Taghall pass

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 automatic deductions for teacher’s union dues
• In your district: partisan elections
• Share candidate endorsements with us!  
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• A comprehensive analysis of Wisconsin’s April 4 school board elections
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Email us at editor@ballotpedia.org to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over automatic deductions for teacher’s union dues

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.

Whether unions should be able to automatically deduct dues from teacher paychecks has been a recent topic of debate. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill May 9 increasing regulations on teacher’s unions and prohibiting automatic dues deductions.

Bonita Osowsky writes that unions were already weak in Florida and the new law further impedes the ability of unions to negotiate and bargain with the state. Osowsky says unions are stronger when they are less regulated and can automatically deduct dues. She also says strong unions improve teacher quality and retention.

Skylar Zander writes that teacher’s unions are not as important today as they were 100 years ago but still have many of the same powers and privileges that make it hard for teachers to leave the union. Zander says the increased regulation and the end of automatic paycheck deductions will increase transparency and allow teachers to decide whether union membership and regular payments make sense for them.  

Florida teachers are not ‘shackled’ to unions | Bonita Osowsky, South Florida Sun Sentinel

“It was appalling to read Skylar Zander’s disgusting opinion piece (Feb. 27) pretending to support teachers. Nothing could be further from the truth. … The last thing teachers need is the death of unions, which are notoriously weak in this “right to work” state. I was a member of four teacher associations in New Jersey. I began in 1968 earning $6,100 a year and retired in 2004 at nearly six figures. Our union got us full family insurance coverage, eyeglass and dental benefits, longevity, protected us from unfair allegations and provided legal services when needed. It negotiated fair compensation for extra duties and payment for class coverage. In 1977, I was turned down for a sabbatical and the union secured my leave the following year to complete the requirements for my certification as a school psychologist. I always had dues deducted from my salary. Zander wants to disallow automatic deductions to discourage union membership to bust unions. I’ve read of a shortage of 10,000 teachers in Florida. It will get worse if teachers can’t join unions, with our governor interfering with what can be taught in schools.”

Give Florida teachers the freedom to not assemble | Skylar Zander, South Florida Sun Sentinel

“But more recently, a growing number of workers have found themselves shackled to labor unions, seeing money yanked out of their paychecks for membership in unions they want nothing to do with. That’s why Gov. Ron DeSantis is exactly on target with his proposed Teacher’s Bill of Rights, an unprecedented legislative proposal to establish greater accountability for teachers’ unions and other public sector unions. [T]eachers unions in Florida will no longer enjoy the privilege of automatically deducting dues from paychecks and would need to obtain specific permission from teachers each year to keep them on their membership roster. The unions would have to be the choice of at least 60% of employees eligible for representation, rather than the current 50% requirement, and would be subject to stricter scrutiny to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. For too long, teachers’ unions have held too much sway over the education of Florida’s children, gradually but unmistakably supplanting the role of parents and dedicated educators. The governor’s proposal would return a proper balance to the equation.”

In your district: partisan elections

School districts face diverse issues and challenges. We want to hear what’s happening in your school district. Please complete the very brief survey below—anonymously, if you prefer—and we may share your response with fellow subscribers in an upcoming newsletter.

Should the law allow school districts to hold partisan elections?

Click here to respond!

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage.

Upcoming school board elections

We covered school board general elections in Texas on May 22. In Texas, if no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top-two vote-getters in the general advance to a runoff. 

We’re covering runoff elections for the following districts on June 10:

• Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees District 2
• Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees District 6
• Fort Worth Independent School District school board District 5
• El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees District 2
• El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees District 6

Washington

Washington is holding school board primary elections on Aug. 1. We’re covering elections in the following districts:

• Cheney School District
• Lake Washington School District
• Seattle Public Schools
• Spokane Public Schools

A comprehensive analysis of Wisconsin’s April 4 school board elections

We’ve mentioned before that this year, in addition to school board elections in the 200 largest school districts and any overlapping the 100 largest cities, we’re comprehensively covering all elections in 10 states: Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. You can find out more about this project here. 

Today, we’re bringing you our full analysis of Wisconsin’s April 4 school board elections. A version of this analysis ran last week in our Daily Brew newsletter. Next week, we’ll look at the next part—a comprehensive look at Oklahoma’s April 4 elections. 

All 421 school districts in Wisconsin held at least one election on April 4. In total, 954 of the state’s 2,794 school board seats, around 35%, were on the ballot. 

We’ll begin our analysis by looking at how incumbents performed in the elections. Lastly, we’ll look at the state and national organizations that endorsed candidates—and how those candidates fared. Here’s a summary of what we found:

• Open seats and incumbent defeats mirrored historical averages.
• Top liberal endorsers had 73% win rate compared to 48% for top conservative groups

Open seats and incumbents

Of the 954 school board seats up for election in Wisconsin, 690 incumbents (72%) ran for re-election, leaving 264 seats (28%) open. Open seats are guaranteed to newcomers. 

Of the 690 incumbents who ran for re-election, 615 (89%) won, and 75 (11%) lost. Three incumbents lost in primaries held on Feb. 21, and the remaining 72 incumbents lost in the general election. Wisconsin’s 11% incumbent loss rate was below the five-year average of 16% we’ve observed nationwide.

The number of open seat races in Wisconsin was similar to what we’ve noted in our nationwide school board election coverage. The difference in Wisconsin is that slightly more incumbents ran for re-election than we’ve seen nationally. Between 2018 and 2022, an average of 71% of incumbents ran for re-election, leaving 29% of seats open.

One reason so many incumbents won re-election is that 60% ran unopposed, guaranteeing their victory. This is almost double the 36% rate of unopposed incumbents we typically see nationwide for school board elections.

Only 278 incumbents faced challengers. When looking only at contested elections, the loss rate increases from 11% to 27%, mirroring the historical average of 26%.

Endorsements

Most school board elections are nonpartisan, but that hasn’t stopped local, state, and national organizations, many of which are explicitly ideological or aligned with political parties, from endorsing school board candidates. As part of our school board coverage, we are gathering descriptive endorsements, those that help describe the stances or policy positions of a candidate. This is based on the assumption that endorsers tend to endorse candidates with whom they align. 

Our endorsements research process starts with analyzing news stories, conducting outreach, and talking with candidates. When we find an endorsement, we tag it as either liberal or conservative based on whether it comes from an organization affiliated with a major party or one that supports education policies associated with a major party.

The top liberal endorsers in Wisconsin were:

• Local affiliates of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, a teacher’s union;
• The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and its affiliates;
• The Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its affiliates;
• Blue Sky Waukesha, a group in Waukesha County; and
• Fair Wisconsin, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

The top conservative endorsers in Wisconsin were:

• The Republican Party of Wisconsin and its affiliates;
• Moms for Liberty and its affiliates;
• Get Involved Wisconsin, a voter mobilization group;
• 1776 Project PAC; and,
• WisRed PAC, a group in Waukesha County.

Among the liberal endorsers, all but Blue Sky Waukesha had win rates greater than 50%. For conservative endorsers, only WisRed PAC had a win rate greater than 50%. 

All 10 endorsers made endorsements in uncontested races. For the state GOP and Moms for Liberty, those uncontested endorsements resulted in overall win rates greater than 50%.

While these 10 groups made a total of 627 endorsements, many of those endorsements crossed ideological lines. These endorsements all went to 286 candidates in 114 races, around 55% of all contested elections and 20% of all elections, overall. Of those 286 candidates, 166 (58%) received endorsements from more than one of the top 10 endorsers.

You can see more of this analysis here. We’ll be back next week with a look at Oklahoma’s school board elections. 

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! 

• Bill remaking Nash school board clears NC Senate | WRAL News
• The Role of School Boards and Superintendents in Crisis Management | Campus Safety
• Justice Dept asks Supreme Court not to hear North Carolina charter school case | K-12 Dive
• State eyes more restrictive student cellphone policies | Daily Hampshire Gazette
• Ed Dept. Releases First Ever Federal Report on AI in Education | MeriTalk
• Spatial abilities help explain the positive association between LEGO skills and mathematics performance | PsyPost
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declares ‘state of emergency’ for public education | The Hill

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Everyone deserves to know their candidates. However, we know it can be hard for voters to find information about their candidates, especially for local offices such as school boards. That’s why we created Candidate Connection—a survey designed to help candidates tell voters about their campaigns, their issues, and so much more. 

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

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 mobile app, My Vote Ballotpedia.

In the 2020 election cycle, 4,745 candidates completed the survey.

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 social and emotional learning in public schools 
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Montana becomes the 46th state to authorize charter schools
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Email us at editor@ballotpedia.org to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over social and emotional learning in public schools

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.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), social-emotional learning “refers to a wide range of skills, attitudes, and behaviors that can affect student success in school and life,” including “critical thinking, emotion management, conflict resolution, decision making, teamwork.” How SEL is used varies. Over the last few years, legislatures have considered bills that would prohibit or restrict SEL in schools. 

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela writes that the goal of SEL is helping students learn how to manage their moods and emotions, be happy, and become socially and academically self-sufficient. Petrelza says SEL shouldn’t be controversial and it could “be the beginning of an era of repair, in which children learn the critical thinking skills integral to understanding themselves and the world – and engage each other on the thornier curricular questions of race and sex that adults keep failing to figure out.”

Daniel Buck writes that SEL involves more than teaching children strategies for emotional regulation and managing their moods and social interactions. Buck says SEL demands student involvement with progressive advocacy and that the term has become a euphemism  justifying progressive educational policies. Buck writes that conservatives were not the first to politicize SEL in education and says progressives made the topic one of debate and controversy by injecting ideology into the approach.

SEL doesn’t have to be a classroom culture war | Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, CNN

“To understand why these fights are so intense, it is crucial to grasp a longer, messier history of progressive efforts to educate ‘the whole child’ and of conservative resistance to these programs that explicitly address children’s emotions, attitudes and values – especially when they challenge dominant ideas about power and identity. … As long as such programs have existed, the right has consistently attacked them, especially when they openly acknowledge the aim of addressing the needs of minority children ill served by public schools and society. … As a parent, a teacher, a scholar and a citizen, I am confident that most educators, parents and children agree that children deserve to be academically competent, kind, happy and self-sufficient and that the school should play a role in achieving those goals. Given our lamentably acrimonious environment, SEL could very well be our next educational classroom war, but it need not be. It could be the beginning of an era of repair, in which children learn the critical thinking skills integral to understanding themselves and the world – and engage each other on the thornier curricular questions of race and sex that adults keep failing to figure out.”

Conservatives Are Right to Be Skeptical of SEL | Daniel Buck, National Review

“In reality, SEL was once a questionably effective — albeit rather benign — educational fad, a sort of secular character education, but it has since become another means of injecting progressive politics into the classroom. And as always, it’s conservatives’ fault for noticing. … In short, this new iteration of SEL extends beyond mere emotional regulation into encouraging activism in the classroom. “Action research,” wherein students research social issues and advocate for change, is one recommended practical approach. All of this talk of community change and collective projects hearkens to a radical theory of education called critical pedagogy, first proposed by Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire. Within this theory, schools become not institutions of academic learning but of advocacy. And lest you think “action research” just means building a community garden, a set of webinar slides confirms that an “antiracist” mindset in both teachers and students is essential. Everything from mathematics to SEL becomes another means to leverage collective progressive social action. … In other words, SEL becomes a feel-good term that applies a stamp of approval to a host of progressive wish-list items. … And I return to my original question: How did SEL become controversial? Progressives made it so.”

