Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #169

By

Ballotpedia staff

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

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

  • On the issues: The debate over the four-day school week  
  • In your district: Cellphone restrictions
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoes bill that would have made the state the first to participate in federal private school choice program
  • School board authority across the 50 states (part 8): How we conducted this research
  • Extracurricular: education news from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

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On the issues: The debate over the four-day school week

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.

The four-day school week has increased in popularity since the turn of the century—approximately 2,000 districts are currently using the truncated schedule, up from 100 in 1999. District officials say they’ve shortened the school week to save money, recruit and retain teachers, and stem declining student enrollment. 

Hall Pass featured a deep dive into recent academic research on the four-day school week in the July 23 edition. Today, we look at two opinions on whether districts should use the four-day schedule. 

Paul Hill, an education professor and founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, writes that districts are unlikely to save enough money switching to the four-day school week to make up for the likely negative effects on student outcomes. Hill argues that states should increase funding to rural districts so the districts don’t feel pressure to adopt the schedule. 

Athens Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Janie Sims says that her district’s six-year experiment with the four-day school week has been a success, with teachers especially giving the schedule high marks. She says the longer weekend gives students more time to prepare for the upcoming school week, and discusses how the community has come together in innovative and caring ways to help families with childcare and food insecurity. 

Beware the Four-Day School-Week Trap | Paul Hill, Education Week

“Supporters of the four-day week assert that the longer days make up for the missed fifth day. But teachers and students, especially the younger children, may not work as effectively at the end of such long days, thus reducing overall learning. Low-income and minority students, who generally have fewer learning resources at home, stand to lose disproportionately from the loss of a day in school. High school students assigned homework every school day will have one less evening of preparation per week. And days lost to illness or weather will have a greater impact on learning time. Nobody seriously argues that less time in school will increase student learning.”

“We Might Have a Mutiny on Our Hands”: Why One School District Won’t Abandon the Four-Day Week | Brooklyn Moore interview with Dr. Janie Sims, Texas Monthly

“I will tell you that the first time we got results (we didn’t test in the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19), we were astounded. We, for the first time ever in our history, earned distinction designations at every one of our campuses and at the district level. That was in the immediate aftermath, so we were super-pleased…It’s [the four-day school week] actually more challenging because it’s longer days, and we are not working any fewer minutes than a five-day district. The students are not receiving any fewer minutes of instruction. Our teachers are more well rested, and our students are better prepared on Monday to hit the ground running. I can assure any legislator that none of our educators in Athens ISD are lazy. Not one of them. In fact, our children are performing extremely well in areas that we followed, and they are still doing all the other activities and extracurriculars.”

In your district: Cellphone restrictions

We’re still accepting responses to our reader survey on cellphone restrictions. Please complete the very brief survey below—anonymously, if you prefer—and we may share your response with fellow subscribers in an upcoming newsletter.

What role should schools play in managing student cellphone use during the day? How does your district’s current policy align or conflict with your own view?

Click here to respond!

You can read our previous reader surveys and responses here. 

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

In 2025, Ballotpedia will cover elections for more than 30,000 school board seats. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on covering the country’s more than 80,000 school board seats.    

  • Aug. 26—Alabama
  • Sept. 16—New Hampshire

The next major wave of school board elections will occur on Election Day, Nov. 5, in at least 16 states. Stay tuned for more on Ballotpedia’s coverage of November school board elections. 

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoes bill that would have made the state the first to participate in federal private school choice program

A version of this story first appeared in the Daily Brew, Ballotpedia’s daily politics newsletter. Click here for our top three stories—spanning state, local, and federal politics—each weekday morning.

When President Donald Trump (R) signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, he established the nation’s first federal private school choice program. The law, originally called the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), creates a new, dollar-for-dollar nonrefundable tax credit for individuals who donate up to $1,700 to K-12 scholarships. In turn, students can use those scholarships on a variety of educational expenses, including private school tuition, textbooks, and tutoring services.  

Individuals can begin taking advantage of the tax credit in 2027, but states must elect to participate in the program for their students to receive scholarships. According to the law, governors will submit to the U.S. Treasury a list of scholarship-granting organizations to which individuals can make credit-eligible donations. Those organizations will then distribute the donations as scholarships to students. 

Private school choice programs have divided Republican and Democratic elected officials, with Republican-led states having been far more likely to establish them in recent years. North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled Legislature, offers a window into how disagreements over the scholarship program could play out between lawmakers and governors in divided states in the coming months and years. 

North Carolina’s governor vetoes opt-in legislation but says state could join at a later date  

The North Carolina General Assembly was the first state legislature to officially support opting into the program. Republicans passed HB 87 along mostly partisan lines in both chambers at the end of July, though two Democrats joined with Republicans in supporting it in the House and one Republican abstained. 

North Carolina is one of 12 states with a divided government. Republicans hold a 30-20 majority in the Senate and a 71-49 majority in the House. 

On Aug. 6, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) vetoed HB 87, saying: “Congress and the Administration should strengthen our public schools, not hollow them out. … I see opportunities for the federal scholarship donation tax credit program to benefit North Carolina’s public school kids. Once the federal government issues sound guidance, I intend to opt North Carolina in so we can invest in the public school students most in need of after school programs, tutoring, and other resources. Therefore, HB 87 is unnecessary[.]”

The legislature is expected to vote on overriding Stein’s veto

State Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) said Stein was “attempting to usurp the General Assembly’s authority to set tax policy.” He said, “I look forward to holding Gov. Stein accountable and overriding his veto to ensure North Carolina can participate in President [Donald Trump] ‘s signature school choice initiative.”

A veto override in North Carolina requires a three-fifths supermajority vote in both chambers: 72 votes in the House and 30 in the Senate. So far during the 2025 legislative session, the General Assembly has overridden eight of Stein’s 15 vetoes.

