Welcome to Ballotpedia’s one-stop source for information about the 2016 school board elections. On this page you can find comprehensive, unbiased coverage of candidates and elections, including links to every state’s general election page on Ballotpedia and unique election reporting.

If you have any questions about school board elections, please contact Mandy Gillip.

Click here for an index of all School Board related Ballotpedia reports.

Overview

Our coverage

In 2016, 648 of America's largest school districts by enrollment held elections for 1,959 seats. These elections took place in 38 states across districts that collectively educated a total of 17,179,972 students during the 2013-2014 school year—34 percent of all K-12 students in the United States. The 13 states where the largest districts by enrollment did not hold elections in 2016 were Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington.

Our candidate pages

There are two types of candidates: current officials who are running for office and new candidates who do not currently hold an office we cover on Ballotpedia. We strive to provide you, our reader, with the following information for all candidates:

Clear biographical information, including education
Who the candidate is running against and when the election will be held
Photo of the candidate
Campaign logo
Campaign themes
Campaign finance information
Endorsements
Links to their campaign website and social media profiles (where available)
Election results

Signature filing deadlines

A mixture of states and counties set deadlines for when local candidates must declare for election. Once the filing deadline passes, the state or county will verify signatures and issue an official list of candidates document. The timing of a document like this varies for each state and county. Some states and counties immediately release a document that is an unofficial list of candidates -- meaning it could contain some candidates who ultimately either withdraw or are disqualified prior to the primary. In these situations, Ballotpedia staff added links to these lists and added names of candidates to election pages within one month of the list being released. Profiles were then built for the final list of candidates.

However, in other situations, states and counties did not release any compiled list of candidates until weeks or even months have elapsed past the deadline. In these situations, Ballotpedia staff worked to build as many candidates profiles as possible based on news reports and direct contact with candidates and government offices.

Primary elections

As each primary took place, Ballotpedia staff indicated the winners and losers within 24 hours of the primary. Candidates in a primary then had an election box added to their profile.

Example: John Coburn

Following the primary, the district's election overview page was updated to indicate which candidates would appear in the general election. The timing of the results varied by state and county.

Example: Edmond Public Schools elections (2015)

General elections

See also: List of school board elections in 2016

As each general election took place, Ballotpedia staff updated election overview pages with check marks () to indicate the winner of each race. Election result boxes were then added to the candidate and election overview pages once official results became available.

Original analysis

Throughout the election season, Ballotpedia staff created analysis pages and articles regarding the school board races. For example:

Post-election news reports highlighting the most competitive races and detailing what was at stake in each race, with a particular emphasis on the November general election