Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #123

Welcome to Hall Pass, a newsletter written to keep you plugged into the conversations driving school board politics and governance.

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

• On the issues: The debate over standardized testing
• Listen to Chalkbeat’s Amy Zimmer and BP staff writer Samuel Wonacott discuss school cellphone bans on Ballotpedia’s weekly podcast
• School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
• Here’s what to know about the debate over universal school meals
• Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web
• Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over standardized testing

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues school board members deliberate when they set out to offer the best education possible in their district. Missed an issue? Click here to see the previous education debates we’ve covered.

Is standardized testing helpful for measuring school performance?

Holly Spinelli writes that standardized test scores are an outdated way of measuring school performance and student success. Spinelli says schools have many roles in communities and should be assessed based on the relationships they foster, the quality of the mental health services they provide, and their commitment to social and racial inclusion

Victoria McDougald writes that standardized tests are important for gaining a full, unbiased view of student learning. McDougald says tests help policymakers keep schools accountable and ensure students are given sufficient instruction. She says they can help prevent inequality in education.

How Can You Measure a School’s Success? It’s Not Just Through Test Scores: ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Doesn’t Work | Holly Spinelli, EducationWeek

“Evaluation is nothing new in the educational realm. Schools are anything but standard, yet most evaluation systems treat them as such. Unfortunately, the nuance required to properly assess schools’ effectiveness is plagued by excessive reliance upon students’ standardized-test scores. This method of evaluation is an outdated tool that fails to properly assess the various roles schools serve in the 21st-century. A balanced, holistic evaluation system to determine schools’ effectiveness should address a variety of factors including, but not limited to:

• Schools’ curricula and relationships with the communities in which they reside
• The effectiveness of the academic, professional, mental, and emotional support for students and staff alike
• Their commitments and actions to being and creating racially, culturally, socially, and professionally inclusive spaces”

The case for standardized testing | Victoria McDougald, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

“Standardized tests are the most reliable measures we have for gauging performance at the school level, shedding light on systemic inequities, and holding schools accountable for their academic performance. Correctly reported and analyzed, they show performance broken down by demographic subgroups (including race, English-learner status, and more), and can help direct support and resources to teachers, schools, and districts in need. For example, beginning in 2002, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act shed a spotlight on academic progress, and particularly on outcomes for certain groups of students, including those from low-income families, English learners, students in special education, and students of color. As a result, student performance rose, particularly among younger children and traditionally disadvantaged populations.”

Listen to Chalkbeat’s Amy Zimmer and BP staff writer Samuel Wonacott discuss school cellphone bans on Ballotpedia’s weekly podcast

You can find the episode on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

School board update: filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications

This year, Ballotpedia will cover elections for over 11,000 school board seats across more than 30 states. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on the country’s more 80,000 school board seats.

Election results from the past week

Florida voters decided school board elections on Aug. 20. Ballotpedia covered elections in the 25 largest districts, including:

• Miami-Dade County Public Schools (five seats up for election)
• Broward County Public Schools (five seats up for election)
• Hillsborough County Public Schools (four seats up for election)

In the July 31 edition of this newsletter, we looked at the dueling school board endorsements Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) issued in these elections. Preliminary results show 11 of the candidates DeSantis backed losing their races and six winning outright. Six appear headed for the general election on Nov. 5.

Candidates can win outright in the primary with a simple majority of the vote. If no candidate gets a majority, the two candidates with the most votes advance to a general election.

In Florida, each county constitutes a school district. School board elections take place every two years in even-numbered years.

We’ll have more analysis of Florida’s Aug. 20 school board elections in next week’s edition.

Upcoming school board elections

Oklahoma

Ballotpedia will cover a special general election runoff in Oklahoma on Aug. 27 for a seat on the Sequoyah Public Schools school board. Greg Perry and Lyndsey Young are running in the election. Perry and Young ran in the April 2 special general election, but a lawsuit over voting irregularities resulted in a new election date. Preliminary vote tallies showed Perry with 225 votes to Young’s 222.

