and down the state, the vast majority of whom went on to win.
But Florida’s school board election system requires a runoff between the top two vote-getters if no candidate clears 50%, so a handful of districts in the Sunshine State will have Election Day runoffs in school board races.
DeSantis-endorsed candidates are campaigning in runoff elections for seats on the county school boards of Hendry, Indian River, Lee, Manatee, Pasco, and Volusia.
Michigan
While the 1776 Project has endorsed school board candidates in states all over the country, including several candidates in Florida, the political action committee has thrown its weight behind 21 candidates in nine different Michigan school districts.
Education has emerged as a major campaign issue in the state’s gubernatorial race, where Republican nominee Tudor Dixon is seeking to unseat incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Dixon in particular has criticized Whitmer’s record on reopening schools after the onset of the pandemic. In a debate last month Whitmer claimed that schools in Michigan were only closed for three months despite the fact that several districts in the state remained closed through most of the 2020-2021 school year.
All of the Michigan candidates endorsed by the 1776 Project are running for at-large seats on their local boards. The group has endorsed candidates seeking seats on the boards of Coloma, Niles, Bridgman, Watervliet, East Grand Rapids, St. Joseph, Lakeshore, New Buffalo, and Brandywine school districts.
Arizona
The race for two seats on the Scottsdale Unified School District board includes one candidate whose personal information was included in a dossier of “wackos” compiled by a sitting member of the school board. A lawsuit has been filed against the school board member by the parents whose information was included in the dossier. The incident also drew the attention of state Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
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The candidate, Amy Carney, is one of five candidates vying for the two at-large seats on the Phoenix area school district’s board.
“What a school board is supposed to do is represent the people,” Carney told the Washington Examiner in September. “What the board is supposed to do is to listen to the community and be their voice. But somehow, we’ve gotten this all wrong. We need to get back to the basics.”
