Candidates across California are bracing for tight races and a long night of vote counting. But in most school board contests, the outcome is already decided — with just one candidate running or no one on the ballot at all.
An EdSource analysis of 2,225 school board seats in 52 counties found that 62% won’t appear on the ballot at all. A single candidate is running unopposed for 1,207 seats, while 224 seats have no candidates.
That’s up from 56.4% in 2024, even after a new state law let districts raise trustee pay for the first time in more than 40 years.
Part of the problem is that many of the people already serving don’t want to stay.
In a statewide survey of 801 board members, researchers at USC and Stanford found that only about half, 49%, plan to run again. Nearly a quarter said they probably or definitely won’t, and another 27% were undecided.
One in four said serving on the board had hurt their emotional well-being.
“In general, the job has just become more politicized,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association told the California Post. “And I think that’s made it challenging to remain focused on the core nonpartisan work of supporting students and advancing academic achievement.”
Two-thirds of members cited uncertainty over federal funding as a source of strain, 54% pointed to declining enrollment and 52% named immigration enforcement. More than a third cited labor disputes.
As many as 38% of members said they had been attacked on social media, and up to 19% reported threats of violence or harassment. Those who were unsure about running again, or planned not to, were more likely to describe the job as politically challenging.
“The report provided significant data to reinforce what we suspected, which is that the atmosphere around school boards is a daunting one that is discouraging people from either pursuing the position or remaining in the role once there,” Flint said.
Flint traced much of the shift to the pandemic, when remote learning let parents and guardians see instruction firsthand and watch school board meetings online, often for the first time.
“That created a new level of interest in the work of school boards, which is a positive overall, but it definitely means that there is more scrutiny,” he said.
“I would say that 10 years ago, or certainly 15 or 20 years ago, before the rise of social media, and then of course prior to the pandemic as well, serving as a school board member was less of a fishbowl experience than it is now,” Flint added.
The races that are contested have drawn heated attention.
In San Diego County, the race for the San Dieguito Union High School District’s Area 1 seat, where the incumbent did not file to run again, made national news. Candidate David Miyashiro, superintendent of the Cajon Valley Union School District, sent a flyer showing an AI-generated image of his opponent, former Encinitas planning commissioner Amy Flicker, at a bake sale.
The San Dieguito Faculty Association, which backs Flicker, criticized the flyer as sexist and misleading.
In Orange Unified, four incumbents face challengers two years after a recall reshaped the board, with fights over transgender student policies and book bans still driving the race.
And in Beverly Hills Unified, where trustees raised their pay 400%, five candidates are competing for two seats, while being divided along conservative and liberal lines for non-partisan races.
“What we’ve seen is a lot of times the engagement is highly politicized, both on the left and on the right, and it runs the risk of transforming schools into just another venue for political conflict,” Flint said. “And that’s generally detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish for students.”
Board members are also facing growing pressure from Washington.
The U.S. Department of Education has opened investigations into the Palo Alto, San Francisco and North Monterey County unified school districts over ethnic studies surveys that allegedly asked students about their identities and privilege.
LAUSD faces separate federal probes over its Black Student Achievement Plan and its gender identity policies.”
LAUSD sent roughly 3,200 layoff notices this year to help close an $877 million deficit, and Santa Rosa City Schools moved to close six elementary schools.
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