After reviewing the voter registries, Young challenged the results, which revealed 10 irregular votes due to a mixture of out-of-district voters and one person voting twice.

On April 11, District Court Judge Lara Russell upheld Young’s challenge. Election officials sent a letter to Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) the following day requesting a new election be held on Aug. 27.

In her order, Russell cited a 1991 Oklahoma Supreme Court case, Jackson v. Maley, which established that a court may order a redo election if the number of irregular votes is larger than the margin of victory. Click here to read about noteworthy redo elections.

Sequoyah Public Schools is located northeast of Tulsa and has an estimated student population of 1,300 students.

Colorado

On Aug. 27, voters in the Garfield School District RE-2 will decide whether to recall school board member Tony May. The recall effort began while the board deliberated on a new social studies curriculum. May supported adopting the American Birthright social studies standards. Civics Alliance, which says civics education “should teach students the founding principles of the United States, the structure of our self-governing republic, the functions of government at all levels, and how our key institutions work,” developed the standards.

The board voted 3-1 on Oct. 25, 2023, to adopt Colorado’s 2022 state-approved standards. May was the dissenting vote.

May was the school board’s president when the recall effort got underway. He stepped down from that leadership position on Dec. 13, 2023, citing the political climate on the board.

Voters will answer two questions in the recall election. First, voters will decide whether to recall May. Voters will also decide on a successor candidate, who would be elected if a majority of voters approve recalling May. Scott Bolitho was the only candidate who filed to run.

Here’s what to know about the debate over universal school meals

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government provided the funding for free school meals to all public school students, regardless of family income. Although federal funding for universal meals ended in 2022, several states have since passed laws continuing the policy. That includes Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz (D), who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ (D) running mate in the presidential election, signed a bill in 2023 providing free breakfasts and lunches in schools.

Harris’ selection of Walz has put universal school meals in the spotlight. Today, we’re digging into the history of school meal programs—including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP)—and the arguments for and against expanding eligibility to include all students.

We previously looked at arguments over universal school meals in this newsletter in November 2022 and August 2023.

In 1946, President Harry Truman (D) signed the National School Lunch Act, establishing the NSLP. Congress established the SBP as a pilot program in 1966. Congress made the SBP a permanent program available to all low-income students in 1975.

Both programs provide federally funded free or reduced-price meals to students in public and nonprofit private schools. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the programs through its partnership with state agencies, around 7.1 million children participated in the NSLP in 1946. During the 2022-2023 school year, more than 28 million children received meals—free, reduced-price, and full-price—through the NSLP each day. In 2023, the program cost $17.2 billion.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government expanded the school lunch program to provide free meals to all students, regardless of income. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), both passed in March 2020, provided $8.8 billion for child nutrition programs, including the school lunch program. The FFCRA also authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide waivers to all states that allowed all students to get free meals.

The waivers expired in September 2022. Though the waivers were initially scheduled to expire in June 2022, President Joe Biden (D) signed the Keep Kids Fed Act, extending them through the summer.

Eight states—California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont—have adopted laws making school lunches and breakfasts free to all students. Public school enrollment in those states was more than 10 million in 2023, 20% of the total public school population. With the exception of Vermont, which has a divided government (a Republican governor and Democratic-controlled state legislature), all the states have Democratic trifectas.

California became the first state to adopt a universal school meal policy, when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the Free School Meals For All Act of 2021. Maine also adopted its policy that year. In 2022, the Colorado General Assembly referred Proposition FF to the ballot, and voters approved it 56.75% to 43.25%. Colorado is the only state to have adopted universal school meals through a ballot measure.

Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont adopted universal school meal policies in 2023. According to the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, an organization that advocates for universal school meals, lawmakers in at least 28 other states have introduced legislation that would expand school meal eligibility since 2021.

