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 become far more politicized,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told the California Post. “That has made it more difficult to stay focused on the core nonpartisan work of supporting students and improving academic achievement.”
Two-thirds of members identified uncertainty surrounding federal funding as a source of strain. Meanwhile, 54% cited declining enrollment and 52% pointed to immigration enforcement. More than one-third said labor disputes were also adding pressure.
As many as 38% of members said they had been targeted on social media, while up to 19% reported threats of violence or harassment. Members who were uncertain about seeking another term—or who planned not to run again—were more likely to describe the role as politically challenging.
“The report provided substantial data to confirm what we had suspected: The environment surrounding school boards has become daunting, discouraging some people from pursuing these positions and others from staying in them,” Flint said.
Flint attributed much of the change to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote learning gave parents and guardians a firsthand view of classroom instruction, while virtual school board meetings allowed many to observe board proceedings online for the first time.
“That created a new level of interest in the work of school boards, which is positive overall, but it also clearly brought greater scrutiny,” he said.
“I would say that 10 years ago—or certainly 15 or 20 years ago, before the rise of social media and, of course, before the pandemic—serving on a school board was less of a fishbowl experience than it is today,” Flint added.
Contested school board races have attracted particularly intense attention.
In San Diego County, the contest for Area 1 of the San Dieguito Union High School District drew national attention after the incumbent chose not to seek another term. Candidate David Miyashiro, superintendent of the Cajon Valley Union School District, distributed a flyer featuring an AI-generated image of his opponent, former Encinitas planning commissioner Amy Flicker, at a bake sale.
The San Dieguito Faculty Association, which supports Flicker, condemned the flyer as sexist and misleading.
In Orange Unified, four incumbents are facing challengers two years after a recall reshaped the board. Disputes over transgender student policies and book bans remain central issues in the campaign.
And in Beverly Hills Unified, where trustees increased their pay by 400%, five candidates are competing for two seats in a race divided along conservative and liberal lines despite being officially nonpartisan.
“What we’re seeing is that engagement is often highly politicized, both on the left and the right, creating a risk that schools become yet another arena for political conflict,” Flint said. “That is generally harmful to what we are trying to accomplish for students.”
School board members are also facing increasing 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 is facing separate federal investigations involving its Black Student Achievement Plan and its policies on gender identity.
LAUSD sent approximately 3,200 layoff notices this year as it sought to close an $877 million budget deficit. Santa Rosa City Schools, meanwhile, moved to close six elementary schools.