How the scholarship program works 

Under the program:

  • Individuals can donate to accredited Scholarship-Granting Organizations (SGOs) to lower their tax liability by $1 for every $1 donated, up to $1,700. The program’s total number of credits is not capped.
  • The scholarships would be available to families making up to 300% of the region’s median income and could be used in general to pay private school tuition, hire tutors, and purchase textbooks and other supplies.
  • SGOs will determine scholarship amounts. Participating states must submit an annual list of SGOs to the U.S. Treasury.  
  • Donors in states that don’t opt in could still contribute to scholarships for kids in participating states and still receive the tax credit.

Before the program can take effect, the U.S. Treasury will use the rulemaking process to develop and issue regulations governing implementation, including eligibility and oversight. One thing that is unclear at the moment is if—or to what extent—states can regulate or restrict the use of the scholarships. 

Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Michael J. Petrilli, for example, has argued the law allows blue states to “target their state’s program on poor and working-class families. They can also add requirements that participating students take standardized tests, allowing comparisons with traditional public schools.” In the Wall Street Journal, EdChoice Director of National Research Michael McShane responded to Petrilli, saying: “It’s debatable whether states can do that, given the law’s text.”

North Carolina is one of 18 states that operates universal private school choice programs

Since 2022, a wave of mostly Republican-led states have implemented programs allowing all or nearly all students to receive taxpayer money for private educational expenses. 

Fifteen of the 18 states with universal programs have Republican trifectas, and many governors in those states have already indicated an interest in participating in the federal scholarship program.

In 2023, North Carolina became one of only three states with divided governments to make all students eligible to participate in a private school choice program. The other two are Arizona and Minnesota. The North Carolina legislature expanded the state’s private school choice program, which had previously been restricted to low-income students. Then-Gov. Roy Cooper (D) allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

None of the 18 states with universal private school choice programs have Democratic trifectas. States with Democratic trifectas are also the most likely to not have any private school choice policies. Of the 15 states with Democratic trifectas, 12 do not offer any such programs.  

New Mexico is one of the Democratic-led states that has not adopted any private school choice policies, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has already announced the state won’t participate in the federal program. 

Click here to read more about private school choice policies in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill. Bookmark our page on the federal education tax credit to follow along as states opt in or decline to participate in the program. 

School board authority across the 50 states (part 8): How we conducted this research

We’ve reached the end of our series on the laws and regulations affecting local school board authority across the country. Today, as we bring this series to a close, Ballotpedia Staff Writer Annelise Reinwald joins us to discuss how she and her colleagues planned out the project and conducted research on laws and statutes in all 50 states. 

The transcript of our conversation below has been lightly edited. 

Hi Annelise! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. Let’s begin with the big picture. What inspired this research project?

America has a pretty decentralized K-12 public education system, and it’s not always obvious what school boards in different states can and cannot do—the whole thing is a patchwork of laws and regulations. In general, school boards have a lot of autonomy to govern their districts, but they still face a variety of constraints. 

What are those constraints? That’s the question we wanted to help answer. It’s a different way of looking at and understanding school boards—not what they are permitted to do but what are the limitations they have to work around. 

Tell me how you decided on the different topics you wanted to research, and how your team went about collecting the information. What challenges did you face?

While we know that authority over school districts is fairly local, we also know that school boards are accountable to their constituents, state laws and regulations, and their employees (in some cases). We wanted to zero in on what each of those constraints looked like in each state. 

We read state constitutions, statutes, and regulations, noted whether collective bargaining with teachers and school staff was legal in each state, and noted whether states had education-specific Parents’ Bills of Rights. We chose to highlight in-the-news topics that people may not have realized were related to school board authority.  It was a challenge to ensure that our research was comprehensive. States organize their laws differently, and navigating that information was time-consuming and repetitive.

Amazingly, we were able to draw policy comparisons across the 50 states at the end of our research. That analysis is not only fascinating but also helps contextualize education policy trends.

Now that you’ve spent months immersed in the minutia of laws, codes, and statutes regulating school board authority, what is something surprising that you learned about school boards?

This wasn’t new knowledge for me, but I am continually surprised at how many hats school board members wear. From establishing a district budget to hiring district personnel and overseeing curricula, the list is really long! That school board members from different backgrounds come together to provide a vision for their districts while navigating the constraints of state and federal law is an impressive feat!

Extracurricular: education news 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 surveys from two of three candidates running in the Nov. 4  general election for District 1 on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education, in North Carolina. 

Incumbent Melissa Easley and Charlitta Hatch submitted surveys. Easley was first elected in 2022, and her career experience includes working as an educator and owner of a small media business. Hatch career experience includes working as a technology executive.

Bill Fountain is also running in the election, but had not submitted a survey as of this writing.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is the second-largest district in North Carolina, with roughly 144,500 students. It is the 15th-largest district nationwide. 

Here’s an excerpt from Easley’s answer to the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “As a former CMS teacher and parent of two CMS students, I know what our classrooms need. I’ve fought for safe, inclusive schools, equitable resources, and policies that help every student succeed. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made, from closing achievement gaps to removing more schools from the low-performing list than were added. I will continue listening to families, collaborating with the community, and making decisions that put students—not politics—at the center of every choice.”

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

Here’s an excerpt from Hatch’s answer to the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “LOG IN: Family First, Always ‘Log In’ is about showing up with heart as we connect with our families. As a mother and advocate, I will be the connector between the boardroom and the living room, ensuring family voices are not just heard but centered. When we log in to the realities of our communities, we build stronger, more connected schools.”

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

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take 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 appear in your Ballotpedia profile. Your responses will also appear in our sample ballot.

And 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!