In states that haven’t expanded school meal programs, only some students can get free or reduced-price meals. For the 2024-2025 school year, students from households earning at or below 130% of the federal poverty line—$19,578 for a single person or $40,560 for a family of four—can receive free meals through the federal programs. Students from families earning between 130% and 185% of the federal poverty line are eligible for reduced-price meals. Additionally, some groups of students, including those in the foster care system and those participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), are also eligible for free meals. According to data collected by the School Nutrition Association on 1,343 school districts, schools typically charge between $2.83 and $3.05 for lunch and $1.75 and $1.80 for breakfast, depending on grade level.

Over 20 million students received free or reduced-price lunch in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2022, that figure was a little more than 29 million—owing to the federal government’s expansion of the program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republicans have generally opposed removing income restrictions on school meal programs, arguing the funding should be targeted only at the neediest students. In its 2025 budget proposal, the Republican Study Committee, a congressional caucus, called for converting all child nutrition programs—including the NSLP, the SBP, and others like the Summer Food Service Program—into a single block grant to states. The Republican Study Committee wrote the grants would “give states needed flexibility and include a phased-in state cost share, which would incentivize efficient administration to prevent the widespread fraud present in the program and promote the efficient allocation of funds to those who need it most.”

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 list of policies states that “Federal school meals should be focused on children in need, and any efforts to expand student eligibility for federal school meals to include all K–12 students should be soundly rejected. Such expansion would allow an inefficient, wasteful program to grow, magnifying the amount of wasted taxpayer resources.”

Democrats argue universal school meals reduce administrative overhead and can help eliminate the stigma around poverty. In 2023, a group of 89 Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, introduced the The Universal School Meals Program Act. The bill never advanced out of committee.

The bill summary states: “Unfortunately, not all eligible students participate in the [National School Lunch Program] due to a variety of reasons including burdensome application paperwork and stigma…It is time to build off of the success of the universal meals structure in place during this pandemic and eliminate the stigma some children fear of being labeled ‘poor’ by their classmates once and for all.” Sanders wrote, “It is an international embarrassment that today, in the richest country in the history of the world, we are seeing record numbers of children and youth struggling with hunger on a daily basis.”

Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web

This section contains links to recent education-related articles from around the internet. If you know of a story we should be reading, reply to this email to share it with us!

• U.S. Supreme Court won’t stop states from blocking Title IX changes | Virginia Mercury
• Discarded gender and diversity books trigger a new culture clash at a Florida college | Associated Press
• School Boards Are Struggling. Could a New Research Effort Help? | Education Week
• South Carolina Ed Board Tentatively Approves Model for Banning Phones in Schools | The 74
• What the VP picks says about what Harris and Trump want for America’s kids | USA Today
• Indiana scraps unpopular diploma plan, proposes new option for college-bound students | Chalkbeat Indiana
• 5 AI Essentials For K-12 Teachers Back At School | Forbes
• Top legal hurdles facing schools in 2024-25 | K-12 Dive
• Could new Mississippi education funding formula cost state more than predicted? | Magnolia Tribune

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at survey responses from two candidates running in the Nov. 5 general election for Canyons School District, District 1, in Utah. Incumbent Kristine Millerberg, Jackson Lewis, and Rainer Lilbok are running in the election. Millerberg and Lewis completed the survey.

Millerberg was appointed in March to replace her husband, Mont L. Millerberg, who died in February. Millerberg is running as a write-in candidate. Lewis and Libok filed to run in the June 25 primary, but the primary was canceled because only two candidates entered the race.

Canyons School District is the sixth-largest by student enrollment, with around 34,000 students.

Here’s how Millerberg answered the question, “What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?”

“I am deeply passionate about education and its transformative power. With over 30 years of experience as an educator and having lived in Midvale for 40+ years, I understand our community’s unique needs. My focus is on promoting academic excellence for all students, ensuring their well-being and safety, and fostering an inclusive, supportive environment. I advocate for teachers’ professional development, equitable access to resources, and open communication among all stakeholders to create a thriving educational system.”

Here’s how Lewis answered the question, “What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?”

“Education, city planning and urban policy, environmental protection, public lands protections, public transit.”

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take the survey. If you’re not running for school board, but there is an election in your community this year, share the link with the candidates and urge them to take the survey!