During the pandemic, school board meetings turned into angry affairs, with parents protesting mask mandates and school closures. These days, and especially at the midterm school board elections, issues around race and gender have crept into the discourse. School boards, in general, are nonpartisan, but conservative-leaning candidates want more control over how race is taught in classrooms; they want to limit discourse around gender. Progressive leaning candidates, on the other hand, are pushing for more diversity and equity in the classroom and comprehensive sex education.
Ultimately, the outcome of these races will decide future policy and curriculum for many schools around the country. For the latest episode of Bedrock, USA — a podcast from Bloomberg CityLab and iHeart Media that examines how the far right is making inroads into local government — we spoke to an expert on school boards to understand this moment. Doug Kronaizl, is a senior staff writer with Ballotpedia, a nonprofit that tracks elections and ballot measures. During the pandemic, Kronaizl began focusing on the increasingly fractious atmosphere around school board elections. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
My role at the website is covering a lot to do with conflicts in school board elections. It is one of the big projects that I’ve been working on for a little bit over a year at this point. So trying to find these races where hot button issues are coming up and seeing sort of who’s running in the races and where they’re spread out geographically. And then sometimes looking a little bit into the results from those races to see how things play out.