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage.

Upcoming school board elections

We covered school board general elections in Texas on May 22. In Texas, if no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top-two vote-getters in the general advance to a runoff. 

We’re covering runoff elections for the following districts on June 10:

• Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees District 2
• Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees District 6
• Fort Worth Independent School District school board District 5
• El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees District 2
• El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees District 6

Montana becomes the 46th state to authorize charter schools

On May 18, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed two bills authorizing the creation of charter schools. Previously, Montana was one of five states without laws allowing for charter schools.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a charter school is “a publicly funded school that is typically governed by a group or organization under a legislative contract—a charter—with the state, district, or other entity. The charter exempts the school from certain state or local rules and regulations. In return for flexibility and autonomy, the charter school must meet the accountability standards outlined in its charter.”

Charter schools generally receive a percentage of the per-pupil funds from the state and local school districts for operational costs based on enrollment. In most states, charter schools do not receive funds for facilities or start-up costs, and usually rely to some extent on private donations. The federal government also provides special grants for charter schools.

Gianforte signed House Bill 549 (HB 549) and House Bill 562 (HB 562), both of which provide for charter schools but differ on which government bodies are authorized to submit and approve charter applications. HB 549 puts the authority in the hands of local school boards, which can submit applications for public charter schools to the Montana Board of Public Education. HB 562, on the other hand, creates a new, seven-member appointed commission with the authority to review applications and authorize qualified school districts to do the same. 

Additionally, under HB 549, charter schools would be subject to the same state and federal regulations as all other public schools in the state. Under HB 562, a different set of state rules would regulate charter schools.

According to the Montana Free Press’s Alex Sakariassen, “The simultaneous passage of HB 549 and HB 562 into law raises a number of questions, including whether the two systems will ultimately conflict. Advocates of both bills believe that they can coexist peacefully, as each sets out a distinct path for parents seeking establishment of a charter school to follow.”

Lance Melton, executive director of the Montana School Boards Association said HB 549 “embraces that accountability and provides a focused means by which school districts and other applicants can focus in on and provide innovative educational programing – something, again, that’s maybe different than the average.”

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton (R), who sponsored HB 562, said, “The one-size-fits-all approach of traditional public schools does not work for every student. This bill provides for independence – and likewise provides for ample oversight.”

Both bills passed the House but died in the Senate before being revived. Republicans hold a 68-32 majority in the House and a 34-16 majority in the Senate. 

In the first go-around on April 26, the Senate rejected HB 549 in an 8-42 vote and HB 562 in a 23-27 vote. One Democrat joined seven Republicans in supporting HB 549, while 11 Republicans joined 16 Democrats in opposing HB 562. However, a few days later, Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick (R) brought the bills back for a second vote. Referring specifically to HB 562, Fitzpatrick said, “We need to get these issues resolved. We should pass this bill and let the courts decide if it’s valid or not.” The Legislative Services Division, an agency within the state legislature, had earlier suggested parts of HB 562 could conflict with the state constitution. 

The second time, the Senate voted 27-23 to advance HB 549 and 28-22 to advance HB 562. 

Gianforte said, “We’re empowering Montana parents to choose what’s best for their family and their kids. We’re putting students and parents first in education.”

The Montana Quality Education Coalition, which includes the Montana School Boards Association, released a statement on May 19 promising litigation over HB 562: “Legislators from both parties recognized HB 562 and HB 393 as both unconstitutional and terrible policy. We’ll bring the necessary lawsuits to clean up these constitutional mistakes.” HB 393, which Gianforte also signed, establishes an education savings account (ESA) program for students with disabilities. 

Minnesota was the first state to pass a law authorizing charter schools in 1991. 

Nationally, charter school enrollment was estimated at 3,695,769 students—or about 7.5% of all public school students—in the 2020-2021 school year, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, an organization that describes itself as the “the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement.” Charter school enrollment has grown steadily over time. In 2000, the National Center for Education Statistics estimated that 448,343 students were enrolled in charter schools. By the 2021-2022 school year, the most recent year for which data are available, that number had grown to more than 3.6 million.

Only Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont do not have laws authorizing charter schools. West Virginia became the 45th state to authorize charter schools in 2019, when Gov. Jim Justice (R) signed House Bill 206. The state’s first charter schools were approved in November 2021. 

Kentucky authorizes charter schools but does not currently have any in operation. 

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! 

• In N. Virginia, endorsement primaries point to increasingly politicized school boards | The Washington Post
• ‘Culture wars’ candidates for Oregon school boards mostly lost | The Oregonian 
• Primary results foreshadow hyper-partisan, competitive Pa. school board races in November | Penn Live
• Illinois lawmakers to hold hearing on revised draft map for Chicago elected school board ahead of possible vote | Chalkbeat Chicago 
• Florida Started A Race To Reshape Conservatism. Now It Has Some Catching Up To Do. | FiveThirtyEight
• NJ court halts Hanover school district policy to tell parents of students’ LGBTQ identity | NorthJersey.com
• School choice won big in states this year. Is the movement about to hit a wall? | The Hill 
• Several states look to roll back letter grading systems for schools | K-12 Dive

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Everyone deserves to know their candidates. However, we know it can be hard for voters to find information about their candidates, especially for local offices such as school boards. That’s why we created Candidate Connection—a survey designed to help candidates tell voters about their campaigns, their issues, and so much more. 

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

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 mobile app, My Vote Ballotpedia.

In the 2020 election cycle, 4,745 candidates completed the survey.

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 religious charter schools
• In your district: reader replies on district reading programs
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Judge rules Pennsylvania district must permit After School Satan Club to use school facilities
• 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 religious charter schools

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.

The Oklahoma Catholic Conference (OCC) applied in February 2023 for permission to start a religious online charter school. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board rejected the application on April 11, saying it did not meet the state’s standards for approval and giving the OCC 30 days to fix the identified problems. 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board writes that religious charter schools, since they would receive public funding, would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Board says taxpayers should not have to fund religious charters and that the policy would violate the principle of church-state separation.

Andy Smarick writes that Supreme Court precedent since 2017, in its ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, supports the idea that states cannot exclude certain schools from participating in government programs solely based on their religious nature. Smarick says religious charters would be beneficial for creating more options in the public school system.

Editorial: Taxpayers have no business funding religious instruction in public schools | The Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“But this isn’t just any ol’ charter school application. It proposes to cross the long-respected dividing line between church and state outlined in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Religious conservatives insist the clause has been misinterpreted and that the Founding Fathers always intended America to be a Christian nation. … Regardless of the outcome in Oklahoma, it almost certainly won’t be the final attempt to impose Christian doctrine on public schools while demanding that taxpayers fund it. Other nations have tried state sponsorship of religion, and it doesn’t tend to go well. Once religion becomes interwoven in government, it becomes almost impossible to unweave it. And since the Constitution requires equal treatment, state funding would also have to extend to other religions, meaning taxpayers could be on the hook to pay for public schools teaching, say, Islamist doctrine. Oklahoma’s current charter regulations require schools to be nonsectarian in all instruction, admissions policies and operations — as it should be. Feeding souls are what churches, synagogues and mosques are all about. Public schools are for feeding brains, free of faith indoctrination. And they must stay that way.”

The extended case for faith-based charter schools | Andy Smarick, The Thomas Fordham Institute

“Addressing those charging that the Court was forcing states to fund religious groups, Chief Justice Roberts’s Espinoza decision explained that Montana didn’t have to create a program that funded nongovernmental organizations. But once the state did so, it couldn’t single out faith-based groups for exclusion. The same logic applies in Trinity Lutheran and Carson: States don’t have to create programs for nonprofits to resurface playgrounds or for students to attend out-of-district high schools, but once they do, they can’t single out faith-based groups for exclusion. We should expect a Roberts opinion ruling that states aren’t obligated to allow charter schools, but once they do, they can’t single out faith-based groups for exclusion. … The left’s strategy could be to simply vote “no” as this wave swells. An alternative is to support more school options and increased parental power inside a public system of transparency and accountability. That would mean sitting down at—not walking away from—the negotiating table on the issue of faith-based charters. When the Supreme Court eventually rules that states with charter school laws must permit faith-based charters, the left will be glad that they had a hand in crafting those programs instead of standing on the sidelines.”

In your district: reader replies on district reading programs

We recently asked readers the following question about the reading program in place in their local districts:

Do you think your district is using the best possible reading program?

Thank you to all who responded. Today, we’re sharing a handful of those responses. We’ll return next month with another reader question. If you have ideas for a question you’d like to see us ask, reply to this email to let us know!

A community member in Virginia wrote: 

Our reading program is touted as being aligned with “Science of Reading”, but the scores of our black and brown students and those who are economically disadvantaged prove it’s not working.

A school board candidate in Oregon wrote: 

Absolutely not! Our district, the Beaverton School District in Oregon, is still using Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study. This program has been thoroughly discredited/debunked dating back to at least 2020. Other neighboring districts, like Portland Public Schools, have removed/replaced this curriculum already given the poor outcomes it produces. However, the Beaverton School District has told the community that they will continue to use it through the 2023-24 school year. They are looking to augment it with some smaller phonics-based programs, but it is ridiculous they are still using such a terrible program and have been for years now.

Keep in mind this is not a small district that lacks resources. BSD is the 3rd largest district in Oregon and has many administrators and TOSAs (Teacher on Special Assignment) who focus on curriculum adoption, support, training, etc.

A community member from Pennsylvania wrote: 

Only if the district is using multiple tools of teaching, such as phonics, meanings in context, common word recognition, reading for pleasure, etc.

A school board member from Wisconsin wrote:

Test scores have been declining over the last decade. The administrator says we are using a phonics based approach to reading so why the decline is a mystery to me. I’m wondering if the hand off each year as children progress is consistent or if we are losing something in the transfer each year. 

 A teacher from Illinois wrote:

Absolutely NOT! With all the Science of Reading buzzing around, our new program is the total opposite of that!

A school board member from Michigan wrote:

No – I really wish they would explore other options such as EBLI – Evidence Based Literacy Instruction. The state needs to be putting resources directly into heavily staffing reading interventionists in elementary schools. Our elementary school children are either barely proficient or below standards.

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school boards elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage. 

Election results from the past week

On May 6, we covered general elections in 58 Texas school districts, including in Dallas Independent School District, the state’s second largest district by enrollment. The largest district, Houston Independent School District, will hold general elections on Nov. 7, along with some others. 

Three seats were up for election in the Dallas Independent School District. Around 154,000 students are enrolled in the Dallas Independent School District. The board consists of nine members elected to three-year terms. 

In the race for District 6, Incumbent Joyce Foreman defeated challenger Stephen Poole 77% to 23%. Foreman was first elected in 2014. 

