Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #107

By

Samuel Wonacott

Welcome to Hall Pass, a newsletter written to keep you plugged into the conversations driving school board politics and governance.

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

  • On the issues:  The debate over partisan school board elections 
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • A primer on Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds
  • Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over partisan school board elections

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues school board members deliberate when they set out to offer the best education possible in their district. Missed an issue? Click here to see the previous education debates we’ve covered.

More than 90% of school board elections are nonpartisan, but not everyone agrees they should be. 

Bonnie Jean Feldkamp writes that partisan school board elections politicize district policies and prevent collaborative, open-minded decision-making. Feldkamp says requiring candidates to run with partisan affiliations boxes them into party-line positions and prevents them from focusing on the needs of schools and students.

Eric Bledsoe writes that it is difficult for voters to find information about school board candidates and that partisan affiliations help voters make more informed decisions. Bledsoe says the lack of information makes it easier for engaged groups like teachers’ unions to elect their preferred candidates, even if they don’t align with voters’ preferences.

New bill says school board candidates must pick a political party. Is that legal? | Bonnie Jean Feldkamp, Louisville Courier Journal

“[I]f we are going to have productive conversations with the intent of educating and preparing students for their life ahead, attaching political identity to school board elections is not the way to do it. … Declaring a party affiliation can make difficult school board conversations even harder. It’s true that regardless of declared political leanings that school board members still bring their ideologies and value sets to meetings. But just because a person votes a certain way does not mean they are incapable of open-minded discourse regarding the issues at hand. However, when school board candidates do run with political designations displayed, some constituents could hitch partisan agendas to board member expectations in hopes that their candidate will stay inside a preconceived box. And those assumptions add partisan pressure that should not exist in a school board. When we identify people in terms of party-lines we place people into camps and create an us-versus-them atmosphere that only works to dismantle vigorous discussions about our children’s education. … Every stakeholder’s highest purpose should be to make sure every child in the school district reaches their fullest potential.”

Why We Should Make School-Board Elections More Political | Eric Bledsoe, National Review

“Public education is one of America’s hottest political flashpoints, yet, counterintuitively, making it more political will help lower the temperature. Public schools have declined in large part because teachers’ unions have taken advantage of the unique election system that’s used for most of the country’s school boards. Those races should be aligned with the elections that Americans know best, increasing voter knowledge, turnout, and the likelihood that winners reflect local families’ priorities. … Only nine states require school-board candidates to declare their party affiliation or give them the option, depending on the district. This allows teachers’ unions to run candidates who may otherwise lose if their party affiliation were more obvious. In North Carolina, for instance, 14 counties voted for Republican candidates in federal Senate and House races in 2022 yet also elected registered Democrats to school boards. Democrats are far more likely to support teachers’-union demands once in office, which voters could better predict if party affiliation were mandatory. Even if they run in nonpartisan races, candidates don’t ignore their own politics once elected.”

In your district: Spending ESSER funds 

We’re still accepting responses to our survey on Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds. Please complete the very brief survey below—anonymously, if you prefer—and we may share your response with fellow subscribers in an upcoming newsletter. Scroll down to learn more about ESSER funds.   

Between March 2020 and March 2021, Congress allocated roughly $190 billion to schools through three rounds of ESSER Fund grants. Congress authorized this aid in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and gave districts wide latitude to spend on facility maintenance and expansion, technology upgrades, professional development for teachers and staff, mental health support, tutoring services, and more. 

The deadline for districts to commit the last round of ESSER funds to projects is September 2024, and funds must be spent by the end of January 2025 (states can request an extension). 

Tell us about your district’s experience spending ESSER funds. Click here to respond!

School board update: filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications

In 2023, Ballotpedia covered elections for over 9,000 school board seats in more than 3,000 districts across 34 states. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on the more 13,000 districts with elected school boards. 

Upcoming school board elections

Texas

Ballotpedia is covering elections in 50 districts on May 4, including elections in the Dallas Independent School District, the state’s second-largest by student enrollment. 

Michigan

On May 7, Ballotpedia will cover recall elections against Rachel Gort and Richard Vance—two of the seven members of the Grant Public School District Board of Education. Mindy Conley and Lindsay Mahlich are running against Gort and Vance.

This will be the fifth school board recall to go to a vote in 2024. 

The effort started after the board voted in June 2023 to issue a 90-day termination letter to Family Health Care, which had been operating a health clinic in the district’s middle school since 2010. Due to the termination letter, the clinic’s contract with the district was scheduled to end on Oct. 6, 2023. Gort and Vance voted in favor of the termination. 

