No one is better equipped to recount what happened to America’s school boards during the COVID-19 and culture-war era than board members themselves.
From late 2024 to early 2025, we surveyed school board members across the country. The survey covered a wide range of issues, from board members’ backgrounds and campaign experiences to their top priorities while serving on the board. Our main goal was to document the perspectives of board members who experienced this era of school board governance firsthand.
This chapter describes what a nationally representative sample of 1,002 board members told us about issues related to COVID-19 and culture-war conflicts. In an accompanying report, we present results from the other sections of that survey, which includes questions about issues such as the cost of board members’ campaigns and their opinions of public schools.
This survey of board members builds on surveys conducted by other researchers—both recent and decades–old—by focusing on the issues and conflicts that have defined this era of board governance. The survey complements the media analysis in Chapter 1 by considering issues that may not have been covered directly in news reports—and by including school districts that might not have a local media presence. It shows how the nation’s school board members saw the COVID-19 and culture-war era.
Here is a summary of our main findings:
- Conflicts between school boards and their local communities—and between school board members themselves—increased sharply during the pandemic. Conflicts subsided in the years after but remained well above their pre-pandemic levels.
- The rise in conflicts happened everywhere. However, the subject of the conflicts differed. Conflicts over COVID-19 mask mandates, critical race theory (CRT), and book bans were more common in red and purple areas, while conflicts over student discipline and school resource officers were more common in blue areas.
- Most students are in districts where board members reported experiencing incidents that are extreme or violate the norms of public meetings. This includes harassment and threats directed at board members, as well as outbursts during board meetings.
- Many, but not most, students are in districts where board members say that COVID-19 and culture-war conflicts have negatively affected the board’s ability to govern.
- Students in politically purple areas were more likely to have their board members report extreme types of conflict and negative effects on school boards’ ability to govern.
Data and methods
We fielded an online survey to school board members from October 2024 through January 2025. We used the same sample of school districts for the survey that we used for our analysis of media reports in Chapter 1. That is, we drew a stratified random sample of districts from each of the 12 urbanicity categories defined in the Common Core of Data. This involved oversampling certain types of districts to ensure our sample would reflect the diversity of America’s communities, from large cities to small towns. We then collected email addresses for the board members in these districts. Ultimately, we sent invitations to 9,989 board members and received 1,016 responses. After removing a few erroneous responses, we had 1,002 survey responses (from 697 school districts). This amounts to a response rate slightly above 10%, which is comparable to the response rates for other recent surveys of school board members.
We applied several types of weights to our sample to make it nationally representative. This includes nonresponse weights to address the possibility that survey respondents differed from nonrespondents. It also includes sample weights to account for our oversampling of certain types of districts. We discuss these in detail in the methodological appendix.
For most of our findings, we also incorporate enrollment weights. The inclusion of enrollment weights changes the interpretation of results. Without enrollment weights, every school district receives equal weight regardless of the number of students enrolled. This provides a straightforward interpretation (e.g., “X% of districts experienced conflict over COVID-19 masking policies”). However, it can give a distorted impression of the landscape of school governance, since it gives just as much weight to a tiny school district as it gives to massive districts like New York City Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified School District. In contrast, with enrollment weights, every public school student receives equal weight. The interpretation is slightly less straightforward (e.g., “X% of students are in districts that experienced conflict over COVID-19 masking policies”). However, it provides a useful view of the contexts in which students are educated.
In this chapter, our discussion focuses on results with enrollment weights, though the interactive charts allow readers to toggle between results with and without enrollment weights. In addition, the results tables provide both sets of results. These tables show full-sample results as well as results disaggregated by district characteristics (locale type, political leaning, enrollment, and White enrollment share) and board member characteristics (parent status, teaching experience, political orientation, gender, and race/ethnicity).