The race for District 2 will conclude in a June 10 runoff election between Jimmy Tran and Sarah Weinberg, who advanced from the May 6 general election because neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote. Tran received 39.6%, while Weinberg received 37.1%. Kevin Malonson received 23.3%. 

Current District 2 incumbent Dustin Marshall endorsed Weinberg. 

According to The Dallas Morning News’s Valaria Olivares, Weinberg raised around $312,000 and Trans raised around $124,000. 

The race for District 8 was canceled because incumbent Joe Carreon was the only candidate to file. 

See more election results in Texas here. 

Upcoming school board elections

Pennsylvania

As part of our expanded coverage in 10 states, we’re covering all school board primary races in Pennsylvania on May 16. All districts in Pennsylvania are holding elections this year, with approximately half of the state’s 4,491 seats on the ballot. Pennsylvania holds school board elections every two years in odd-numbered years. 

Oregon

Districts in Oregon are holding general elections on May 16. We’re covering elections in the following:

• Beaverton School District
• Centennial School District 28J
• David Douglas School District
• Parkrose School District 3
• Portland Public Schools
• Reynolds School District 7
• Salem-Keizer Public Schools
• Scappoose School District 1J

Judge rules Pennsylvania district must permit After School Satan Club to use school facilities

On May 1, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge John Gallagher ruled the Saucon Valley School District, in Pennsylvania, must allow the After School Satan Club to use school facilities for meetings while the case is argued in court.  

We looked at the debate over this case in the April 19 edition of this newsletter. In February, the school district initially approved but then later denied the After School Satan Club’s request to use school facilities for meetings. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing the Satanic Temple, sued the district on March 30. The Satanic Temple alleged the district violated the First Amendment in refusing to approve the club’s application while permitting other religious clubs to operate in schools.     

Saucon Valley School District is located in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, outside of Allentown. The district has approximately 2,100 students. 

The Satanic Temple describes itself as “a religious organization dedicated to the practice and promotion of individual rights. We do not subscribe to supernaturalism, so in that way we do not believe that Satan is a deity, being, or person.” According to the Satanic Temple, the organization only starts clubs if other religious groups are operating in schools. 

After School Satan Clubs exist in schools in several states, including Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado.

The district argued it rescinded its initial decision to approve the club’s application because the Satanic Temple violated its advertising policies when it put up social media posts that insinuated the district had sponsored the club: “TST’s [The Satanic Temple] actions misled community members and people across the country to think that the Club was being sponsored by the District, not just letting the Club meet in its building.” The district received calls from parents and community members, including an anonymous bomb threat on Feb. 21 that caused the district to close schools for a day.

On Feb. 24, the district announced the After School Satan Club would not be allowed to use school facilities. 

Gallagher ruled the district did not provide sufficient evidence that it rejected The Satanic Temple’s application because the group violated the district’s advertising policy. Gallagher concluded the district most likely rejected the application because of the organization’s viewpoint and the community reaction to the club: “The record does not support the District’s argument that the negative public backlash and criticism was caused by a mistaken belief ASSC [After School Satan Club] was District-sponsored. Rather, as the litany of e-mails from parents and community members to the District’s Superintendent reveal, the negative community backlash and criticism expressed a frustration with the District’s decision to permit ASSC meetings, not with a mistaken belief the District actually sponsored the ASSC.”

Gallagher’s ruling means the club will be able to meet for the remainder of the school year while litigation in the case continues. 

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! 

• Chicago Public Schools parents take issue with proposed elected school board map | Chicago Tribune
• Party affiliation can be misleading in local Pa. elections. Here’s why. | Spotlight PA
• Texas school board races see increase in PAC spending. Critics say donations are ‘unprecedented’ | Houston Public Media
• How a school board race in the blue state of Illinois became a nationally funded cage match | The Boston Globe
• Debate over holding back third graders roils state legislatures | Louisiana Illuminator
• Supporters, opponents reflect on passage of Arkansas education overhaul | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Crossings Force Kids to Crawl Under Trains to Get to School | ProPublica

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from Connie Clemens and Jeff Myers, who are running in May 16 elections for seats on the Beaverton School District school board in Oregon. Clemens is running in the general election for Zone 3 against Maham Ahmed and Melissa Potter, while Myers is running in the general election for Zone 6 against Justice Rajee. Neither Ahmed, Potter, nor Rajee completed the survey. 

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

• “I am very concerned about the reduction in curriculum over the years. We need to take a hard look at what’s been deleted and what’s been added and why.
• I also am concerned about the abysmal scores of our juniors on Oregon’s state tests. We need to put academics first in policy and do everything possible to ensure students are getting a truly exceptional education.
• Communication between the district and school board with parents and the community must be improved. One way to achieve that is to get volunteers back into the buildings. BSD has an abundance of talented and experienced people who can partner with the schools in the education process.”

Click here to read the rest of Clemens’ responses. 

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

• “Priority #1: Academics. We need to leverage proven methods and materials for our children to be and feel successful in achieving their goals. It’s time to raise the bar!
• Priority #2: Safety. Students and staff need to feel safe and able to focus to be successful. After years of struggling with a failed approach to discipline, we need to go back to basics.
• Priority #3: School Environment. We need to take meaningful action on the top issues impacting school staff: large class sizes, ever-increasing workloads, conflicting priorities, and responsibility without authority.

Click here to read the rest of Myers’ responses.

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

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 notifying parents about social transitions in schools 
• In your district: reading programs
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• SCOTUS takes up school board member social media case
• 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 notifying parents about social transitions in schools

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.

State and local policies differ on whether school officials and teachers should notify parents if their child is socially transitioning their gender identity (such as using different pronouns or names) in the classroom.

Jill Filipovic writes that schools should not disclose social transitions to parents. Filipovic says schools should be places where children can safely experiment with their beliefs and establish independence from their parents. Filipovic says a child should be able to socially transition in the same way a child with atheist parents should be able to attend a Christian after-school club.

Luke Berg and Max Eden write that hiding social transitions from parents is both harmful and illegal. Berg and Eden say that affirming a student who identifies with a gender that differs from their biological sex constitutes a psychosocial medical treatment. They say parents understand their children’s best interests and have a legal right to know about medical treatments, including social transitions.

Opinion: The right-wing approach to ‘parents’ rights’ puts kids at risk | Jill Filipovic, CNN

“[I]t is wholly unreasonable to demand that a teenager’s experimentation with identity and belief, so long as that experimentation is not physically dangerous, be disclosed to parents. We shouldn’t make laws – or education policy – with only functional, supportive families in mind. It’s tempting to do that, but life experience tells us that not all kids have the families they deserve and research tells us that trans kids without parental support face a host of mental health risks and other challenges. That combination should give anyone pause before deciding what’s reasonable. … Consider this. Teenagers aren’t yet grownups, but they are in the crucial stages of establishing some independence from their parents, asserting their own identities, forming their own opinions and trying new things. In the hours they are at school, they should find a safe place to do just that, whether that’s the teenager of vegan parents choosing to sample a chicken nugget in the cafeteria or the child of atheists trying out the Christian after-school club or, yes, a teenager who thinks they may be trans trying on a new name and putting on a different wardrobe.”

Schools Must Stop Keeping Trans-Secrets From Parents | Opinion | Luke Berg and Max Eden, Newsweek

“But circumventing parents is neither moral nor legal. ‘Social affirmation’ is not simply ‘being nice.’ When children are involved, it is effectively a medical intervention. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who for decades led one of the world’s top clinics for gender dysphoria, has written that ‘parents who support, implement, or encourage a gender social transition (and clinicians who recommend one) are implementing a psychosocial treatment that will increase the odds of long-term persistence.’ It’s not hard to see how daily ‘affirmation’ by authority figures that a child is ‘really’ the opposite sex reinforces that belief. Long-term persistence of that belief leads children down a path toward puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, increasing the odds that the child will be sterilized. It is beyond strange, to say the least, that schools send home permission slips to take children to art museums but refuse to notify parents about a de facto medical intervention. … The dramatic shift away from this traditional moral and constitutional precedent has nothing to do with a dispassionate or scientific analysis of the human good. It is rather the product of a mass propaganda campaign that threatens to label any parent concerned for the mental health of their child a ‘transphobe.’”

In your district: reading programs

School districts face diverse issues and challenges. We want to hear what’s happening in your school district. Please complete the very brief survey below—anonymously, if you prefer—and we may share your response with fellow subscribers in an upcoming newsletter.

The following question appeared in last week’s edition of Hall Pass, and we’re featuring it again to give more readers a chance to respond:

Do you think your district is using the best possible reading program?

Click here to respond!

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school boards elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage. 

Election results from the past week

Nebraska

Lincoln Public Schools, the state’s second largest district by enrollment, held general elections on May 2. Primaries were April 4. Three seats were up for election.

Here are the unofficial results as of May 3: 

• District 2: Piyush Srivastav defeated Emily Pollen 60.1% to 39.9%. 
• District 4: Incumbent Annie Mumgaard defeated Alaina Brouillette 59.3% to 40.1%. Mumgaard was first elected in 2015. 
• District 6: Incumbent Bob Rauner defeated Richard Aldag IV 61.8% to 31.2%. Rauner was first elected in 2019. Both candidates completed Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey. 

According to The Lincoln Journal Star’s Zach Hammack: “With Srivastav’s election, there are now five Democrats and no Republicans on the seven-member school board. Connie Duncan, who was once a registered Republican, previously changed to independent. Current board member Lanny Boswell, a former Republican, is also an independent now.”

Ohio

A primary for four seats on the Columbus City Schools school board was scheduled for May 2, but the election was canceled after fewer than twice the number of candidates filed per seat. Incumbents Jennifer Adair, Carol Beckerle, and Tina Pierce, and challengers Sarah Ingles and Brandon Simmons, advanced to the Nov. 7 general election. 

Upcoming school board elections

Texas

On May 6 (yes, a Saturday!), we’re covering general elections in 58 Texas school districts, including the following with more than 75,000 students:

• Dallas Independent School District
• Northside Independent School District (Bexar County)
• Fort Worth Independent School District
• Katy Independent School District
• Fort Bend Independent School District

Pennsylvania

As part of our expanded coverage in 10 states, we’re covering all school board primary races in Pennsylvania on May 16. All districts in Pennsylvania are holding elections this year, with approximately half of the state’s 4,491 seats on the ballot. Pennsylvania holds school board elections every two years in odd-numbered years. 

We’ll have more information about Pennsylvania’s upcoming primaries in next week’s edition of Hall Pass. 

Oregon

Districts in Oregon are holding general elections on May 16. We’re covering elections in the following districts:

• Beaverton School District
• Centennial School District 28J
• David Douglas School District
• Parkrose School District 3
• Portland Public Schools
• Reynolds School District 7
• Salem-Keizer Public Schools
• Scappoose School District 1J

SCOTUS takes up school board member social media case

On April 24, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) agreed to hear arguments in O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, a case about whether elected officials who use their personal social media accounts to share work-related content can block people from engaging with their posts. 

