School boards have become a hot topic in American political discourse. Across the nation, school board meetings have become a breeding ground for right-wing “parents rights” activists to spew misinformation or straight-up incorrect information. These groups, which have included organizations such as Moms For Liberty, have villainized school boards and public education, claiming it leads directly to the corruption of America’s most vulnerable: its children.
From advocating for loosened COVID-19 policies to targeting racially-aware and LGBTQ+ inclusive curricula, these groups have continued to target, threaten and degrade school boards and their elected officials.
But what is it that school boards do, exactly?
School boards in North Carolina play a crucial role in shaping the educational landscape of the state. These boards are tasked with overseeing public education at the local level, ensuring that schools operate efficiently and effectively while adhering to state and federal regulations. However, their authority is balanced by a series of responsibilities and limitations designed to ensure these elected bodies are accountable to the public.
Qnotes has created a guide to what power school boards do hold in an effort to combat the overwhelming misinformation surrounding them. Here is what we found:
What is a school board, and what do they do?
The North Carolina State Constitution establishes the powers and duties of local school boards in N.C. General Statute sec. 115C-47. According to the North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA), there are five main responsibilities for local school boards in addition to the boards’ ability to select a superintendent:
- Providing students with a “sound basic education” during a minimum of 185 days or 1,025 hours of instruction spanning at least nine months.
- Having adequate school facilities.
- Making decisions about the superintendent’s personnel suggestions.
- Managing the finances for the district.
- Setting educational policy within the limits of its authority and overseeing the implementation of its policies and the state’s educational program.
The board of education is designed to help allocate federal, state and local funds where its members see necessary, as well as establish administrative policies for district faculty and students. School boards create the policies, while the superintendent is in charge of implementing those policies.
“They are the big picture people, where they set the direction and the foundational pieces of the district. They set the vision, the mission, the goals of the district and then they adopt policies that support the vision mission and goals so that it can come to life,” Ramona Powers with the North Carolina School Boards Association told WNCT.
School boards in each district can vary — in North Carolina, school districts can decide if they want their boards to be partisan or not. This year, 46% of school board elections will be partisan, though Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ Board of Education is nonpartisan. Prior to 2013, there were only 10 partisan school districts in all of North Carolina.
School boards, however, have to work within the constraints of what the General Assembly establishes, specifically regarding funds which can change with whoever comes into power. The close work between school boards and state government has resulted in some misconceptions or misinformation regarding what school boards can do.
For example, one common thing people think is school boards determine teachers’ salaries. However, the state establishes a base pay for teachers, but the local school board can vote to award bonuses and incentives if it wishes.
Another misconception regarding boards’ duties surrounds school curriculum. The state’s Dept. of Public Instruction is in charge of establishing benchmarks and required subjects. School boards, on the other hand, are in charge of figuring out how to teach these subjects to the districts’ students.
“It’s not the individual board member, but it’s the board that makes those decisions about what’s happening in the district. So you want to be sure that you have those candidates that you’re looking for, those people who are focusing on that student achievement,” Powers said.