School Board Recall Petitions & Elections Hit New National High
Eighty-Four Recall Campaigns are Underway in Multiple States, Not Just Virginia, Almost Three Times Higher Than the Annual Average Over the Past 15 Years
The public school board of my former home county of Loudoun, Virginia - America’s wealthiest county - is getting a lot of attention lately. You probably know why; keeping school closed during the pandemic, harming children and hurting parents; attempts to hide sexual assaults in schools; introducing “critical race theory;” suspending instructors who find their “transgender” policies violative of their faith and treating parents who testify at school board meetings as domestic terrorists.
It’s all had quite the impact on Virginia’s gubernatorial contest that concludes on Tuesday, November 2nd. The latest polling has Republican Glenn Youngkin inching ahead in a contest that McAuliffe once led by double digits in an allegedly “blue” state, aided in part by Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency, including his flailing efforts to negotiate a massive welfare spending package.
A well-organized campaign has emerged to recall the school board members behind these scandals. It has become grown zero not only in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest but even wins a mention in the Ohio GOP debate for an open US Senate seat in 2022.
But as a favorite website, Ballotpedia, outlines, efforts to recall school board members are all the rage across the United States. In fact, 84 recall efforts are underway, nearly three times higher than almost any year since 2006.
It’s not just Virginia. There are 25 recall efforts underway along in California, 11 in Wisconsin, and 10 in Arizona. Even 7 in Nebraska. Virginia has only 3. I have no idea what drives recall efforts in states other than Virginia, but the trend is unmistakable.
Parents are increasingly unhappy with their public schools and especially their local boards of education. And not just about critical race theory. They suffered while teacher unions demanded schools remained closed and forced kids to suffer under punitive, unnecessary, and harmful mask mandates.
I’ve covered school board meetings as a reporter. School board membership gets zero pay, endless late-evening calls from irate parents, and more aggravation than rewards, it seems. Yet, people do it. Most deserve our thanks and respect. Not all, sadly, but they are the exception. But not everywhere.
School board elections have also, historically, been treated as a footnote if not ignored by conservatives and Republicans over the past several decades. The “other side” hasn’t. That’s changing, and perhaps for the better—next battleground: local prosecutors.
The performance of our schools, from dumbing down of standards to the introduction of racist curricula, has parents up in arms. They are taking back their schools.
Good for them. It is time for establishing a National School Board Committee to help recruit, train, and fund parents to bring sanity back into our public schools before it is too late.