There are yard signs we pass every day with people’s names we’ve never heard of. What are those people running for? School board.
It’s as important as ever to know who these people are because groups on the far right are trying to use school boards as a front in their attack on democracy.
Their goals include banning books, indoctrinating kids with a Christianity-only belief system, and excluding marginalized people.
They know their views are unpopular, and taking over school boards is one way to advance their agenda.
Do Your Research
We need to take those yard signs and research or find a group in our community that has done that work already.
What can be deceiving about a candidate’s name is we don’t know what they stand for.
If some of them are far-right extremists and you go to the ballot box not knowing, you could be voting for an anti-vaxxer, a book banner, or a history censor.
If you go into the voting booth not knowing what these candidates stand for, you might end up voting for the far-right take-over of your school boards.
Find out when your school board elections are and start your research early. Or, again, find an organization that’s already done the work.
Once you know the candidates to vote for, get behind them and publicize who they are, where they stand on issues, and why they’re not far-right extremists.
The goal of your research is to identify the extremists. Then, separate them from the candidates who want to empower our children in public schools.
Resources For Research:
- This is a guide from Ohio, and you can use it as a template for your research.
- Another guide from Ohio on School Board Candidate Questions from The League of Women Voters Ohio.
- Here’s a spreadsheet from Ohio listing the extremists running for the school board. Consider creating one for your community.
- This is also a voting guide for Ohio from Red Wnie & Blue Ohio.
- And here are some other guides from Red Wine & Blue.
Public education is the foundation of our democracy. We need to root out the extremists and support our public schools.