Findings
Community participation and conflict with school boards both increased sharply during the pandemic, as did intra-board conflict
Our initial survey items asked board members about the degree of community engagement and conflict in their districts. We asked separately about the pre-pandemic (2017–2019), pandemic (2020–2022), and post-pandemic (2023–2024) periods. Most respondents served on the board for only part of this eight-year stretch.1 We asked respondents for their perspectives on each period—even if they were not on the board at the time—since many of them engaged with the board before their terms started. However, we also provided an “I don’t know” option, and as a robustness check, we compare the conclusions from summarizing all responses to those from the subset of respondents who served in all three periods.
We first asked about the degree of community participation in school board meetings. We offered, as an example of community participation, the frequency with which residents made statements during public comment periods of school board meetings.
Figure 2.1 shows the degree to which school boards had “a lot” of community participation in each period, according to board members’ reports. It shows that about 6% of students were in districts that had a lot of community member participation in board meetings prior to the pandemic. That jumped to 49% in the pandemic period before falling back to 19% in the post-pandemic period. This jump is evident in politically blue, purple, and red communities.
Looking at the results without enrollment weights (by clicking the “No enrollment weights” button), we see a similar pattern. About 4% of districts had “a lot” of community member participation in the pre-pandemic period, 40% in the pandemic period, and 8% in the post-pandemic period. Here, too, the jump is evident in politically blue, purple, and red communities. For the rest of this chapter, we emphasize results with enrollment weights, but the unweighted results are available in each chart.
Next, we asked a parallel question about the degree of conflict between school boards and community members. This gets at the central aim of our analysis of media reports in Chapter 1. These are questions about possible changes in the frequency and location of clashes between school boards and their communities. As we saw in Chapter 1, there was an increase in news coverage of contentious school board meetings during and after the pandemic. However, our findings in Chapter 1 also show that media reports of COVID-19 or culture-war conflicts were limited to only 10% of districts nationally (representing 30% of public school students). This finding is consistent with recent evidence suggesting that conflicts may have been concentrated in a small number of districts.
Our survey results suggest a higher degree and more widespread conflict than were indicated by our media analysis in Chapter 1. As seen in Figure 2.2, the patterns are consistent with what we observed for community participation. About one-tenth (8%) of students are in districts that had a lot of board-community conflict before the pandemic, but that jumped to nearly half (47%) of students during the pandemic. Here, too, the conflicts subsided considerably in the post-pandemic period (to 18%), even as hot-button issues involving race, gender, and sexuality continued to feature prominently in the news. Still, despite the large decline, these rates remain well above the pre-pandemic rates. These patterns are evident across all community types, regardless of their political leanings.
The final question in this section asked about conflicts within boards. Of course, conflicts between board members are not a new phenomenon. Some conflict is unavoidable given that school boards often bring together elected representatives with differing views—and, sometimes, strong personalities. However, conflicts can be detrimental to governing outcomes, and there is reason to suspect that intra-board conflicts have become more common in recent years.
We asked respondents about the degree of intra-board conflict before, during, and after the pandemic. The results appear in Figure 2.3.
Here, too, we see a jump from the pre-pandemic period (when 7% of students were in districts with a lot of intra-board conflicts) to the pandemic period (when 24% were). That increase is smaller than what we observed for board-community conflicts, as the level of intra-board conflict did not reach the same levels. Notably, though, the level of intra-board conflict did not decline as sharply during the post-pandemic period. About 18% of students are in districts with “a lot” of conflict between board members in the post-pandemic period.
In supplemental Figures A2.1, A2.2, and A2.3, we show the same results as in Figures 2.1 to 2.3 but restrict the sample to board members who served during the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. While the sample is smaller (N=364), the pattern of results is similar.2
Extreme incidents involving school boards were common during the pandemic, especially in purple areas
The presence of conflict between school board members and their communities does not imply the presence of behaviors that conflict with normal standards of public meetings. School boards are designed to invite conflicting views and debates. Yet, some conflicts and behaviors are more extreme than others. We asked respondents about incidents such as violent outbursts at board meetings, harassment, threats, and protests (Figure 2.4). We found that most students (62%) were in districts where at least one of these types of incidents occurred during the pandemic years.
