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Montana school board elections, 2015
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A total of one Montana school district among America's largest school districts by enrollment held an election in 2015 for four seats. Billings Public Schools held its election on May 5, 2015.
The district served 11,145 K-12 students during the 2012-2013 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.[1] Click on the district name for more information on the district and its school board election.
| 2015 Montana School Board Elections | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District | Date | Seats up for election | Total board seats | Student enrollment |
| Billings Public Schools | 5/5/2015 | 4 | 9 | 11,145 |
Trends in Montana school board elections
- See also: School boards in session: 2015 in brief
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Billings Public Schools—Montana's only school district among the 1,000 largest districts in the United States as of the 2013-2014 school year—saw low-contest school board elections between 2012 and 2015. During that time period, the district averaged 1.31 candidates per each seat up for election. In 2015, one school board seat saw no formal candidates file, leaving the contest between two write-in candidates.
The following sections analyze competitiveness and incumbency advantage in the district's school board elections. Billings Public Schools did not utilize primary or runoff elections. Winners only had to receive a plurality, or relative majority, of votes to secure a seat. All of the school board elections held in the district from 2012 to 2015 were nonpartisan.
Details of the data discussed here can be found in the table below.
Competitiveness
The 2012 and 2014 school board elections tied for the most candidates per seat with an average of 1.67, and the 2015 election had the fewest formal candidates run per seat with an average of 0.75. The 2015 election also had the highest percentage of unopposed seats, with only one candidate running for 75.00 percent of the seats on the ballot. The 2012 and 2014 election had 33.33 percent of seats go unopposed, and 66.67 percent of seats went unopposed in 2013.
Unopposed races
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One of the seats up for election in 2015 saw a contested race. It was between two write-in candidates. This was a decrease from 2014, when two seats saw contested races. One seat was contested in 2013, and two seats were contested in 2012. No candidate racesOne seat on the board saw no formal candidates file for its election in 2015. No candidates initially filed to run for the High School District A seat, which left the seat open to a write-in contest. Two write-in candidates ran against each other in the election.[2] At least one formal candidate filed for every seat up for election between 2012 to 2014. Incumbency advantage
Data tableThe table below displays the statistics for school board elections in Montana's largest school districts from 2012 to 2015.
State profile
Presidential voting pattern
Montana voted Republican in all seven presidential elections between 2000 and 2024. Pivot Counties (2016)Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes. Of these 206 counties, three are located in Montana, accounting for 1.46 percent of the total pivot counties.[3] Pivot Counties (2020)In 2020, Ballotpedia re-examined the 206 Pivot Counties to view their voting patterns following that year's presidential election. Ballotpedia defined those won by Trump won as Retained Pivot Counties and those won by Joe Biden (D) as Boomerang Pivot Counties. Nationwide, there were 181 Retained Pivot Counties and 25 Boomerang Pivot Counties. Montana had two Retained Pivot Counties and one Boomerang Pivot County, accounting for 1.10 and 4.00 percent of all Retained and Boomerang Pivot Counties, respectively. More Montana coverage on Ballotpedia
Academic performance
NAEP scores
The National Center for Education Statistics provides state-by-state data on student achievement levels in mathematics and reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The chart below presents the percentage of fourth and eighth grade students that scored at or above proficient in reading and math during the 2012-2013 school year. Compared to three neighboring states (North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming), Montana had the highest share of eighth grade students who scored at or above proficient in reading.[4]
Graduation, ACT and SAT scoresThe following table shows the graduation rates and average composite ACT and SAT scores for Montana and surrounding states during the 2012-2013 school year. All statements made in this section refer to that school year.[4][5][6] In the United States, public schools reported graduation rates that averaged to about 81.4 percent. About 54 percent of all students in the country took the ACT, while 50 percent reported taking the SAT. The average national composite scores for those tests were 20.9 out of a possible 36 for the ACT and 1,498 out of a possible 2,400 for the SAT.[7] Montana schools reported a graduation rate of 84.4 percent during the 2012-2013 school year, which was second-highest among its neighboring states. In Montana, more students took the ACT than the SAT in 2013, earning an average ACT score of 21.3.
Dropout rate
The high school event dropout rate indicates the proportion of students who were enrolled at some time during the school year and were expected to be enrolled in grades 9–12 in the following school year but were not enrolled by October 1 of the following school year. Students who have graduated, transferred to another school, died, moved to another country, or who are out of school due to illness are not considered dropouts. The average public high school event dropout rate for the United States remained constant at 3.3 percent for both school year 2010–11 and school year 2011–12. The event dropout rate for Montana was higher than the national average at 4.3 percent in the 2010-2011 school year, and 4.1 percent in the 2011-2012 school year.[8] See also
Footnotes
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