Why the School Board and Local Governance Matters in America

Ever considered running for school board? Ever considered voting for it? For most Americans, the answer to both those questions is no, with the number of people showing up to vote in School Board elections consistently hovering at only one in twenty five to one in forty. Most dismiss these elections as unimportant, but they have a profound national impact. Here's why:

School Board's have a lot more power than people realise. They can instate and depose superintendents, determine school textbooks, create or repeal policies or rules, impose regulations in schools, and determine much of how the curriculum is presented. While these powers seem basic and mundane, more like bureaucracy than anything else, they play a large part in determining the political and philosophical worldviews of children at school which can drastically impact the way they vote as adults.

Two Men Hold a Sign Campaigning for School Board

Take the example of a Board instating a Superintendent who opposes the LGBT community on a political level, and rallying behind policies proposed by that Superintendent. That Superintendent with the Board behind him can implement policies that actively suppress LGBT students, by preventing trans students from using the changing rooms or competing on the sports teams of their identified gender, stop teachers from talking about LGBT issues, and potentially fire those who are friendly towards the community.

Within a few years, it's likely the county public schools will have many fewer students willing to come out as LGBT, and will have fostered a student culture much more hostile to it. Students are deeply affected by their peers - more so than even by their parents. If they all communally grow up in an environment which is intrinsically homophobic or trans-phobic, they are more likely to support and then vote for homophobic or trans-phobic policies going into adulthood.

This goes both ways (support for the LGBT community can have the opposite impact), and can stretch to other issues as well - the Lost Cause Civil War narrative, portrayal of environmental issues, and even nationalism vs globalism. How your place in the world is portrayed is important - many school systems have adopted "global citizenship" programmes for early ages. Things even as simple as what groups the schools coordinate field trips with. All of these impact and shape students' views of the world.

A SCV Member Teaches Children on a Field Trip in a Mississippi School District

Major parties recognise this, and for that reason School Board elections have begun to become more expensive over time, culminating in millions of dollars spent campaigning in an LA race a few years ago. Still, very few people show up to the polls.

We often think of politics as something that happens on a national, or at least regional level. But the lowest levels like the School Boards determine the worldview that the youth approaches their politics and generational elections with. It is those few votes for the most grassroots of elections that shape the politics of the Democrats and Republicans of tomorrow, who are, quite literally, our future.