On Sept. 11, 2023, the board unanimously voted to approve a new contract with Family Health Care, keeping the clinic open. The contract included the stipulation that a student-created mural featuring LGBTQ+ imagery be removed by the end of October 2023. Under the contract, the superintendent and school board president must approve any future decorations in the clinic.

Click here to learn more about this recall election.

A primer on Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds

This story ran in a recent edition of the the Daily Brew, our daily politics newsletter. The Brew covers federal, state, and local political stories, including the presidential race, ballot measures, and more. Click here to subscribe. 

The last round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund grants expires this September, and some K-12 public school districts are looking at how to spend the last of the money and adjust their future budgets.

Here’s the backstory on ESSER funds. Throughout Spring 2020, all 50 states shuttered K-12 public schools to in-person learning. In most states, students would not return to classrooms for the remainder of the academic year.  

Congress allocated roughly $190 billion to schools between March 2020 and March 2021 through three rounds of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund grants:

Congress also allocated about 10% of ESSER funding—or about $19 billion—to state education agencies. Congress mostly followed Title I funding formulas in allocating ESSER grants, meaning districts with more low-income families generally received more funding. Title I is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

States have until September to commit money they received in the third round (ARP Act) of ESSER funding. Each tranche of ESSER funding came with its own deadline. The deadlines for the first two rounds have already passed. The deadline for districts to commit the third tranche of ESSER funds to projects is Sept. 30. Districts must have spent the funds by the end of January 2025 (states can request an extension).

States and districts have spent about 77% of all ESSER funds. FutureEd, a nonpartisan education think tank based out of Georgetown University, calculated that states and districts have spent about $145.3 billion—or 77%—of the funding allocated across all three ESSER allocations. According to the U.S. Department of Education, states and districts have spent an average of 63% of the third round of ESSER funds. 

Districts had wide latitude to spend the money. According to the U.S. Department of Education, “These Federal emergency resources are available for a wide range of activities to address diverse needs arising from or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, or to emerge stronger post-pandemic, including responding to students’ social, emotional, mental health, and academic needs and continuing to provide educational services as States, LEAs, and schools respond to and recover from the pandemic.”

Districts are grappling with the expiration of ESSER funds. With the deadline to spend ESSER funds approaching and declining public school enrollment, districts are grappling with the loss of billions of dollars in federal aid. To put the loss in perspective, in 2019, the last year before Congress began allocating ESSER grants, the federal government spent a total of $57.9 billion on K-12 public schools—less than a third of what Congress allocated to schools through ESSER.

A 2023 Education Next analysis of 22 states found that districts had spent about half of the money on labor costs, which could include new hires and raises for existing personnel. A December 2023 Education Week survey of 250 district leaders found that a quarter of respondents said they didn’t anticipate finding alternative funding to cover ongoing expenses made with ESSER grants. 

Some districts have announced staff and teacher layoffs due to losing ESSER funds. Districts may also cut expenses in other ways, including ending after-school programs, tutoring services, and more.

Tell us about your district’s experience spending ESSER funds. Click here to respond!

Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web

This section contains links to recent education-related articles from around the internet. If you know of a story we should be reading, reply to this email to share it with us! 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at survey responses from Aaron Baxter and Gerri Daggett, two candidates running for seats on the Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District Board of Trustees on May 4. 

Baxter and Amy Punchard are running to represent Place 1. Daggett and incumbent Colby Miller are running in the general election to represent Place 2. Daggett and Baxter are the only candidates who have completed the survey so far. 

The Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District is the 151st-largest district in Texas, with an estimated student population of 6,975.

Here’s how Baxter answered the question, “What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?”

“Aaron has spent the last several years writing to congresspeople and educating the public regarding the matter of funding for public education. While school board members do not vote on funding bills, it is upon them to advocate for adequate funding to keep our schools running safely and efficiently, to pay our teachers fairly, and to allow for growth.”

Click here to read the rest of Baxter’s responses. 

Here’s how Daggett answered the question, “What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?”

  • “Encouraging involvement of parents, families, and our community in the education system.
  • Improving access to quality education, ensuring equitable opportunities for all students, and supporting educational reforms to improve outcomes for every student.
  • Promoting equality, addressing systemic discrimination, advocating for human rights, and working towards a more inclusive society.”

Click here to read the rest of Baxter’s responses. 

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take the survey. If you’re not running for school board, but there is an election in your community this year, share the link with the candidates and urge them to take the survey!

In the 2022 election cycle, 6,087 candidates completed the survey. 
The survey contains more than 30 questions, and you can choose the ones you feel will best represent your views to voters. If you complete the survey, a box with your answers will display on your Ballotpedia profile. Your responses will also appear in our sample ballot.