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Conducts interviews with four school board members in a Missouri district to examine motivations for candidacy, initial perceptions of roles, and how expectations evolve after election. 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[https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero)  \nSwimming in the Deep End: School Board Members Making Sense of Their Roles and Responsibilities  \nBlake Willoughby  \nSe Woong Lee  \nEmily R. Crawford  \nUniversity of Missouri  \nLittle has been dedicated to the experience and potential support for local educational policy actors, school board members, that were at the heart of unprecedented decision and sensemaking during the Covid-19 pandemic. Employing sensemaking theory and an interpretivist case study design, this study conducts interviews with four school board members in a Missouri school district. The study explores their motivations for candidacy and perceptions of the role’s responsibilities, especially as individuals elected during the pandemic. The findings highlight that candidates’decisions to run are influenced by personal and professional experiences, shaping their initial understanding of the position. However, post-election, a transformative process unfolds in the actual enactment of the role, signifying an evolution in their sensemaking journey. This study contributes to the limited but growing literature on school board members who play critical roles in education and whose roles and responsibilities have often been overlooked in the scholarship.  \nKeywords: Case studies, Covid-19, governance, leadership, pandemic, politics, qualitative research, responsibilities, roles, school board members, school boards, sensemaking  \nSchool board members and public school board meetings were catapulted into the national spotlight as the Covid-19 pandemic health crisis upended lives and challenged routine ways of doing schooling. Both appointed and democratically elected school board members were suddenly tasked with making sense of often incomplete and complicated public health information as they sought to protect the lives and health of public school children, heightening the visibility and public engagement with school boards (Mervosh & Hubler, 2020) . School boards were simultaneously becoming flashpoints for broader U.S. social and political polarization around issues ranging from book banning in school libraries to whether Critical Race Theory concepts were present in K–12 curriculum to transgender students’rights in sports (Carrillo et al., 2023) . The pandemic placed school boards and their members under intense scrutiny, and board meetings evolved into a place where community tensions converged and clashed. These gatherings have become platforms for discussions about the role and future of public education in the United States.  \nSchool boards, once regarded as “sleepy backwaters of local government”(Nierenberg, 2021), have evolved into significant arenas for political and cultural discourse. It isnot surprising that three-fourths of current school board members have expressed their decision not to seek re-election (Jimenez, 2022), while newly elected members find  \nthemselves rapidly grappling with the intricacies of their roles and responsibilities. Although candidates may have advocated for specific issues or agendas during their board campaigns, their roles predominantly entail reviewing policies, procedures, and budgets—essential, yet often less recognized and politically charged. As EdWeek journalist Sawchuk (2021) aptly described, “Newly elected board members running on single-issue campaigns may be in for a rude awakening.”  \nWith the evolving political and cultural landscape, interest in and research on school boards has been growing. However, as emphasized by Sampson (2019a), there still exists a notable gap in knowledge and scholarship concerning school boards. This gap includes understanding what motivates individuals to seek boa","cbCaivWytykOlmqY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivWytykOlmqY","pdf",532663,"English","# Study overview\n## Theoretical framework and research questions\n## Research design and data collection\n## Background context: school boards during the pandemic\n## Literature gap and study contribution","[{\"question\":\"What theoretical approach guides the study of school board members’ role understanding?\",\"answer\":\"The study uses sensemaking theory within an interpretivist case study design.\"},{\"question\":\"How many school board members were interviewed, and where?\",\"answer\":\"Interviews were conducted with four school board members in a Missouri school district.\"},{\"question\":\"What did the findings show about motivations and role understanding?\",\"answer\":\"Candidates’ decisions to run were shaped by personal and professional experiences, and after election their enactment of the role led to an evolving, transformative sensemaking journey.\"}]","Swimming in the Deep End - School Board Members Making Sense of Their Roles and Responsibilities | PDF",1792069320]