[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-590274-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-590274-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","school-board-elections-before-during-and-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-read-online-free","School Board Elections Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic - read online free","","School board elections changed after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with elections becoming more likely to be contested and turnout rising in contested races. The study examines how community engagement tied to COVID school policies and the politicization of education translated to electoral behavior at the ballot box. It also evaluates how these effects vary across district characteristics, highlighting large, heterogeneous changes in election dynamics during and after the pandemic period.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/school-board-elections-before-during-and-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-read-online-free/590274/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/school-board-elections-before-during-and-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-read-online-free/590274.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Adam","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-05","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",8,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What motivated the study of school board elections during the COVID-19 pandemic?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"The study addresses whether community frustration with COVID-19 school policies and increased politicization of education led to greater engagement in voting rather than just higher meeting attendance.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What does the paper find about contested elections after COVID-19 began?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"School board elections following the onset of the pandemic were more likely to be contested, and voter turnout increased specifically in those contested elections.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"Why might COVID-19 increase voter participation according to the paper’s theory?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The paper suggests that voter responses to major disruptions can depend on how leaders handle the crisis, and that COVID-19 may similarly raise engagement; it also notes a broader trend toward identity- and party-driven issues in local school politics before 2020.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},590274,1793111334,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,106,111,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":102,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":108,"show_sort_weight":109,"slug":110},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":55,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},1374404737137,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","AERA Open  \nJanuary-December 2024, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1–18 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584241291029  \nArticle reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2024. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero)  \nSchool Board Elections Before, During, and After the  \nCOVID-19 Pandemic  \nBrian A. Jacob  \nUniversity of Michigan  \nNBER  \nMedia reports suggest that parent frustration with COVID school policies and the growing politicization of education have increased community engagement with local public schools. However, there is no evidence to date on whether these factors have translated into greater engagement at the ballot box. This paper uses a novel data set to explore how school board elections changed following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ifind that school board elections following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to be contested and that voter turnout in contested elections increased. These changes were large in magnitude and varied with several district characteristics.  \nKeywords: Correlational analysis, COVID-19, descriptive analysis, econometric analysis, educational policy, governance, policy, politics, school board elections  \nThe COVID-19 pandemic served as a reminder of the critical role played by local school boards. Composed of nearly 90,000 lay members elected in mostly non-partisan contests, school boards oversee the education of 50 million children and have broad responsibilities for district governance. Boards not only lead the development and implementation of district policies, but also hire district superintendents and play a role in supervising six million public school employees (Dervarics and O’Brien, 2019; Hess & Meeks, 2010) . Prior research finds that the composition of a school board can have meaningful impacts on important outcomes such as spending (Fischer, 2023; Kogan et al., 2021b; Shi & Singleton, 2023), segregation (Macartney & Singleton,  \n2018), and even student achievement (Fischer, 2023) .1  \nThe pandemic presented school boards across the country with an unprecedented challenge: how to provide safe and effective instruction amid the uncertainties created by a global public health crisis. During 2020 and 2021, school boards made a number of highly contested decisions regarding remote learning, mask mandates, and vaccine requirements. Attendance at school board meetings soared as angry parents, students, and teachers sought to express their views.  \nAt the same time, the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement—and social justice issues more generally—into national prominence. Issues relating to social justice and identity quickly rose to the forefront of local as well as national political debates. The conservative parents’ rights organization,  \nMoms for Liberty, was founded in 2021 and became a vocal presence in local school politics (Sinha et al., 2023) . Media reports describe conflicts at school board meetings over hotbutton cultural issues from COVID-19 restrictions to Critical Race Theory to LGBTQ rights (Allen, 2021; Borter et al., 2022; Feuer, 2021; Uliano, 2021) . There was a dramatic increase in reported violent threats against school board members related to COVID policies (Borter et al., 2022) . Many analysts contend that parent frustrations related to schooling during 2020–21 were a factor in electoral upsetsin Virginia and New Jersey and led to recall elections in San Francisco (Barnum, 2021; Beauchamp, 2021; Fuller, 2022; Kamenetz, 2021)  \nHowever, there is almost no evidence to date on whether public frustration over COVID policies or political activism around social justice issues taking place in 2020 and 2021 translated into greater engagement at the ballot box. This lacuna is due both to the recency of events and the fact that school board election data is maintained at the local ","cbCaiuZ5VSQ1g0Qn","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiuZ5VSQ1g0Qn","pdf",565678,18,"English","# Introduction\n## Role of school boards before and during COVID-19\n## Community engagement and political activism\n## Prior evidence gap and data source\n# Theoretical reasons and empirical expectations\n## Natural disasters and voter participation","[{\"question\":\"What motivated the study of school board elections during the COVID-19 pandemic?\",\"answer\":\"The study addresses whether community frustration with COVID-19 school policies and increased politicization of education led to greater engagement in voting rather than just higher meeting attendance.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the paper find about contested elections after COVID-19 began?\",\"answer\":\"School board elections following the onset of the pandemic were more likely to be contested, and voter turnout increased specifically in those contested elections.\"},{\"question\":\"Why might COVID-19 increase voter participation according to the paper’s theory?\",\"answer\":\"The paper suggests that voter responses to major disruptions can depend on how leaders handle the crisis, and that COVID-19 may similarly raise engagement; it also notes a broader trend toward identity- and party-driven issues in local school politics before 2020.\"}]","School Board Elections Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic - read online free | PDF",1792069224,45]