In this case, the officials in question were members of the Poway Unified Board of Education, in Poway, Calif. Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff was first elected in 2014, and then re-elected in 2018 and 2022. T.J. Zane was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. He declined to run for re-election in 2022. Click here to read Zane’s answers in 2018 to our Candidate Connection survey. 

The Poway Unified School District is the 18th largest in California, with an estimated enrollment of 36,500 students.

Before winning election, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane had created publicly accessible Facebook and Twitter accounts for their campaigns. They later used those accounts primarily to share district news and events. Each also maintained separate accounts limited to friends and family. O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane indicated the public accounts were connected to board activity. Zane’s Facebook page, for example, said it was “the official page for T.J. Zane, Poway Unified School District Board Member, to promote public and political information.”

In 2017, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, parents to three children who attended Poway schools at the time, who frequently posted comments on the board members’ social media posts. Christopher said, “I utilized the only resource that I had for communication and engagement, through social media.” According to the brief filed on behalf of O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane, Christopher submitted the same response to 226 of O’Connor-Ratcliff’s tweets and left the same comment on 42 of O’Connor-Ratcliff’s Facebook posts. 

The Garniers sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, alleging the board members violated the First Amendment when they stopped them “from exercising their free-speech and/or government-petitioning rights in a public forum, namely on their public social-media pages.” On Jan. 14, 2021, the district court ruled O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane violated the Garniers’ First Amendment rights because their social media accounts were effectively public forums: “Defendants continue to block Plaintiffs more than three years after initially doing so. While blocking was initially permissible, its continuation applies a regulation on speech substantially more broadly than necessary to achieve the government interest.” The court said the school board members were initially justified in blocking the Garniers because of the repetitive nature of their comments. 

On July 27, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling, saying, “…we have little doubt that social media will continue to play an essential role in hosting public debate and facilitating the free expression that lies at the heart of the First Amendment. When state actors enter that virtual world and invoke their government status to create a forum for such expression, the First Amendment enters with them.”

O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane requested SCOTUS take up the case on the grounds that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in Lindke v. Freed on June 27, 2022, that James Freed, a Port Huron, Michigan, city manager, had not violated the Constitution when he blocked a critic from his social media account. His account listed his government job and contact information. SCOTUS also agreed to hear arguments in Lindke v. Freed on April 24. 

O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane presented the following question to SCOTUS: 

“Whether a public official engages in state action subject to the First Amendment by blocking an individual from the official’s personal social-media account, when the official uses the account to feature their job and communicate about job-related matters with the public, but does not do so pursuant to any governmental authority or duty.”

In a brief asking SCOTUS to dismiss the case, lawyers for the Garniers said, “It is enough that the Trustees [O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane] used their public social media pages as a primary way of interacting with their constituents—something that both California law and PUSD [Poway Unified School District] policy expect school board members to do.” 

Katie Harbath, former Public Policy Director at Facebook and founder and CEO of Anchor Change, an organization that works on tech policy and elections, said the cases raise two questions:

• “Is there a difference between the right to access information versus the right to engage? For instance, for many platforms, even if you are banned from engaging, you can still see the content. Is that ok? 
• “How to handle people who disrespectfully engage by spamming or posting hate speech or harassment. There are some narrow guardrails the police and governments can put on protesters. What does that look like online? Is there a difference between what a government official can do versus what a company can do to an official government page? That’s what we are all trying to figure out.”

SCOTUS will likely hear oral arguments in both cases in the fall. 

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! 

• Environmental, financial concerns flagged over Chromebook lifespans | K-12 Dive
• One school’s solution to the mental health crisis: Try everything | The Washington Post
• US political divide escalates over books and school boards | NHK
• Should school use ‘Warrior’ nickname? Tribe to have last say | Associated Press
• Florida Senate passes bill to impose eight-year term limits on school-board members | Yahoo News
• Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn stepping down; Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds to take role | News Channel 5 Nashville
• Students hated the no-hat policy. This Colorado superintendent heard them out. | Chalkbeat Colorado
• The Fight Over Religious Education | Tablet
• ‘We need help’: Portland middle school principals plead for help to manage student behavioral problems | The Oregonian

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from incumbent Michelle Slater and Jennifer Murphy, who are running in the May 6 general election for Northwest Independent School District school board Place 7 in Texas. Slater was first elected in 2021. 

Northwest Independent School District is the 53rd largest school district in Texas, with an estimated enrollment of 25,000 students. 

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

• “Amplify Parental Involvement: Encourage and prioritize parent involvement in their children’s education. This would involve creating opportunities for parents to be active participants in decision-making processes and ensuring that their voices are heard.
• Uncompromising commitment to educational proficiency: Ensure that our schools are provided an education that fosters academic excellence, critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and creativity for all students.
• Financial Accountability: Promote responsible expenditure and bond transparency, ensuring that the school district’s budget and finances are transparent to the public. By doing so, we can build trust with the community and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively and efficiently.”

Click here to read the rest of Slater’s answers. 

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

• “I believe in Strong Public Schools.
• I believe in Safe Learning Environments.
• I am committed to serving with the highest levels of professionalism and accountability.”

Click here to read the rest of Murphy’s answers. 

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

Welcome to Hall Pass, where we 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 whether school reform can improve educational and social outcomes 
• In your district: reading programs
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Florida voters will decide whether to make their school board elections partisan
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Email us at editor@ballotpedia.org to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over whether school reform can improve educational and social outcomes

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.

Today, we look at a recent conversation on how much schools can improve student outcomes. Are students inherently destined for success or failure regardless of educational resources? Can any reforms change academic outcomes?

Freddie DeBoer writes that most proposals for improving schools cannot improve student outcomes. DeBoer says the evidence supports the idea that students have their own natural or intrinsic level of academic potential, which we have no reason to believe we can dramatically change.

Auguste Meyrat writes that some reformers are too optimistic about student potential and the effectiveness of certain reforms. But Meyrat says DeBoer is too pessimistic and suggests that certain changes could still improve the educational system and create opportunities for success for more students. 

Education Commentary is Dominated by Optimism Bias | Freddie DeBoer, Substack

“There’s a bias that runs throughout our educational discourse, coming from our media, academia, and the think tanks and foundations that have such sway in education policy. It’s a bias that exists both because of a natural human desire to see every child succeed and because the structural incentives in the field make rejecting that bias professionally risky. The bias I’m talking about is optimism bias, the insistence that all problems in education are solvable and that we can fix them if only we want to badly enough. At least a half-century of research, spending, policy experimentation, and dogged effort has utterly failed to close the gaps that so vex our political class. But still we hear the same old song about how we could close those gaps tomorrow if we really wanted to, an attitude that has distorted education policy and analysis for decades. … This implies that common sense is correct and that individual students have their own natural or intrinsic level of academic potential, which we have no reason to believe we can dramatically change.”

More Money And Gimmicks Won’t Improve Public Schools, But Competition From Charters Will | Auguste Meyrat, The Federalist

“I think most of us would welcome more realism in considering what’s possible in education and what is not, but deBoer’s brand of pessimism is utterly misguided. It mistakes the forest for the trees, casting ineffective educational gimmicks and failed programs as proof that the overall quality of one’s schooling has no effect on an individual’s success. Worse still, by tying academic achievement to inherent ability (nature over nurture), his argument implies the only real way to make a population smarter is through eugenic methods. And no, recommending that the government cut more checks to the poor doesn’t make this argument any less racist or classist. Rather than succumb to despair, we should redouble our efforts in reforming our country’s education system, which obviously stands in great need of it. Although it may not be feasible to cultivate a nation of hyper-intelligent intellectuals or to create a system of perfect academic parity between each and every subgroup in the population, there are many ways to go about improving the system.”

In your district: reading programs

School districts face diverse issues and challenges. We want to hear what’s happening in your school district. Please complete the very brief survey below—anonymously, if you prefer—and we may share your response with fellow subscribers in an upcoming newsletter.

Today’s question:

Do you think your district is using the best possible reading program?

Click here to respond!

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage. 

Election results from the past week

Three seats on the Newark Public Schools school board in New Jersey were up for general election on April 25. Allison James-Frison and incumbents Hasani Council and Josephine Garcia won election. James-Frison won 22.1% of the vote, while Council and Garcia won 23.8% and 23.2%, respectively. 

Overall, eight candidates were on the ballot. 

Council, Garcia, and James-Frison ran as part of the “Move Newark Schools Forward Slate.” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who is affiliated with the Democratic Party, endorsed the slate. Baraka endorsed a slate of three candidates called the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” in the 2022 elections. All three candidates won election, receiving about the same percentage of votes as the “Move Newark Schools Forward” slate won this year. 

Thomas Luna, Tawana Johnson-Emory, and James Wright Jr. ran as part of the “Newark Kids Forward” slate. Johnson-Emory and Wright Jr. are both teachers at charter schools.

Latoya Jackson, Allison James-Frison, and Ade’Kamil Kelly also ran, though not as part of a slate. 

Newark Public Schools is the largest district in New Jersey, with an estimated enrollment of 42,000 students. The board consists of nine members elected to three-year terms, and all members are elected at-large.

Upcoming school board elections

We’re covering school board elections in the following states in the next month.

Nebraska

Lincoln Public Schools, the state’s second largest district by enrollment, is holding general elections on May 2. Primaries were April 4. Three seats are up for election. 

Texas

On May 6, we’re covering general elections in 58 Texas school districts, including the following with more than 75,000 students:

• Dallas Independent School District
• Northside Independent School District (Bexar County)
• Fort Worth Independent School District
• Katy Independent School District
• Fort Bend Independent School District

Florida voters will decide whether to make their school board elections partisan

We’re tracking 14 certified and potential education-related measures voters will decide in 2024. One of those is the Florida Partisan School Board Elections Amendment, which would implement partisan elections for seats on the state’s 67 school boards. If you subscribe to the Daily Brew, you may have seen a version of this story on April 24.

We provided some early coverage of that amendment in the April 5 edition of this newsletter, before the legislature had voted to put the amendment on the ballot.

On April 19, the Florida Senate gave final approval to House Joint Resolution 31 (HJR 31), a constitutional amendment that would establish partisan elections for seats on the state’s 67 school boards. The amendment will need at least 60% of the vote to pass in 2024. If it does pass, it’ll take effect for 2026 school board elections.

All 28 Republicans and Sen. Linda Stewart (D) voted in favor of the proposal. The chamber’s remaining 11 Democrats voted against it.

State Rep. Spencer Roach (R), the sponsor of the amendment, said, “This is not about, at least for me, advancing the cause of one political party over another. But for me it’s about transparency, and I simply believe that we have an obligation to give voters as much information about a candidate as possible, and let them make a decision about vetting a candidate. 

State Rep. Angela Nixon (D), said, “I believe this bill is not about transparency at all. This bill is about making our school-board elections and our school boards more contentious, more like D.C., which [Republicans] honestly always try to oppose.”

Florida is one of 41 states that hold nonpartisan school board elections where every candidate appears on the same ballot without party labels. Historically, Florida school board candidates ran in partisan races, but voters approved—64.1% to 35.9%—a constitutional amendment in 1998 that made school board elections nonpartisan.