Notably, these types of incidents were especially common in politically purple areas (as seen in Figure 2.5). In fact, each type of incident was more prominent in purple areas, with the exception of arrests during board meetings, which was uncommon everywhere. All in all, roughly three-fourths (73%) of students in purple areas are in districts that experienced at least one of these types of incidents.
One response to these incidents was an increase in security at board meetings. Education Week described school districts making metal detectors, mandatory bag checks, and security guards fixtures of their board meetings. In fact, a recent study found that increased security was one of the largest costs school districts faced due to the rise in culture-war conflicts.
We asked respondents whether their boards requested increased security during the pandemic years. Their answers appear in Figure 2.6.
We find that about half of students are in districts where board members requested increased security. This was particularly common in politically purple areas.
The subjects of conflict during this period varied significantly across different types of communities
Next, we asked school board members to identify the specific topics of conflict in their districts. We inquired about both COVID-19 and other culture war-related issues.
Regarding COVID-related protocols, we see a great deal of conflict over masking and considerable conflict over school reopening plans, too. As shown in Figure 2.7, about half (49%) of students are in districts where board members reported “a lot” of conflict over mask mandates. Only 5% of students are in districts with no reported conflicts over mask mandates. Our findings also show that politically purple and red areas saw relatively higher levels of conflict over masking.
In contrast, we see similar levels of conflict over school reopening plans across districts in different areas—with perhaps a little less conflict over this issue in purple areas. All in all, we find that about one-third (34%) of students are in districts where board members reported “A lot” of conflict over school reopening plans. Several studies have shown that school reopening decisions were linked to the partisanship of the local area, with Republican-leaning districts returning to face-to-face instruction faster than Democratic-leaning districts. While decisions may have followed party lines, we show that conflicts about these decisions cut across various types of communities.
Turning to culture-war topics, we again see differences between the issues that created conflict in blue, purple, and red communities. Overall, though, no single issue stands out as being much more prominent than the others. These results appear in Figure 2.8.
In politically blue areas, questions about school resource officers (SROs) caused conflict in many students’ districts—in contrast to causing relatively little conflict in politically red areas. (After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, amid protests against police brutality, many districts took steps to restructure their SRO programs.) In politically red and purple areas, the most prominent issues were critical race theory (CRT) and book bans—followed closely by issues involving gender and sexuality.
Interestingly, this differs slightly from what our media analysis in Chapter 1 suggests. There, we found that conflicts over CRT, book bans, and transgender student rights appeared in media reports more often in purple and blue-leaning areas than red-leaning areas. While we cannot be certain why media reports and board member surveys suggest different patterns, one possibility is that politically conservative districts—many of which are quite small—are less likely to have local media to report on any conflicts that arise.
After asking about which culture-war issues caused conflict, we asked whether school boards had taken action on each of these issues. Figure 2.9, when compared to Figure 2.8, reveals some interesting differences.
Many, but not most, students are in districts that took action on school discipline (43%), school resource officers (39%), and/or DEI initiatives (37%). On the other hand, some issues saw little action relative to the conflict they stirred. This is certainly the case for CRT—perhaps because CRT was a legal and academic theory that had been exploited politically but did not have clear, immediate implications for schools. While 40% of students are in districts where CRT was a source of conflict, only 10% are in districts where the school board took action on the issue. We also see that issues involving transgender students—bathroom access, pronoun use, and sports participation—were much likelier to draw controversy (Figure 2.8) than school board policy action (Figure 2.9).
A couple of qualifications are in order. First, local school boards are not the only policymaking bodies in K–12 education. States also took action on these issues (as did the federal government, though to a much lesser extent). For example, as of March 2026, at least 20 states passed laws that restricted teaching CRT concepts or limited how teachers could talk about race and racism in the classroom. The policy actions reflected in Figure 2.9 likely understate the full amount of policymaking that students were subject to, since they focus only on actions taken by local school boards.
