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Key points
- School boards can be single-member or at-large districts.
- The diversity—or lack of diversity—of the school board has a direct impact on policies that affect student mental health.
- Parents can identify issues with their school board make-up by looking for racial, ethnic, religious, and gender diversity.
School board elections can somehow be both the most contentious and the most overlooked of races—and it's because the decisions that they make about our kids' schools can seem both extremely boring and extremely important at the same time. But it's not just the elections themselves that affect students—it's the policies that determine the make-up of the board.
Some districts are single-member districts, meaning that the school district is divided up into smaller areas, with each area having its own board member representative. Others are at-large districts, meaning that every elected board member represents the entire district. Still other districts may have a combination of the two, electing a few board members from specific areas, and having other board members remain "at-large."
It isn't news that all individuals have bias, be that racial, gender, religious, or otherwise, but how does that play out in school board decision-making? How is that connected to the structure of the school board itself? And how does that affect student mental health?
The mental health impact of non-diverse school boards
Historically, single-member districts have more diversity, because it gives more of a chance for people of color to be elected to represent their home neighborhood; at-large districts tend to be dominated by wealthy, white candidates from the same neighborhoods.
Consider this: A decision is being made at the school board level about the mental health impacts of balancing the hiring of police officers versus school counselors. If all of the school board members are from a few white, wealthy neighborhoods, if those are the people they represent and the experiences they have, they might consider that school counselors are less needed, since their students' families are more likely to be able to afford private therapy. They might not see the harm in having police officers, because they don't have the lived experience of racism in policing. If they are not affected by these things, if their children are not affected by these things, then they are less likely to truly have their finger on the pulse of what a different community needs. Of course, this doesn't mean that an at-large school board member can't possibly make a good decision about a community they don't belong to, but we know that bias is always in play.
Representation doesn't only matter when it comes to mental health policy; it also matters on a more intangible level. If you are a Black student who only sees white school board members, what message does that send to you? If you are a Spanish-speaking parent who only sees English-speaking school board members, what message does that send to you? The psychological impacts of representation have just as much force as the actual policies enacted by those representatives.
Consider using your voice to speak up for equity
As a parent, I would encourage you to look at the racial, ethnic, religious, and gender make-up of your school board. If it is an at-large district, are all of the school board members from the same part of town/same feeder schools? Are the members diverse racially, ethnically, religiously, and by gender? Do you see you and your child reflected in the members of the school board? If your answer to these questions is no, consider the mental health impacts—and consider using your voice to speak up for more equitable power distribution.