If voters approve the measure, Florida would become the fifth state to hold partisan school board elections exclusively, joining Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, where candidates can choose to run under a specific party’s label.

The rules vary in Georgia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Some districts use partisan elections, while others use nonpartisan elections with differences typically based on specific state or local laws.

Florida’s proposal was one of a few proposed in legislatures this year. Lawmakers in Indiana and Kentucky introduced similar measures. Unlike in Florida, however, neither advanced from their chamber of origin before their deadlines to be acted upon.

Tennessee most recently changed its school board election methods. In 2021, Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed into law a bill allowing county party committees to decide whether they want to use partisan or nonpartisan elections. Previously, all school board elections were nonpartisan.

Education-related measures are also on the 2024 ballot in Utah and Arkansas. 

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! 

• Alabama education director ousted over book’s stance on race | Associated Press
• New Florida rule on gender, sex lessons spurs LGBTQ+ critics | Tampa Bay Times
• Bill would make charter school approval easier | Austin American-Statesman
• Stitt unveils compromise Oklahoma education funding plan to ease legislative impasse | KOSU
• After months of controversy, Va. approves new school history standards | The Washington Post
• As GOP ramps up school culture wars, Democrats weigh a counterattack | Chalkbeat
• Schools bought millions of Chromebooks in 2020 — and three years later, they’re starting to break | The Verge

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from Danny Cage, who is running in the general election for Multnomah Education Service District Board of Directors, Position 6, At-Large, in Oregon, and Jeff Myers, who is running in the general election for Beaverton School District school board Zone 6 in Oregon. Both elections are on May 16.

Multnomah Education Service District is an educational cooperative that provides services to the eight school districts in the county. The Beaverton School District is the third largest school district in Oregon, with an estimated enrollment of around 41,300. 

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

• I have served my community as a community organizer, staffer in the legislature, public servant in the office of the governor, consultant to a nonprofit which works to expand access to public budgets for all Oregonians. It has been an honor to serve my community through public service and I will continue this work as a member of the Multnomah Education Service District.
• Students and young people are and must be treated as stakeholders in their own public education. I believe that expanding who has a seat at the table makes for better governance and a more representational society. I am running to be the youngest person to have been elected to the Multnomah Education Service District and as a student to be a stakeholder in our education and bring a new perspective that has historically been left out of public education.
• Vote Danny Cage for Multnomah Education Service District Position 6, At Large

Click here to read the rest of Cage’s answers. 

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

• Priority #1: Academics. We need to leverage proven methods and materials for our children to be and feel successful in achieving their goals. It’s time to raise the bar!
• Priority #2: Safety. Students and staff need to feel safe and able to focus to be successful. After years of struggling with a failed approach to discipline, we need to go back to basics.
• Priority #3: School Environment. We need to take meaningful action on the top issues impacting school staff: large class sizes, ever-increasing workloads, conflicting priorities, and responsibility without authority.

Click here to read the rest of Myers’ answers. 

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

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 Satanist after-school clubs 
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• In almost half of states, school board elections are most commonly held off-cycle from federal elections
• School board candidates per seat up for election
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Email us at editor@ballotpedia.org to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over Satanist after-school clubs

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.

After-school clubs have been at the center of recent conversations about public schools and the First Amendment. In February, the Saucon Valley School District, in Pennsylvania, initially approved but then later denied the After School Satan Club’s request to use school facilities for meetings. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the district on March 30, 2023, alleging the ban on the Satan club violated the First Amendment because the district permitted a Christian club to use the school’s facilities.

Students have started After School Satan Clubs in schools in several states, including Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado. 

Garion Frankel writes that school facilities should remain open to all religious groups. Frankel says schools must allow Satanist clubs if they allow Christian clubs because “atheists are still protected by the Free Exercise Clause.”

Frank DeVito writes that an originalist reading of the First Amendment supports the idea that schools should not have to allow both Christian clubs and Satanist clubs to use their facilities. DeVito says Satanism is not a religion in the sense that the founders would have understood the word and therefore should not benefit from the same constitutional protections. 

Satan Clubs Should Be Allowed in Schools | Garion Frankel, Reason

“A defense of American pluralism requires a defense of, or at least apathy toward, Satanism. … In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Good News Club vs. Milford Central School that public schools, acting as a ‘limited public forum[s]’ outside of school hours, cannot discriminate on the basis of religion. Religion, in this context, applies not only to belief, but to non-belief as well. The Supreme Court has repeatedly treated atheism as a religion for legal purposes, meaning that atheists are still protected by the Free Exercise Clause. In other words, public schools can’t approve a Christian organization without approving a Satan club too. … In any case, the American pluralist tradition has always left the door open for dissidents and provocateurs, provided that they do not violate any constitutional laws or cause great harm. If we value pluralism at all, we cannot simply throw organizations that merely offend us out of the public square—even if we consider them the personification of evil itself. … Instead of trying to throw Satan clubs off campus, and therefore falling into a legal trap, school districts should leave the Satan clubs alone and defend their right to exist when offended parties demand their removal.”

There Is No Constitutional Right to Satanism | Frank DeVito, The American Conservative

“[A]nti-blasphemy laws were consistently upheld as compatible with free exercise of religion: According to the Harvard Law Review, “the blackletter rule was clear. Constitutional liberty entailed a right to articulate views on religion, but not a right to commit blasphemy — the offense of ‘maliciously reviling God,’ which encompassed ‘profane ridicule of Christ.’” Throughout the nation’s history and even into the twentieth century, the federal courts have consistently upheld state anti-blasphemy laws as constitutional. There is no binding precedent stating that anti-blasphemy laws violate the First Amendment. This is where the actual content of religious claims matters. A simple look at the Church of Satan website or its Wikipedia page (for both of which I intentionally choose not to provide a link) clearly show that the views of the Satanic sect revile God and ridicule Christ. Thus, the practice of “Satanism” is itself blasphemous. … If we twist the Constitution and the concept of religious liberty so far that it considers in any way protecting such horrendous and evil things as Satanic cults in publicly funded schools, the Constitution of the Founders is broken beyond recognition.”

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage. 

Upcoming school board elections

We’re covering school board elections in the following states in the next month.

Texas

On May 6, we’re covering general elections in 58 Texas school districts, including the following with more than 75,000 students:

• Dallas Independent School District
• Northside Independent School District (Bexar County)
• Fort Worth Independent School District
• Katy Independent School District
• Fort Bend Independent School District

New Jersey

Newark Public Schools, the largest district by enrollment in the Garden State, is holding general elections on April 25. Three seats are up for election. 

Nebraska

Lincoln Public Schools, the state’s second largest district by enrollment, is holding general elections on May 2. Primaries were April 4. Three seats are up for election. 

In almost half of states, school board elections are most commonly held off-cycle from federal elections.

Voter turnout is typically highest in November elections in even-numbered years, when congressional and most state-level elections take place. Nevertheless, most elections for the country’s more than 500,000 local offices—including school boards—happen in odd-numbered years or on non-November dates. 

The analysis below breaks down when states generally hold school board elections, and is based on research into state laws and common practices. In some states, the law mandates a specific date. In others, laws allow districts to choose their own election dates from a range or list of allowed dates or through charter provisions.

• 25 states have school board elections that are mostly held in odd-numbered years or non-November dates
  • 10 of those states have school board elections that are generally held on election dates in November of odd-numbered years.
  • 15 of those states have school board elections generally held on election dates that are not in November.
• 14 states have school board elections that are mostly held in November of even-numbered years, corresponding with federal elections.
• 11 states either do not have state laws or overwhelmingly common practices that determine a specific school board election date or have varying school board election dates.
• Hawaii has a single appointed school board.
  

In recent years, lawmakers have proposed moving school board elections to coincide with general election dates. In 2023, lawmakers in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Idaho, have introduced bills that would change the timing of school board elections. 

Proponents of placing school board candidates on the ballot at the same time as state and/or federal elections have said the timing of those elections makes it more difficult for voters to participate in the political process. Opponents of moving school board elections say general election ballots are so cluttered with federal and state candidates and ballot measures that voters might overlook or put less effort into learning about school board candidates.  

School board candidates per seat up for election

Since 2018, we’ve tracked the ratio of school board candidates to seats up for election within our coverage scope. Greater awareness of issues or conflicts around school board governance can result in more candidates running for each office. Click here to see historical data on this subject. 

As we pass more filing deadlines throughout the year, we’ll let you know how the ratio changes.  

This year, 2.03 candidates are running for each seat in the 1,428 school board races we are covering in districts where the filing deadline has passed. The 2.03 candidates per seat is 11.4% less than in 2021.

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! 

• ‘Kids Can’t Read’: The Revolt That Is Taking On the Education Establishment | The New York Times
• Licensed school employees could carry guns on school grounds under new GOP bill | Wisconsin Public Radio
• Are Partisan School Board Races Good or Bad? Legislation Goes to Florida Senate for Consideration | The 74
• GPT-4 Is Still Not Ready to Teach Geometry | Education Next
• As NYC is expected to spend $38K per student, budget watchdog calls for prioritizing ‘critical services’ | Chalkbeat New York
• Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ newfound chess obsession | The Washington Post
• Why GOP culture warriors lost big in school board races this month | Politico 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from George Ayala, who is running in the general election for Northside Independent School District school board District 4, and Jennifer Stephens, who is running in the general election for Northwest Independent School District school board Place 5. Both districts are in Texas.

Northside Independent School District is the fourth largest district in Texas, with an estimated enrollment of 108,000 students. The district covers parts of the San Antonio area. Northwest Independent School District is the 53rd largest district in Texas, with an estimated enrollment of 25,000 students. The district covers parts of the Fort Worth area. 

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

• “IMPROVING EXPERIENCES AND OUTCOMES FOR ALL STUDENTS
• PRIORITIZING TEACHER AND STAFF MORALE AND RETENTION
• INCREASING TRANSPARENCY IN DISTRICT DECISION-MAKING”

Click here to read the rest of Ayala’s answers. 

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

• “Empower Parents: I believe that parents are the ultimate and final authority on their children’s education. As a school board member, I will ensure that parents have access to all curricula being taught, allow them to have opt-out options, and advocate for their rights to speak up for their children’s needs and to advocate for policies and programs that support families and children
• Prioritize Education: I will prioritize the fundamental elements of education, including reading, writing, math, science, history, and civics, and developing critical thinking skills. I will steer away from programs that promote specific political ideologies and ensure that students are equipped with essential skills to compete in the job market.
• Financial Responsibility: As a school board member, I will be committed to budget transparency and accountability to the taxpayers. I will ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively, efficiently, and responsibly, and that the budget is being handled appropriately. I will prioritize spending on academic programs and classroom resources, while preventing unnecessary spending on lavish facilities or politically motivated programs.”

Click here to read the rest of Stephens’ answers. 

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 middle school algebra 
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 

• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Reflections on COSSBA’s inaugural conference   
• 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 middle school algebra

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.

During the 2014-2015 school year, the San Francisco Unified School District enacted a policy that prevents advanced students from taking Algebra 1 classes in eighth grade. Instead, the district requires all students to take the same classes, regardless of ability, through 10th grade (at which point advanced students can try to accelerate into harder classes like calculus and trigonometry). On March 22, a group of parents sued the district, saying Algebra I should once again be on offer for middle school students with the requisite mathematical knowledge. 

