Welcome to the Wednesday, April 16, Brew.
By: Briana Ryan
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- New Ballotpedia research looks at the scope of school board authority
- San Antonio’s mayoral election first in 16 years without an incumbent
- This week’s On the Ballot features our comprehensive ballot measure coverage in California
New Ballotpedia research looks at the scope of school board authority
School board members comprise one of the largest groups of elected officials, with more than 82,000 members serving on more than 13,000 public school boards. However, some voters—and even some school board members—do not have a clear understanding of the school boards’ policymaking authority and responsibilities.
In our latest research effort, we examined laws on school board authority and responsibilities in all 50 states. It also contains an investigation into the authority of and constraints on school board policy-making power concerning the following specific topics:
- Curriculum requirements
- Curriculum restrictions
- Book bans and restrictions
- Parental notification policies
- Discipline
- School board elections
- Public school choice and open enrollment
- Charter schools
- Cellphone bans
School board authority comes from state constitutions and laws. State regulations and court decisions can also affect school board activities. Here are a few examples of how these types of constraints affect school board policymaking authority:
- State laws, such as what supporters call Parents’ Bills of Rights, commonly restrict or mandate school board policies on certain topics.
- Federal and state court rulings can dictate whether school district policies are compatible with state or federal law.
- Collective bargaining agreements between school districts and teacher unions can create contractual constraints on the policies school boards can pass.
Now, let’s check out a few highlights from our research.
In most states, school boards or superintendents often set policies on cellphones in public schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), around 76% of schools banned the non-academic use of cellphones or smartphones during school hours during the 2021-22 school year, down from 91% in 2010.
Currently, 11 states have laws restricting or banning cellphone use in K-12 classrooms, and five states have statewide policies encouraging school districts to limit cellphone use or requiring districts to enact a cellphone policy.
Twenty-five states have what supporters call Parents’ Bills of Rights encoded in state law, while 25 states do not. Though they vary across states, Parents’ Bills of Rights contain provisions related to parent involvement in public schools, sometimes including parental notification requirements or parental opt-out rights for specific curricular topics.
Thirty-six states authorize school boards to approve new charter schools in their districts, deny approval, or both. Here’s what charter school authority looks like in the other 14 states:
- Nine states do not authorize school boards to decide whether to approve new charter schools in their districts.
- Four states do not have laws governing charter school authorization.
- One state allows school districts to apply to the state board of education to be a charter school district.
Forty-seven states authorize school boards to create disciplinary policies for their districts. One state allows individual schools to develop their own disciplinary policies, and two states have authority over disciplinary policies for specific circumstances, including suspension, expulsion, or bullying.
Click here for more on our school board authority research, including information specific to your state.
San Antonio’s mayoral election first in 16 years without an incumbent
As part of our ongoing coverage of local elections across the U.S., we’re spotlighting this year’s nonpartisan mayoral election in San Antonio, Texas.
Twenty-seven candidates are running in the May 3 election, including the following noteworthy candidates: Beto Altamirano, John Courage, Adriana Garcia, Melissa Cabello Havrda, Gina Ortiz Jones, Rolando Pablos, Manny Pelaez, and Clayton Perry. Incumbent Mayor Ron Nirenberg is term-limited.
This mayoral election is the first in 16 years without an incumbent on the ballot. In San Antonio, if a candidate wins 50% of the vote, they win the election outright. If no candidate does so on May 3, the top two finishers will advance to a June 7 runoff election.
The San Antonio Report’s Leigh Munsil wrote that the new mayor and city council would need to navigate “multiple city-shaping economic development efforts like a downtown stadium for the Missions baseball team and a possible relocation of the Spurs to Hemisfair … [as well as] challenges of housing affordability, public safety and infrastructure, to name a few.”
Munsil also wrote that Courage, Garcia, Cabello Havrda, and Pelaez “have relatively liberal social views and a pro-business ideology.” Altamirano and Ortiz Jones are affiliated with the Democratic Party, while Pablos and Perry have identified themselves as conservative candidates.
Now let’s check out the noteworthy candidates:
- Altamirano is the CEO and co-founder of Irys Technologies.
- Courage represents District 9 on the San Antonio City Council.
- Garcia represents District 4 on the San Antonio City Council.
- Cabello Havrda represents District 6 on the San Antonio City Council.
- Ortiz Jones served as undersecretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2024.
- Pablos served as Texas secretary of state from 2017 to 2018.
- Pelaez represents District 8 on the San Antonio City Council.
- Perry represented District 10 on the San Antonio City Council from 2017 to 2023.
San Antonio has a council-manager system, meaning the mayor represents one of 11 votes on the city council. The mayor and city council appoint a chief executive called a city manager to oversee day-to-day municipal operations and implement the council’s policy and legislative initiatives.
Thirty-seven of the 100 largest U.S. cities by population are holding general elections in 2025. The mayors of 21 of those cities identify as Democrats, and the mayors of six of those cities identify as Republicans. Although mayoral elections in San Antonio are nonpartisan, the current mayor identifies as a Democrat.
To read more about the mayoral election in San Antonio, click here. Also, if you’re a San Antonio resident, check out our Sample Ballot Lookup here to prepare for Election Day.
This week’s On the Ballot features our comprehensive ballot measure coverage in California
In this week’s new episode of On The Ballot, host Geoff Pallay and Ballotpedia’s Victoria Rose discuss Ballotpedia’s Historical Ballot Measures Factbook and feature our 114 years of comprehensive ballot measure coverage in California.
As we’ve mentioned in earlier editions of the Brew, our Factbook will document nearly 200 years of direct democracy in the United States. This ongoing research effort will provide an unparalleled resource for researchers, reporters, and the public on how ballot measures have evolved, the issues they have covered, and their role in our civic life.
This week’s episode features a small selection of the ballot measures and stories from our California Factbook, which spans from 1910 to 2024. They’ll also discuss how California compares to other states in terms of ballot measures. According to Rose, “[California’s] unique for ballot measures for some of the same reasons it’s unique with politics generally. Namely, it’s got a large population, you know, it’s a big part of the country, has a lot of financial resources, and it’s also kind of like a trendsetter.”
So far, we’ve published Factbooks for nine states, and we’ll eventually publish them for all 50. Click on the links below to see our Factbook pages for:
Subscribe to On the Ballot on YouTube or your preferred podcast app, or click here to listen.