Second, the type of actions that school boards take on a particular issue can differ substantially. Figure 2.10 offers a glimpse of these varying approaches in different political environments. For example, about two-thirds (65%) of students in politically blue districts were represented by boards that generally sought to promote DEI, according to their board members. In contrast, only one-quarter (25%) of students in politically red districts were represented by boards that sought to promote DEI. Similarly, students in politically blue areas were more likely to have their school boards work to promote access for transgender students and promote teaching about race or racism.
Among the specific actions that school boards have taken in recent years is removing books or changing curriculum due to content that is perceived as objectionable. We asked respondents if their school boards had removed any books due to objectionable content.
As seen in Figure 2.11, one-fourth (25%) of students are in districts that have removed books. Respondents attributed many of these removals to sexual content. Notably, PEN America has described a tendency to conflate the representation of LGBTQ+ individuals with the presence of sexual content. Some of our survey respondents might have done the same. We also asked specifically about books that included LGBTQ+ representation. This also registered as one of the more common reasons for removing books, though it was not as common as sexual content.
In a parallel item, we found that about one-eighth (12%) of students are in a district that changed curriculum due to objectionable content. This is about half the corresponding number for book removals. Here, too, the most commonly provided reason was sexual content. These results appear in Figure 2.12.
COVID-19 and culture-war conflicts negatively impacted school board governance in many school districts, especially those in purple areas
Finally, we asked board members if (and how) they believe the conflicts during this period negatively affected their school boards’ ability to govern. Figure 2.13 shows the results. Overall, 28% of students are in districts where board members believe that conflicts from this era have undermined their ability to govern. This differed across community types, as seen in Q62 of the results tables, with these lasting effects especially prominent in purple areas.
After asking whether COVID-19 or other social or political issues had negatively affected their boards’ ability to govern, we asked those who said “Yes” why that was the case. These respondents tended to choose multiple reasons. The most common response was that these conflicts required time that would have been used on other issues. Many board members also reported that these conflicts required resources that could have been used elsewhere or because they affected personal relationships with the community and within the board.
Conclusion
Taken together, these survey results indicate that conflicts over COVID-19 and culture-war issues were widespread, though we see important differences by communities’ political leaning, with many conflicts appearing especially salient in politically purple areas.
School board members literally had a front-row seat to these conflicts, often as active participants. They are uniquely positioned to describe what happened during this era. At the same time, we should be aware that school board members can only see what is in front of them. Board members tend to hear the most from the most vocal, engaged, or concerned members of their communities. Whether the views from these groups represent the views of their communities is hard to know.
Our next chapter explores an indicator of broader, community-wide action. We examine school board election results from one state, Florida, where local school boards featured prominently in state education politics and in national news. We examine patterns in voter turnout before, during, and after the pandemic as well as patterns in candidate participation in school board elections. This provides insights into COVID-19 and culture-war politics from another vantage point. That is, behind conflicts that were reported in the media (Chapter 1) or identified by school board members (Chapter 2), do we see large-scale changes in voter behavior or candidate participation (Chapter 3)?
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Chapter 3: A case study of school board elections in Florida →
Authors
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Acknowledgements and disclosures
The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings is grateful for the support of the Spencer Foundation.
The research reported in this report was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (#202300189). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.
Brookings is committed to quality, independence, and impact in all of its work. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment, and the analysis and recommendations are solely determined by the scholars.
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Footnotes
- Nearly all survey respondents served in the post-pandemic period (97%), while about two-thirds (70%) served during the pandemic period, and about half (43%) served during the pre-pandemic period.
- Note that N=364 reflects the number of respondents indicating that they served during all three periods, not those that completed all items in figures A2.1, A2.2, and A2.3.
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