Stephen Sawchuk writes that eliminating advanced (also called tracked) courses from middle school curricula promotes equity between students of different races and economic backgrounds. Sawchuck says wealthier parents use advanced classes to help their children gain an unfair academic advantage over poorer students. He says the data shows that the policy has helped close that gap and improve algebra outcomes for more students.

Rex Ridgeway and David Margulies write that the San Francisco policy limits student advancement and removes opportunities from students who are proficient at math and would benefit from advanced instruction. They say wealthier families can work around the policy and pay for higher-level classes and tutoring, while high-performing poorer students have no way of accessing more difficult classes and getting a head start on college prerequisites.   

A Bold Effort to End Algebra Tracking Shows Promise | Stephen Sawchuk, EducationWeek

“Part of an ambitious project to end the relentless assignment of underserved students into lower-level math, the city now requires all students to take math courses of equal rigor through geometry, in classrooms that are no longer segregated by ability. That means no ‘honors’ classes. No gifted track. No weighted GPAs until later in high school. No 8th grade Algebra 1. … In effect, by de-tracking math classes, San Francisco has done away with one of the key avenues that the well-connected use to give their children an academic advantage. … This year, San Francisco got something of an ace in its back pocket to show skeptics of the plan: Data shows better math outcomes for students who took the de-tracked courses compared with the cohort before them. The number of students repeating algebra has fallen among all ethnic and racial groups, and fewer are receiving D’s and F’s in Algebra 1. About a third more students are ready for calculus, and that pool is more diverse than it’s ever been. While it’s not proof-positive that the new course sequence has caused the better outcomes, leaders say, it’s a hopeful sign.”

SFUSD’s delay of algebra 1 has created a nightmare of workarounds | Rex Ridgeway and David Margulies, San Francisco Examiner

“All parents want opportunities for their children to excel academically. However, reaching the top in math at San Francisco Unified School District, is like climbing a cactus tree. It’s going to hurt. At SFUSD, a math curriculum limiting student advancement currently exists; especially hindering socio-economically disadvantaged students from advancing in math. This is counter to what parents expect from a school district. … A lack of transparency, and manipulating data to justify policies, demonstrates how SFUSD operates. The benefits of eighth-grade algebra 1 are clearly explained in an open letter signed by nearly 1,800 science, technology, engineering and math professionals. This course initiates a five-year pathway to STEM readiness culminating in AP calculus in 12th grade. In practice, SFUSD’s delay of algebra 1 has created a nightmare of workarounds. Families with resources turn to fee-required online algebra 1 courses in eighth grade, outside the public school system, or enroll their kids in private schools.”

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. This year, Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections this year. Click here to read more about our 2023 school board coverage. 

Upcoming school board elections

We’re covering school board elections in the following states in the next month.

Texas

Some districts in the Lonestar State will hold general elections on May 6, while others will hold general elections on Nov. 7. On May 6, we’re covering elections in 58 districts, including the following with more than 75,000 students:

• Dallas Independent School District
• Northside Independent School District (Bexar County)
• Fort Worth Independent School District
• Katy Independent School District
• Fort Bend Independent School District

New Jersey

Newark Public Schools, the largest district by enrollment in the Garden State, is holding general elections on April 25. Three seats are up for election. 

Nebraska

Lincoln Public Schools, the state’s second largest district by enrollment, is holding general elections May 2. Primaries were April 4. Three seats are up for election. 

Reflections on COSSBA’s inaugural conference    

My colleague Juan García de Parades sat down with me last week to get my thoughts on my recent trip to Tampa, Fla., where I attended the Consortium of State School Boards Association’s (COSSBA) inaugural conference. If you’re a subscriber to Ballotpedia’s Daily Brew, you’ll have gotten an early look at this story last week. What follows is an abbreviated version of our conversation.

Juan Garcia de Parades: How was Tampa? 

Samuel Wonacott: Tampa was a lot warmer than Tulsa, Okla., where I live, and there were more palm trees (Tulsa does not have palm trees)! I’ve always enjoyed a good palm tree. 

Juan: Glad you got some sun! Let’s talk about the conference. Set the stage for our readers. What is the Consortium of State School Boards Associations? It’s a relatively new organization, right?

Samuel: That’s right. A group of state school boards associations came together and founded COSSBA in 2021. Before that, the primary national organization representing state school boards associations was the National School Boards Association (NSBA), which was founded in 1940. NSBA says that it works “with and through our State Associations, NSBA Advocates for Equity and Excellence in Public Education through School Board Leadership.” COSSBA describes itself as a “non-partisan, national alliance dedicated to sharing resources and information to support, promote and strengthen state school boards associations as they serve their local school districts and board members.”

COSSBA is made up of many former members of the NSBA. Interestingly, the NSBA also held its annual conference in Orlando last week. 

Juan: Can you explain what a state school boards association does?

Samuel: They are nonprofit organizations made up of school board members from around the state. Governance rules vary by state but all associations essentially serve the same purpose—providing training and resources to school board members and superintendents and representation in state government. That is, they lobby on behalf of school board members. 

Juan: Okay, so a bunch of state school boards associations got together in 2021 and formed COSSBA. Why? 

Samuel: In September 2021, NSBA leadership wrote a letter to President Joe Biden (D) referencing threats and disruptions at school board meetings, and said some of those actions could be considered the equivalent of domestic terrorism. The NSBA requested federal law enforcement to train and assist school board members on handling these disruptions. A month later,  U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in which he directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. attorneys to meet within 30 days with leaders in every federal judicial district to discuss ways to address threats against school board members and educators. 

Critics of the NSBA letter said it and Garland’s memorandum unfairly compared parental concerns over masking policies and other COVID-19 responses to domestic terrorism. A group of 17 state attorneys general—all Republicans—sent a letter to Biden and Garland on Oct. 18 asking for them to withdraw the memo because of the chilling effect it could have on parents’ speech rights. 

Although the NSBA board apologized for how the letter was worded, between October 2021 and June 2022, 25 state school board associations decided to terminate or not renew membership in the NSBA. Many of those states later formed COSSBA. 

Juan: You spoke with many school board members at the conference. What sort of education topics were they talking about? Were there any big themes you picked up on?

Samuel: I asked board members about the biggest issues in their districts, and I heard some common themes. One was that districts were struggling with the aftermath of the pandemic. From issues like teacher morale to student discipline, many seemed to believe the pandemic was kind of the root of many current district hurdles. Relatedly, board members also talked about the struggle of rebuilding the community’s trust in the board in the pandemic’s aftermath. Funding was another theme, another issue that came up quite a bit. That included concerns about funding disparities within districts, where individual schools—some just miles apart—end up receiving different amounts of money, which lead to divergences in per-pupil spending, school facility quality, and so forth. 

Juan: What about conference-wide themes? What topics and issues defined the conference?

Samuel: Even though you can make a case that politics played a pretty big role in the events that led to COSSBA’s formation, the conference itself was pretty decidedly apolitical. The learning sessions, which were mostly led by school board members, covered school safety, school board governance, how to select superintendents, talking to the media, and so on. Neither the attendees nor the conference programming had much to say on hot-button political or culture topics. One session, probably the one that touched most overtly on politics, was titled “Staying in the Center Lane—Leading in Turbulent Times.” It was presented as a case study about how the politically diverse Dublin City Schools board, in Dublin, Ohio, operates in good faith even in the midst of real disagreement. So, even there, the focus wasn’t on political issues per se but, rather, on how a board can manage political differences and conflicting values.

Juan: Was there much talk about state-level education policies? 

Samuel: Not so much, as the board members and conference organizers were really focused on policies school boards have direct—or, through the superintendent—indirect control over. There was one session I attended on how the Idaho School Boards Association has welcomed charter schools into its ranks that occasioned some strong, differing opinions on the topic of charter schools in the Q&A period. But with the exception of that session, I didn’t hear much talk about, say, charter schools, vouchers, or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)—three big education policy topics in the news this year. 

Juan: Who was at the conference? What states were represented?

Samuel: This was COSSBA’s inaugural conference—and a lot of people were there! According to registration data there were more than 1,700 registered attendees and vendors. School board members from all 23 states associated with COSSBA registered for the conference. You had school board members from small, rural schools with only a few thousand students, to some of the largest districts in the country—like Miami-Dade Public Schools, in Florida. 

Juan: Did attendees have much to say about the COSSBA/NSBA split? 

Samuel: No, not really. I would say most people I talked to were optimistic about COSSBA’s future and excited to be part of a new organization at the national level. That said, I talked to many longtime board members who had attended NSBA conferences in the past, and many of them were taking a wait-and-see approach to COSSBA.   

Juan: Thanks for that information on the conference. Which COSSBA states are holding elections this year?

Samuel: Fifteen of the 23 states whose state associations are affiliated with COSSBA are holding school board elections this year. That includes four states whose elections we’re covering comprehensively—Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Eight of the states holding elections this year are NSBA members. One state holding elections—Iowa—holds dual membership in COSSBA and NSBA, while three states—Nebraska, Texas, and Wisconsin—are unaffiliated with either organization. 

Juan: Thanks, Samuel. 

Samuel: Thanks, Juan! 

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! 

• Oklahoma board rejects first taxpayer-funded religious school in US | Reuters
• Court backs teacher firing over transgender students’ names | Associated Press
• Will school shootings in 2023 outpace last year’s record high? | K-12 Dive
• Kansas lawmakers plan to use COVID-19 funds to expand voucher program to public school students | Kansas Reflector
• Chicagoans want elected school board to better represent Black and Latino students | Chalkbeat Chicago
• State of the States: Governors and PK-12 education policy | Brookings
• School District Mission Statements Highlight a Partisan Divide Over Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in K-12 Education | Pew Research Center
• How to fix the growing discipline problem in U.S. classrooms | WBUR 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from Simon Salinas and Katherine Goodwin, who are running in the May 6 general election for Plano Independent School District school board Place 7 in Texas. Incumbent Cody Weaver, who is also running, has not completed the survey.  

The Plano Independent School District is the 18th largest district in Texas, with an estimated enrollment of around 53,000 students. 

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

• “Fiscal Responsibility & Equal Distribution of Funds: I will be responsible with tax dollars and will continue making sure that underserved communities in our district are receiving equal funds.
• Community Connections: As a recent graduate, I am intimately aware of the current concerns of our students and our teachers. We need to meet the community where they are as opposed to expecting the community to come to us.
• Teachers, Staff, and Student Success: The Plano ISD Board needs to continue to support innovative initiatives by the teachers and the Plano ISD Administration that make life more rewarding for teachers like including mental health resources. During COVID, my classmates and I experienced a shift in our learning. I believe now more than ever, we have to design a system that offers more individualized options for student success and growth. Kindergarten readiness and College readiness are important targets that are currently lacking attention in our School District. We must make sure that each student in Plano ISD will be ready to learn at a higher level if he/she chooses to attend college or trade school.”

Click here to read the rest of Salinas’s answers. 

