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When you run for school board in a small town [1]

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Date: 2023-06-05

Background

I watched 100 people stand up in anger attacking a proposed transgender inclusion policy at a nearby town’s school board meeting. 3 people spoke up in favor of it, or at the very least spoke in opposition to the anger and vitriol: me, an activist lawyer living in the town, and a trans senior at the school.

The crowd was angry, but collected. They’d rehearsed. Several had printouts of a story of a trans student who allegedly attacked their fellow students. The group had been organized in one of several hard-right FB groups that had sprung up durning covid.

One conservative school board member tried to molify the crowd, stating that he had “a lot” of concerns about the policy, but didn’t see the harm in moving it forward in some form or another. Another, sympathetic to trans students but not all the way informed either, tried to talk the crowd down.

“You ask why this policy is proposed here and not [my home town 10 miles south]. Because they dont have any trans students in [my home town]”

That’s statistically highly improbable, but she meant well. The policy didnt move forward, fyi.

A month later, when two seats were open due to unrelated resignations, several speakers from the crowd applied for the position: 1 was appointed.

More from that group started filing to run for school board. They made a new FB group to boost their profile.

That meeting jumpstarted me. My town didnt house 1/10 of this vitriol and we were literally just 10 miles away. Only two angry people came to my town’s school board meetings. 1 was a woman who kept complaining about books by lgbtq authors, and “critical race theory”. She stopped coming after one day when I rebuked her, saying it was rhetoric like hers that drove those folks out of our small town, and that lgbtq people just want to feel loved and appreciated.

(We’d later see each other at a Pride event a few towns over. She’d helped organize an anti-groomer protest and I’d helped overshadow her with a giant pride flag.)

I took a proactive step. A member representing my area was up for re-election and I decided to primary challenge her. I’d asked around, and the vibes I got were that if she faced a public outcry like that one I’d witnessed she’d fold, throw the queer kids under the bus.

I got 20 signatures, because in PA school board positions are nominally supposed to be non-partisan, and they encourage you to run in both major parties primaries. That meant 10 signatures from democrats and 10 from republicans. easy.

Here’s where it gets bad.

Another person hopped into the race. Notably, he didnt get his 10 dem signatures.

(I may be biased but in my opinion if you want your school boards to be non-partisan but candidates must participate in the partisan primary and you’re under no obligation to run in both parties then you need to fix your policy)

His politics had always been pro-life and pro-tax cuts. He toed the GOP party line just fine. The problem occurred during the trump years, when he just got brain-rotted. He helped organize a rally against masks and also Biden’s election in my county on January 3 2021.

He’s running at the “anti-woke candidate”. Not lying that was literally what he called himself. He’s also running as a supervisor for our township, even though he must know he cant serve both simultaneously under pennsylvania law.

I used to be best friends with his son. No, that’s not right. His son was my BEST and largely ONLY friend from kindergarten through high school graduation. But we fell apart when I went to college, even more so when I came back “brainwashed” according to him. That broke my heart into little pieces.

Campaigning

If you spend more than $250 on your campaign you have to file campaign finance papers and I didnt want to deal with that so my entire campaign became me stopping in random driveways on my way to work, handing out black and white campaign posters I’d designed up in an afternoon and printed at home. I’m a good talker with a good background in this area. I wont even be bragging when I say that the more time people spend with me, the more they tend to like me.

I went door-to-door talking with folks. The biggest platform of my campaign is trying to expand mental health services in the district, a cause I’d written about in a local paper. I met with several people, and everyone had a different grievance.

Several folks thought the school spent too much energy and money on sports, to the detriment of other student activities

One couple wanted an update to the perfect attendance achievement, one that recognizes doctors appointments due to their sick child.

One woman actually asked about the school’s lgbtq policies, and I said I didn’t want to change anything because the school does a good job showing students different perspectives.

I knocked on probably 40 doors, had numerous conversations. I acknowledged that I was challenging a sitting member and went out of my way to say I had nothing against her, I just thought I could bring a new energy to the board. I barely mentioned candidate number 3.

The ballot is structured such that the top 2 of each party moved on. The incumbent and myself were on both party ballots. Candidate Number 3 was strictly Republican. So I was really just hoping to be one of a person’s two choices. I dont have to be your favorite, just not your least-favorite.

Primary day

I actually ran into Number 3 early in the morning on primary day. We said hi, it was awkward because he thinks I’m a communist baby-killer, and after I voted I camped outside for a bit talking to folks as they came in.

Later that day, I got sent a picture. Someone at the other polling place was handing out flyers. Saying “Vote for me, Number 3 I dont want the woke agenda to take over our schools.” On the back was a helpful sample ballot that someone had printed out, and crossed out my name, labelling me “RADICAL ACTIVIST — PRO GENDER IDEOLOGY”.

There’s my the angry woman sitting there. By this point she’s on a first-name basis with the local Republican party, and she’d volunteered to hand out slips showing people which judges to elect statewide. The slips with me on them were just a bonus.

So then I sat there for a few hours, catching folks before they got within 10 feet of the door, and introduced myself, trying to condense my 2-minute door knocking pitch into a 15-second elevator pitch before she’d come up and hand out the helpful flyer with Number 3’s face on the front and “RADICAL ACTIVIST” on the back.

Results

The thing about my home area is it’s super duper republican. Actually, all 3 of us on the ballot are registered Republicans, though it’s safe to say I’m more lapsed than not. Incumbent actually isnt the most left-leaning Republican in the world, she’s just not way far out there like Number 3. These facts were reflected in the final results:

Me: 110 Republicans, 58 Democrats

Incumbent: 289 Republicans, 56 Democrats (two people on the ballot, you vote for top two, easy for Dem voters)

Number 3: 321 Republican votes

So I ended up coming in 3rd in Rep votes and overall, whereas Number 3 came in second overall since he drew in zero Dem votes.

I moved on! Barely. Since I’m top 2 on the Democratic ticket I’ll only be going forward as a Democrat on the November ballot (but yeah, school board elections are non-partisan. Sarcasm activate). Incumbent will be on both ballots, 3 will be just a Republican.

The flyers really pissed me off. I can only assume he signed off on these being made. I’m sure they’ll be passed out at the November election. I never said a single negative thing about the guy. He’s known me my whole entire life.

So now I need to go door-to-door for real. I’ve made myself a commitment to knock on 200 doors at minimum. My only hope is to have positive interactions with voters BEFORE they see some angry flyer or read about me in the newspaper (oh yeah, they’d also written about me in the letters to the editor).

End

I just want the school to make sure kids are getting the help they need. I dont even have any “woke” plans! The school is doing fine, I just dont want wackos on the school board. It’s gonna be a lot of swimming upstream and I dont have a lunatic who rubs elbows with local politicians throwing her weight behind me. This has been an eye opening experience.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/5/2173507/-When-you-run-for-school-board-in-a-small-town

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