School boards in session: 2016 in brief
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A total of 1,959 school board seats were up for election in 648 of America's largest school districts by enrollment in 2016. Those districts were located in 38 states, and they served 17,179,972 students during the 2013-2014 school year, which accounted for 62.63 percent of all public school students in the country.
| A total of 3,726 candidates ran in those races, including 1,397 incumbents and 2,325 non-incumbents. An average of 1.90 candidates ran per seat up for election, and a total of 667 seats were unopposed. |
A total of 71.31 percent of incumbents whose terms were up for re-election ran to keep their seats. That left 562 seats open for non-incumbents. A total of 82.39 percent of incumbents who ran for re-election won additional terms, which allowed them to keep 58.75 percent of the seats on the ballot. Non-incumbents won 41.04 percent of the seats, and another 0.20 percent were either not filled in the election or were filled by informal candidates, such as write-in candidates.
The map below details how many seats were up for election in the largest school districts covered by Ballotpedia in each state in 2016. States depicted in gray did not hold school board elections.
Overview
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More school board elections were held in the largest 1,000 school districts in 2016 compared to 2015, but fewer were held in 2016 compared to 2014. A total of 648 school districts held elections for 1,959 school board seats in 38 states in 2016, whereas 440 school districts held elections for 1,377 seats in 32 states in 2015. In 2014, 671 school districts held elections for 2,190 seats in 37 states. The discrepancy in election numbers comes from the disparate timing of school board elections. Some districts hold elections every other year, ensuring that general elections are either always held in even-numbered years or always held in odd-numbered years. Other districts hold elections every one, three, or five years, which staggers the number of elections across both even-numbered and odd-numbered years. |
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Incumbents kept almost the same percentage of seats in 2016 (58.75 percent) as they did in 2015 (58.17 percent). Incumbents in both years kept a smaller percentage of seats than they did in 2014 (61.40 percent). Because of this, non-incumbents had higher success rates in 2015 and 2016 than they did in 2014. They took 40.81 percent of seats up for election in 2015 and 41.04 percent in 2016, while they took 38.24 percent in 2014.
School board elections in 2014 and 2016 attracted nearly the same average number of candidates running per seat, with an average of 1.89 in 2014 and an average of 1.90 in 2016. In 2015, elections attracted an average of 1.72 candidates running per seat. In addition to attracting the smallest average number of candidates, the 2015 elections had the highest percentage of unopposed seats. A total of 35.95 percent of seats were unopposed in 2015, compared to 34.05 percent in 2016 and 32.57 percent in 2014.
Details on each year's overall statistics can be found in the table below.
Methodology
 Election Analysis |
Methods of election Opposition Non-incumbent success rates |
Success rates |
2015 incumbency analysis 2014 elections by the numbers 2014 incumbency analysis |
School board elections, 2016 |
In 2016, Ballotpedia covered school board elections in the largest 1,000 school districts in the United States by enrollment. Of those districts, 648 held school board elections. These elections took place in 38 states. The 12 states where the largest districts by enrollment did not hold elections in 2016 were Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. These states are not included in this report.
The elections that fell within Ballotpedia's scope of coverage in 2016 were not equally distributed across states. The range ran from a high of 382 school board seats on the ballot in California to a low of one seat on the ballot in Iowa. The comparisons made in the report are not representative of each state as a whole; rather, they demonstrate the relative election trends among the largest districts of each state, with varying sample sizes in each location. To mitigate the unequal representation by state, this report also looks at election trends by enrollment size. To account for the large variance in enrollment, school districts were compared by eight enrollment ranges with the largest enrollment size at or above 100,001 students and the smallest enrollment size at or below 10,001 students. Click here for a spreadsheet of our data analysis.
This report looks at overall numbers from the 2016 school board elections related to election methods, opposition, incumbency advantage, and the rate at which non-incumbents were elected. To calculate the percentage of unopposed seats and the average number of candidates who ran per seat, this report counts only formal candidates. Candidates were considered formal if they completed the regular filing process required for school board elections in their state. Write-in candidates were not considered formal candidates because of the extreme variation in election filing laws across states. While some states require write-in candidates to file formally, other states do not require write-ins to file at all.
Because write-in candidates were not calculated as formal candidates, any incumbent or non-incumbent who faced only write-in challengers was considered unopposed. No write-in candidates beat formal candidates to win seats in 2016; they only took open seats.
Candidates were not considered unopposed if they faced any challenge throughout the election process. For example, if candidates saw opposition in a primary but not a general election, they were considered opposed.
Note: Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland only holds retention elections. Though the district held a retention election in 2016, it was not included in this report. District of Columbia Public Schools was also not included in this report.
Method of elections
A variety of election methods were used in the 2016 school board elections. Some states mandated that all school board elections be nonpartisan, while others allowed candidates to run with a political party designation. Elections could also be held at large or by district.
Nonpartisan elections were more common than partisan elections. A total of 609 school districts kept political party designations off the ballot, while 39 school districts allowed them. The by-district election method was used by 397 school districts, while 294 school districts used the at-large election method. A total of 43 districts used both the by-district and the at-large election method.
For more information on election methods and the partisan nature of elections in the 2016 school board elections, please see our method of elections analysis page.
Opposition
Over one-third of school board seats on the ballot in 2016 saw no opposition. Unopposed candidates were most often incumbents. A total of 39.08 percent of incumbents were unopposed in their bids to win additional terms. By comparison, 5.20 percent of non-incumbents were unopposed in their campaigns.
An average of 1.90 candidates ran per school board seat up for election in 2016. A total of 3,726 candidates ran for 1,959 seats. For more information on opposition in the 2016 school board elections, please see our 2016 opposition analysis page.
Incumbents
A total of 1,397 school board incumbents sought re-election in 2016. With 1,959 seats on the ballot, that meant 71.31 percent of incumbents whose seats were up for election ran for additional terms. A higher percentage of incumbents—75.56 percent—ran for re-election in 2014, while a lower percentage—70.37 percent—ran for re-election in 2015.
A total of 1,151 incumbents who ran for re-election in 2016 kept their seats, which meant they had an overall success rate of 82.39 percent. This was similar to the 81.31 percent and 82.66 percent of incumbents who were re-elected in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
For more information on incumbency advantage in the 2016 school board elections, please see our incumbency analysis page.
Non-incumbents
Non-incumbents—candidates who did not hold the office they sought prior to the election—won 41.04 percent of the school board seats up for election in 2016. With 2,325 non-incumbents running for seats, they accounted for 62.40 percent of all school board candidates. Of those running, 122—5.25 percent—ran unopposed.
For more information on non-incumbent success rates by state and by enrollment in the 2016 school board elections, please see our analysis page on non-incumbents.
See also
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