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

• “Katherine Goodwin will ensure educational excellence and equity by working to close the opportunity and achievement gaps for ALL our students, whomever they are, wherever they come from.
• Plano ISD must help students and parents to feel their children are physically and emotionally safe at school­—lifted by the comfort of feeling they belong.
• We must honor our educators by paying them what they deserve, protecting their ability to teach the truth and rebuilding trust.”

Click here to read the rest of Goodwin’s answers.

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: reactions to the Houston school takeover 
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Here’s what COSSBA conference attendees had to say about issues in their districts
• Florida voters may decide whether to make school board elections partisan
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues

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.

On the issues: The reactions to the Houston school takeover

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues facing school board members. 

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced on March 15 that the state would take over the Houston Independent School District (HISD). The district’s current school board and superintendent will be replaced with new state appointees. States typically take over school districts when schools repeatedly fail to meet certain performance standards (like average standardized test scores). 

Michael J. Williams writes that the TEA is justified in taking over the HISD. Williams say the schools are not meeting the needs of students and are failing to improve campuses that persistently fail to meet standards. He says the HISD had the chance to make improvements and that now the district needs a new superintendent and board of managers to offer and implement a clearer plan for improvement.

Domingo Morel writes that the TEA’s takeover of the HISD is unjustified because the district has made sufficient progress in meeting standards and resolving problems. Morel says the takeover is politically and racially motivated. He says Houston’s school board offers a political platform to Democrats and people of color and that Republican state officials would rather remove their political opponents and appoint their own managers.

Houston ISD’s takeover was a hard, but necessary decision | Michael J. Williams, The Dallas Morning News

“I wholeheartedly support [Education Commissioner Mike Morath’s] decision, and I believe he will act in the best interest of Houston ISD’s students and families and appoint a local board and a best-in-class superintendent who will give the state’s largest district the kind of jump-start it needs to finally meet the needs of all of Houston’s citizens. The law is clear. The Texas Supreme Court has ruled. Houston ISD voted to lay down in its lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency. Houston ISD failed to improve its most persistently failing campuses for years, and so the TEA is legally obligated to intervene. Houston ISD could have made decisions at any stage of this process that could have resolved this issue, but they chose not to bring in a partner to improve their failing campus. This situation is unfortunate, but it should not be surprising to the district, and it certainly was not unavoidable. Change always comes hard to the most entrenched interests when changes like this are made. I believe the best thing that can happen for Houston ISD now is a clear path forward.”

The state takeover of Houston public schools is about more than school improvement | Domingo Morel, The Conversation

“Although the state has given the Houston Independent School District a B rating, it plans to take over the Houston schools because one school, Wheatley High School, has not made sufficient progress since 2017. According to state law, the state can take over a school district or close a school if it fails to meet standards for five years. … So why would a state take over a school district that has earned a B rating from the state? And why base the takeover on the performance of one school that represents fewer than 1% of the district’s student and teaching population? … Houston, as the largest urban center in Texas, is at the forefront of this challenge to the Republican grip on state power. The Houston schools, in particular, are representative of the state’s demographic and political future. The nine-member Houston school board is reflective of the community it serves. It has three Latinos, four African Americans and two white school board members. This, in my view, is what has put the Houston public school system and school board at the forefront of a battle that is really about race and political power.”

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. We’re gradually expanding the number we cover with our eye on the more than 13,000 districts with elected school boards.

Election results from the past week

Yesterday, on April 4, voters in Oklahoma and Wisconsin decided general school board elections. Oklahoma and Wisconsin are two of 10 states this year in which we are providing comprehensive coverage of all school board elections. 

While we work to collect results for all 426 races in both states, here is a look at the number of elections and candidates on the ballot in those general elections. We’ll be back next week with some preliminary analysis of these elections. 

• Voters in Oklahoma decided 134 school board elections in 127 districts. Two-hundred and sixty three candidates ran in those 134 races.
• Voters in Wisconsin decided 511 school board elections. Those races featured 1,203 candidates. 

Other school board elections

We also covered elections in the following states/districts on April 4:

• Anchorage School District school board in Alaska 
• School District U-46 school board in Illinois  
• Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska 
• Missouri (several districts)

Here’s what COSSBA conference attendees had to say about issues in their districts

Between March 30 and April 2, school board members from around the country gathered in Tampa, Fla., for the Consortium of State School Boards Association’s (COSSBA) inaugural conference. The conference featured keynote speakers and dozens of workshops and sessions on board leadership, governance, school safety, the First Amendment, and more. 

COSSBA was not the only national school boards association to meet for a conference in Florida. The National School Boards Association (NSBA) held an annual conference in Orlando April 1-3. 

We caught up with school board members at the COSSBA conference in sunny Tampa and asked them about the biggest issues in their districts. Here are snippets from five conversations we had with conference attendees from states across the country. Scroll below for more information on COSSBA. 

We’ll be back in a future edition with more about our visit to COSSBA’s annual conference. 

Nancy Gregory is an at-large member of the Boise School District Board of Trustees in Idaho. She was first elected in 2002 and served as the president of the board from 2014 to 2020.

“We are looking at helping kids, in a focused way, set their own achievement goals. And recognize that if they know what they need to learn, and we tell them the steps that get them there, they do the work—they will accomplish what they need to accomplish. And we’re also trying to think about what a student profile looks like, and what a graduate would say, ‘when I graduate, this is what it means.’ So that every student feels capable and prepared. Our objective is to prepare kids for college, career, and citizenship. So, we are creating pathways of success for them. And that means college bound, that means CTE [career and technical education] career choices, that means into the military or directly into the workforce. We need a literate population to have a successful country and we want our kids to be good citizens.”

Chris Valentine is the president of the Dublin City Schools Board of Education in Ohio. He was first elected to the board in 2003, at the age of 19. He and a few of his fellow Dublin board members, as well as the Dublin City Schools’ superintendent, John Marchhausen, led a workshop at the conference called “Staying in the Center Lane—Leading in Turbulent Times.”

“Our challenges have been navigating the strong extremes from the left and the right, and really coming out of COVID—earning trust back. And it’s not necessarily because we ourselves lost that trust, but because skepticism of government, I think is, at an all time high. And it’s easiest to put that onto your local office holders, especially when it’s issues that are affecting your kids—what’s nearest and dearest to your heart. And people, I think, get most passionate in life oftentimes about their kids. So we’re figuring it out.” 

Blake Bell is the president of Arkadelphia Public Schools Board of Education in Arkansas. 

“More than anything, the problem that we deal with the most is teacher morale, I think, coming out of COVID. It was very hard on our teachers. And it was very hard on teachers because that’s their safe place, that’s their laboratory—their work. That’s their man cave, that’s their comfort zone—the classroom. And when they’re not in the classroom, they felt like they were sleeping on somebody else’s couch, to be honest, and, and they were disconnected. They felt they weren’t able to see their children, they weren’t able to reach out and touch them and really do what they enjoy doing—being with their kids.”

Michelle Watkins is the District 1 representative on the Huntsville City Schools school board in Alabama. She was first elected in 2016. 

“Teachers are leaving in record numbers because of discipline, disrespect, defiance, disruptions. Who comes to school every day to deal with kids that are disrespectful and defiant? And it’s not just in my district—it is throughout the state, our families throughout the US. And we’re going to continue to see our teachers leave the profession in record numbers until we address these issues. And we have to find solutions. Right now, we have restorative practices; we have interventions; we have counseling. But it’s not working. This is a problem at home that the parents are going to have to help us with.”

According to data collected from the COSSBA conference app, school board members from 25 states were registered to attend the conference. That included some school board members from states unaffiliated with COSSBA. 

Background on COSSBA and NSBA

COSSBA was founded in late 2021 and comprises 23 state school board associations. COSSBA describes itself as a “non-partisan, national alliance dedicated to sharing resources and information to support, promote and strengthen state school boards associations as they serve their local school districts and board members.” 

The NSBA was founded in 1940. NSBA says: “Through its member state associations that represent locally elected school board officials serving millions of public school students, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership.”

Between October 2021 and June 2022, 25 state school board associations decided to terminate or not renew membership in the NSBA following the release of a letter the organization sent to President Joe Biden (D) in September 2021. The letter referenced threats and disruptions at school board meetings: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” The NSBA requested federal law enforcement to train and assist school board members on handling the disruptions. 

On Oct. 4, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in which he directed the FBI and U.S. attorneys to meet within 30 days with leaders in every federal judicial district to discuss “strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”

The NSBA later apologized for the letter. Click here to read more about the letter and surrounding events.

Florida voters may decide whether to make school board elections partisan

On March 31, the Florida House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 31 (HJR 31), a constitutional amendment that would use partisan elections for seats on the state’s 67 school boards. 

Lawmakers in two other states, Indiana and Kentucky, introduced similar proposals this year, but, unlike Florida’s, neither advanced from their chamber of origin before the necessary deadline.

In Florida, House members approved the measure 79-34, breaking along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

If HJR 31 passes the Senate—where Republicans hold a veto-proof majority—the amendment will appear on the 2024 ballot, where it would need at least 60% of the vote to pass. If approved, the amendment would take effect during the 2026 school board elections.

Florida is one of 41 states that hold nonpartisan school board elections where every candidate appears on the same ballot without party labels.

Four states—Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania—hold partisan school board elections, where candidates can choose to run under a specific party’s label.

The rules vary in Georgia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Some districts use partisan elections, while others use nonpartisan elections with differences typically based on specific state or local laws.

Click here to read more about the Florida Partisan School Board Elections Amendment.

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! 

• School politics are on Miguel Cardona’s mind | Politico
• The GOP has decided the path to victory at the ballot box goes through the nation’s school committees. Even in Massachusetts. | The Boston Globe
• ChatGPT Is the Wake-Up Call Schools Need to Limit Tech in Classrooms | Time 
• Out-of-state PAC backing conservative school board candidates belatedly files spending report | Chicago Tribune
• Analysis: Opening the Door to Faith-Based Charter Schools | The 74

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from Jared Buswell, who ran in the April 4 general election for Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education District 1 in Oklahoma, and Chanda Schwartz, who ran in the April 4 general election for one of four at-large seats on the School District U-46 Board of Education in Illinois. 

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

“I am particularly motivated to serve on the school board to raise students’ enjoyment of learning true knowledge and mastering valuable skills. There is no greater thrill than learning how the world really works beyond one’s initial expectation and to find one’s useful place in it. My passion is seeing parents and teachers succeed in this life-giving process for young people. Lack of quality education ensures the poor become poorer while the rich become richer.

Among the many places in the world where I could serve, I was particularly urged to prioritize Tulsa Public Schools because of the board’s decisions to close the school district to in-person learning for most of a school year. Those decisions – and the choices to not make a comprehensive plan to radically recover from lost learning opportunities – alarmed me to stop other pursuits I was engaged in to serve in this capacity.

Lastly, I am very internally motivated to provide reprieve and opportunity for hard-working educators (both parents and teachers). There are thousands of people diligently serving children every day under unnecessary administrative burdens and/or a lack of resources in the classroom. I am very excited about the prospect of loosening existing resources for more use in the classroom and spreading more decision-making authority to the people who are the most responsible to make those choices. Bringing relief to virtuous people is a cause I’m excited to get up and work for every day.”

