Tomorrow, many Kansans will cast their ballots to elect their local school board members. Unfortunately, as we have learned over the past couple of election cycles, not all school board candidates have the best interest of each child, staff member, teacher, and administrator in their hearts (agendas). School board elections have become extensions of state and national politics, and with politics comes outside money and influence.
Unfortunately, with the influence of Political Action Committees (PACs) backing ultra-conservative candidates, local communities are being inundated with false information, shown data without complete explanations, and hearing candidates making statements without experience or knowledge. Often, it’s community members without kids, who lack the connection or information from schools, that fall victim to the rhetoric. Community members are unlike parents who receive updates and information through parent portals and messages from the school. As community members, they receive less information from the school district and are less engaged in day-to-day communication with the school, both of which make it easier to believe the misinformation flooding the community through money from these conservative PACs.
Most of these conservative, PAC-supported candidates who get elected to boards attempt to disrupt board meetings and introduce issues that don’t exist at the local level but are created by the national agenda. They are looking to ban books, create unnecessary policies, and isolate children. They believe it's OK to enter the building and evaluate classroom teachers and curriculum, all while creating unnecessary work for principals, directors, and superintendents, moving them farther away from their actual responsibilities of ensuring student success.
As voters, we have to stop listening to the oratory from these groups; these PACs don’t have the best interest of each Kansas student in mind or even the local communities. The national agenda the PACs tend to follow, limits curriculum, removes social and emotional supports, isolates children who identify as LGBTQ, and pushes education back to the 1950s by removing technology and tech aids from schools. At the state level, these conservative PACs are pushing for additional accountability for public schools while at the same time attempting to push your tax dollars to private schools with zero required accountability or oversight.
As Kansas educators continue to improve and grow during these difficult staffing times, we can help schools by electing school board members who don’t add to their stress or workload but who are going to manage the budget, allocate appropriate resources, hold administrative staff accountable to a strategic plans, and work with the district leadership to implement programs to support all students.