Analysis Of School District And Board Member Ballotpedia

Middleton, Wisconsin--(Newsfile Corp. - September 4, 2025) - As schools nationwide welcome students back for the 2025-2026 academic year, Ballotpedia released findings from its "School Board Listening Tour", a study examining the experiences of America's school board... The initiative aimed to develop a deeper understanding of how school board members across the United States view their roles, responsibilities, and challenges. It is intended to serve as a resource for voters, researchers, policymakers, and others interested in the role of school boards in public education. Ballotpedia launched the project as part of its overall multi-year goal of covering all elections in the United States, including all local elections. Nationwide, school board members represent 13,500 public school districts and over 18% of the nation's 520,000 elected officials.

Conducted between 2024 and 2025, Ballotpedia's "School Board Listening Tour" represents the largest qualitative study of its kind. It involved 100 hour-long interviews with current and former board members across 33 states, representing the nation's urban, suburban, and rural districts. "School boards shape everything from curriculum choices to budget priorities in communities across America while taking on the responsibility of solving problems, addressing issues, and balancing the priorities of their friends, neighbors, and communities... "We sought to understand their lived experiences: the subjective perspectives, emotions, and insights of those representing the most direct connection between voters and education outcomes." The 43-page report details board member perspectives on conflict resolution, academic oversight, community engagement, and governance effectiveness. It includes statistical analysis, thematic findings, and direct quotes from interviews.

Download the full report here. A comprehensive resource – covering all 50 states – examines how state laws and regulations both grant and limit the authority of local school boards MIDDLETON, Wis., April 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ballotpedia has completed its study examining local school board authority across all 50 states. This resource is an exceptional tool for understanding the complex landscape of school governance in America and solves a critical information gap in this space. It represents a thorough analysis of how state laws and regulations both grant and limit the authority of local school boards nationwide. As debates about educational governance continue to intensify nationwide, Ballotpedia's school board authority research initiative provides an objective foundation for informed discussion about the proper balance of authority between state governments and local school...

Ballotpedia provides clarity about the policy areas over which local school boards have decision-making power and how that authority is constrained by state or federal law. The report will be an essential reference for education policymakers, school board members, administrators, parent advocates, researchers, and citizens seeking to understand or influence local education policy. Ballotpedia's analysis includes articles exploring the authority the laws in each state give to local school boards, generally and over specific education policy issues such as: To help journalists contextualize coverage of school board elections, we spotlight research on who votes in these elections, the role of teachers unions and how new board members can influence school segregation, funding and... This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You are free to republish this piece both online and in print, and we encourage you to do so with the embed code provided below.

We only ask that you follow a few basic guidelines. by Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource May 28, 2024 School board elections have grown increasingly politicized in recent years as conservative politicians and advocacy organizations push to restrict how public schools address issues related to race, gender and sexuality. The 518 MO school boards are filled by local nonpartisan elections. The timing of filing deadlines and election dates for school board candidates varies significantly between states. Most school board elections are held between nonpartisan candidates.

There are 13,194 school districts in the U.S., with 82,423 school board members (NCES 2023). The majority of members are elected to their positions, with the exception of HI and some localities in IN. HI only has an appointed State School Board and some localities in IN are filled by appointment. In MO, the 518 school boards are filled by local election (NCES 2023). The procedures for running for a school board seat vary significantly by state, and in many cases by locality. Oftentimes, there are different procedures for county, city, and state school board elections.

According to our research, nearly half of the 80,000+ school board seats across the country are up for election over the next two cycles. These include seats representing many of the largest school districts in the country such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas and more. From banning cellphones in school to managing up to 10 billion dollar education budgets, elected school boards play a pivotal role in the future of our schools and the well-being of our teachers and... And, despite the vast majority of school board races being classified as "nonpartisan", outside spending and political endorsements for these contests are on the rise as more partisan fights are taking place at the... Ahead of these contests, here are 10 facts about upcoming school board races that you probably didn't know. Plus, stay tuned for a new election calendar dedicated solely to the schedule of open seats at the school board level which our research team is tracking.

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