Click here to read the rest of Buswell’s answers.

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

“Mental health and wellness support for all staff and students.

Curriculum that is engaging, innovative, challenging, and culturally representative of our district and prepares students to reach their full potential. Learning loss recovery, closing achievement gaps, and improve student outcomes.

Supporting our strategic plan, the transition of 6th grade to middle school, expansion of Pre-K, and addressing the disparities in our district amongst our aging facilities.

Addressing teacher/staff shortages and working to improve employee satisfaction/engagement.”

Click here to read the rest of Schwartz’s answers.

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 Los Angeles school union strikes
• Share candidate endorsements with us! 
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• A look at Oklahoma’s April 4 general school board elections
• Florida expands education savings account (ESA) program
• Extracurricular: education news from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Email us at editor@ballotpedia.org to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over Los Angeles school union strikes

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.

Members of Service Employees International Union Local 99 (SEIU)—a union representing about 30,000 Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) maintenance staff, bus drivers, and other support employees—went on strike between Mar. 21-24. The union said the school district treated its workers unfairly and violated California labor laws. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)—the primary public teachers union in the LAUSD—joined SEIU in the strike, shutting down schools on the strike days.

Glenn Sacks writes that both unions were justified in striking and that the non-teaching staff was treated unfairly under California’s labor laws. Sacks says both students and workers will be better off if LAUSD meets the SEIU’s demands. He also says that the support of the teachers union was not unusual and that the strike was necessary to avoid undermining what Sacks says are positive changes in the district.

The Washington Examiner Editorial Board writes that public sector unions in LAUSD have too much power to disrupt the lives of families and set back public education. The Editorial Board says the strikes caused hardships for the district’s low-income families, who had to arrange child care for students. The Board also blamed public school unions for long-term school closures during COVID.

I was on the Los Angeles picket line. Here’s why our strike will benefit students and workers | Glenn Sacks, Fox News

“SEIU announced a three-day “Unfair Practice Charge” strike based on its well-founded accusations that LAUSD’s mistreatment of SEIU workers violates California labor law. LAUSD probably expected that with teachers coming in to work, along with personnel brought in from LAUSD headquarters on an emergency basis, they could roll right over SEIU, as school districts often do to campus workers in similar situations. Except this week, Los Angeles teachers said ‘No.’ Over half of LAUSD’s SEIU workers have children in LAUSD. Many of our students have aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and older siblings who work at LAUSD. There is only one way UTLA educators could keep faith with our students, their families and the workers whose labor enables us to educate our students — by honoring SEIU’s picket lines. Our sympathy strike (aka “solidarity strike”) is very much in line with the traditions of American labor. American labor unions were built through labor solidarity, and in recent decades, unions have been undermined because union leaders have abjured sympathy strikes.”

Los Angeles school unions are COVIDing children all over again | Editorial Board, The Washington Examiner

“As they showed throughout the coronavirus pandemic by pressing school districts to stay closed, teachers unions have no solidarity with the children they are supposed to educate. The core mission is once again being shoved aside. Many low-income parents may have to skip work and lose pay to supervise their children while unions strike. … California’s public sector labor unions, which were at the forefront in demanding unjustifiable long-term school closures during the pandemic, have permanently set back the education and lives of children in the last few years. Now, they are back to remind Californians of the stranglehold they have over the state. In Los Angeles, they get whatever special exemptions they want from whatever laws they want. Teachers and educators who don’t want to stunt children’s development and ruin their prospects should take advantage of their rights under the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision and stop paying for union representation. Unfortunately, California will not ban public sector collective bargaining, but that will have to happen before normal government services are restored to the state’s residents.”

Share candidate endorsements with us! 

As part of our goal to solve the ballot information problem, Ballotpedia is gathering information about school board candidate endorsements. The ballot information gap widens the further down the ballot you go, and is worst for the more than 500,000 local offices nationwide, such as school boards or special districts. Endorsements can help voters know more about their candidates and what they stand for. 

Do you know of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in your district? 

Click here to let us know.

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

Ballotpedia has historically covered school board elections in about 500 of the country’s largest districts. We’re gradually expanding the number we cover with our eye on the more than 13,000 districts with elected school boards.

Upcoming school board elections

In 2023, roughly 24,100 school board seats are up for election in 35 states. Ballotpedia is covering elections for approximately 8,750 seats in 3,211 school districts across 28 states—or about 36% of all school board elections. Read more about Ballotpedia’s coverage of school board elections here.  

On April 4, Oklahoma and Wisconsin will hold school board general elections. We covered Oklahoma’s (Feb. 14) and Wisconsin’s (Feb. 21) primaries in previous editions of this newsletter. We’re covering all school board elections in both Oklahoma and Wisconsin this year. 

In the next section, we take a more detailed look at Oklahoma’s general elections. 

We’re also covering elections in the following states/districts on April 4:

• Anchorage School District school board in Alaska 
• School District U-46 school board in Illinois  
• Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska 
• Missouri (several districts)

A look at Oklahoma’s April 4 general school board elections

We’re providing comprehensive school board election coverage this year in 10 states, including Oklahoma, which will hold general elections on April 4. 

Voters in Oklahoma will decide 137 school board elections statewide in 127 districts. Oklahoma held primaries on Feb. 14, but those only took place for the 23 offices where more than two candidates ran.

These 137 general elections represent 24% of the 579 offices up for election this year. For the remaining 442 offices (76%), the general election was canceled:

• In 405 races, only one candidate ran, meaning both the primary and general elections were canceled, and they won outright;
• In 13 races, a candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the primary, eliminating the need for the general election; and,
• No candidates ran in 24 races, creating vacancies that the school board must fill through an appointment or a special election.

We’re closely researching and tracking endorsements made in Oklahoma, many of which are found only in local papers and campaign materials. 

To date, we have tracked 22 endorsements for 11 candidates in Oklahoma general elections:

• Five endorsers affiliated with the Democratic Party or advocating for policies aligned with the Democratic Party platform have made five endorsements across four candidates.
• Nine endorsers affiliated with the Republican Party or advocating for policies aligned with the Republican Party platform have made 15 endorsements across five candidates.
• One neutral endorser has made one endorsement.
• One endorser whose ideological lean is unclear has made one endorsement.

Here are some examples of the April 4 candidate endorsements we’ve tracked:

• Bixby Public Schools: the Tulsa County chapter of Moms for Liberty endorsed Julie Bentley, who is challenging Board President Matt Dotson.

• Norman Public Schools: Kathleen Kennedy and Annette Price are running for the open seat. Sally’s List, a progressive organization focused on electing women to office, endorsed Price.

• Tulsa Public Schools: Tulsa County Moms for Liberty and the Oklahoma 2nd Amendment Association endorsed Jared Buswell, who is challenging Board President Stacey Wooley.

• Western Heights Public Schools: Kelly Brown and Brayden Hunt are running for the open seat. In a Candidate Connection Survey, Hunt said he received an endorsement from the Western Heights Education Association, a local teacher’s union.

If you are aware of an individual or group that has endorsed a candidate in an April 4 Oklahoma school board race, let us know here. 

Florida expands education savings account (ESA) program.

On March 27, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed House Bill 1, expanding the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship program to provide all K-12 students with around $7,500 for educational expenses outside of the public school system. 

The Family Empowerment Scholarship was created in 2014 and provided eligible students—such as those with disabilities or from low-income families—with funding for defraying the costs of private school tuition or tutoring. The expanded program prioritizes students from low-income families.  

Under the new law, all Florida K-12 students will be eligible to apply for the program, so long as they aren’t attending a public school. The law allows funds to be used on a variety of educational expenses, such as private school tuition to homeschooling expenses. In addition to expanding the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship program, the law eases requirements for some types of teaching certificates. 

DeSantis said, “parents are going to be able to have the ability to get money for their student for their child, and they can do tuition, they’re also going to be able to use it for things like tutoring and other things that can be very important for a child’s development and well being.”

The House passed the legislation 83-27 on March 17, with 79 Republicans and four Democrats voting in favor. No Republicans opposed the bill, while nine representatives did not vote. Republicans have an 84-35 majority in the House. The Senate passed the bill 26-12 along partisan lines (two Republicans were absent) on March 23. Republicans hold a 28-12 majority in the Senate. 

Critics say the law will redirect funding from public schools and benefit wealthier households, who may already send their children to private schools. Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar said, “The universal voucher bill signed today by Gov. DeSantis will drain billions of taxpayer dollars away from the neighborhood public schools that nearly 90 percent of Florida’s parents trust to educate their children.” State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) tweeted, “Ron DeSantis signs massive education privatization bill into law qualifying every Florida MILLIONAIRE + BILLIONAIRE to receive taxpayer-funded private school tuition for their kids while defunding public schools! No rules or regulations. Socialism for the rich!”

State Sen. Corey Simon (R), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said, “This legislation is a transformational opportunity to make it clear that the money follows the child, and parents have a right to guide their child’s education as they see fit.”

Florida is the fourth state in 2023 to expand its existing ESA program to cover all students, following Utah, Iowa, and Arkansas. Arizona and West Virginia expanded their ESA programs to all students in 2022. Legislators in states like Texas, South Carolina, and Oklahoma are still considering ESA or education tax credit bills as of this writing. 

Many states have more limited programs that allow eligible students to attend private schools. According to Notre Dame law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett, “Thirty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have one or more private-school-choice programs, which this year enable more than 700,000 children to attend a private school.” 

Florida’s new law will take effect July 1. 

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! 

• AI in school: Virtually chatting with George Washington and your personal GPT-4 tutor | EdSource
• Supreme Court rules against district in Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools special ed case | K-12 Dive
• Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading | The Atlantic
• Why home school advocates are lobbying hard against universal school choice bills | The Washington Examiner
• Republicans look to rural Texas to win school voucher fight | The Dallas Morning News
• Good schools (still) matter for low-income kids | Slow Boring
• A course meant to inspire more Black students to take AP classes sparked a culture war instead | NBC News
• Conservatives are targeting suburban school boards. And the elections are becoming political battlegrounds. | Chicago Tribune
• NY’s power to regulate religious schools trimmed by judge | Associated Press
• House passes GOP education bill that aims to provide additional oversight for parents | CNN

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at responses from incumbent Bob Rauner and Richard Aldag IV, who are running in the nonpartisan primary for Lincoln Public Schools school board District 6 in Nebraska on April 4. Rauner was first elected in 2019. 

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

• “Reducing LPS healthcare costs which account for 16% of the budget and using those savings to reduce property taxes and increase teacher pay.
• Improving our approach to academic testing. The current method is an expensive time intensive process that mostly just tells us where the rich & poor students are, something we already know.
• Improving the health of our students including their mental health.”

Click here to read the rest of Rauner’s answers. 

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

• “We need to address the learning gap created by closing our schools .
• Focus on incentivizing teachers who take on priority positions in special education and underserved schools.
• Let’s improve our internal processes to remove duplicative, conflicting, and non-value added tasks.”

Click here to read the rest of Aldag’s answers.