Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #171

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 school cellphone bans, as voiced by parents  
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • A history of school choice ballot measures 
  • Extracurricular: education news from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over school cellphone bans, as voiced by parents 

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.

K-12 public school students are returning to classes, and the laws regulating when they can use their cellphones look a little different than last year. In August 2024, only six states had laws banning or limiting student cellphone use in schools. Today, that figure has jumped to 26. 

Polls indicate adults generally support limiting students’ access to cellphones during the school day. But many parents have raised concerns about the laws, saying that being able to contact their kids is important to them. 

National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues writes that bans ignore the multifaceted role cellphones play in students’ lives, from connecting them with their parents and friends to helping them with homework. She writes that in an age when we often hear about school shootings, parents have good reasons for wanting immediate access to their kids. She recommends that districts help students develop a healthy relationship with their phones that will serve them in adulthood. 

Writer Gail Cornwall says the costs of allowing students access to their phones at school outweigh the benefits—for kids and parents alike. Cornwall says cellphones can make kids overly reliant on their parents, discouraging students from developing problem-solving skills and building relationships with peers and teachers. Cornwall says parents should learn to accept that they can’t control everything that happens to their kids at school. 

Parents don’t want cell phone bans at schools. We want smarter rules. | Keri Rodrigues, USA Today 

“The latest poll from the National Parents Union shows that 78% of parents whose children take phones to school want their kids to have access to their phones during the school day in case of emergencies. In a country where mass shootings are too common, I will not accept that my child could be in danger and would be unable to reach me. We know from Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas, that cell phones saved lives − locating kids and calling first responders to the scene. Students used them to find safety, alert their parents and guide first responders. That’s not a hypothetical. It is a fact.”

What Many Parents Miss About the Phones-in-Schools Debate | Gail Cornwall, The Atlantic

“I also appreciate why many parents want their kids to have a phone accessible: It can be comforting to think that kids can be reached in an emergency, and convenient to communicate on the fly when after-school plans change. On the other hand, as a former teacher and a writer steeped in the academic literature on psychology, child development, and pedagogy, I know that letting kids have phones in schools comes with many costs. They can distract students from learning, increase social anxiety and stress, and suppress opportunities for emotional and intellectual growth. They can also diminish kids’ autonomy, in effect serving as a digital umbilical cord tethering students to their parents.”

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.    

The next major wave of school board elections will occur on Election Day, Nov. 4, in at least 14 states. Stay tuned for more on Ballotpedia’s coverage of November school board elections.

A history of school choice ballot measures 

Since 1970, voters in 12 states have decided on 22 school choice measures, including vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts (ESAs), and charter schools. 

Ballotpedia has created a comprehensive resource on the history of school choice ballot measures. School choice refers to policies and programs allowing families to select educational options beyond their assigned public school. Some policies involve public funding for private education or homeschooling through vouchers, ESAs, or tax credits. Others involve authorizing or expanding public alternatives, such as charter schools or open enrollment. 

The most common school choice measures have addressed vouchers or similar programs (10 measures, 45%) and charter schools (six measures, 27%). Three addressed tax credits, one addressed ESAs, and two addressed other constitutional matters.

Voters approved two (9.1%) of these measures and defeated 20 (90.9%). The two measures that voters approved, Georgia Amendment 1 and Washington Initiative 1240, were both on the ballot in 2012 and concerned charter schools.

Some of the earliest school choice-related measures, in the 1950s and 1960s, were introduced in response to school desegregation and Brown v. Board of Education. In addition to their historical and political context, these measures differed from later school choice-related ballot initiatives in several ways: 

  • Some sought to authorize eliminating public schools, at least at the local level.
  • State legislatures put them on the ballot.
  • Voters approved them.

Measures proposing private education vouchers began appearing on ballots in the 1970s. Voters rejected these in Nebraska, Maryland, and Michigan. Also in that decade, voters in Michigan approved Proposal 3, which prohibited vouchers in the state’s Constitution.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, voucher proposals continued to be the most common type of school choice-related measure. However, education tax credits were on the ballot in Utah, Oregon, and Colorado. There was also the first measure related to charter schools—Washington Initiative 177.

Measures on charter schools became more common in the 2000s. Of the five measures voted on in that decade, three addressed vouchers, and two addressed charter schools.

In the 2010s, three measures addressed charter schools, while a fourth introduced a new topic for school choice measures: ESAs.

Three school choice-related measures have appeared on ballots in the 2020s—all in 2024. These measures—in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska—were the most to appear in a single year since 2000. Voters rejected all three. As of Aug. 27, no school choice-related ballot measures have qualified for the ballot in either 2025 or 2026.

Most school choice policies are enacted through state legislatures rather than ballot measures. In 2025, for example, Idaho, Indiana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming passed laws authorizing or expanding school choice programs.

Click here to read more about the history of school choice ballot measures. You can also learn more about school choice by clicking here and here.

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 survey responses from two of the three candidates who ran in the Aug. 26 general election for District 2 on the Birmingham City Schools school board, in Alabama.  Incumbent Neonta Williams, who was first elected in 2021, and Anthony Jones completed the survey. Terri Michal also ran in the election. 

As of this writing, no candidate had received more than 50% of the vote. Preliminary results show Michal with 48%, Williams with 26.2%, and Jones with 25.8%. If no candidate crosses the 50% threshold, the top-two vote-getting candidates will face off in an Oct. 7 runoff. 

Birmingham City Schools is the seventh-largest district in Alabama, with an estimated enrollment of 21,000 students. Nine seats were up for election on Aug. 26. 

Here’s how Williams answered the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “Parents – ensuring families are informed, engaged, and empowered partners in education
  • Policy – advancing equity-driven, student-centered policies that improve academic achievement and accountability
  • Partnerships – building strong collaborations with community, business, and education stakeholders to expand opportunities and resources for every child in every classroom.”

Click here to read the rest of Williams’ responses. 

Here’s how Jones answered the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “Transparency. I will make sure that the parents be in the know of what the school and the school board is doing for their child.
  • Involvement. I want the parents to be more involved with not only their child but let’s be involved in the school also.
  • Love. I want our children to know that they are great, and we appreciate them and the effort that they show.”

Click here to read the rest of Jones’ responses.

In the 2024 election cycle, 6,539 candidates completed the survey, including over 500 school board candidates. 

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take the survey.

The survey contains over 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.

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!