School boards in session: 2015 in brief
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A total of 1,377 school board seats were up for election in 440 of America's largest school districts by enrollment in 2015. Those districts were located in 32 states, and they served 10,322,036 students.
| A total of 2,375 candidates ran in those races, including 969 incumbents and 1,406 challengers. An average of 1.72 candidates ran per seat up for election. A total of 495 seats were unopposed, while 882 seats saw opposition. The above charts detail the breakdown of seat opposition and types of candidates in the 2015 school board elections. |
A total of 70.37 percent of incumbents whose terms were up for re-election ran to retain their seats. That left 408 seats open for non-incumbents. A total of 82.66 percent of incumbents won additional terms, which allowed them to keep 58.17 percent of the seats on the ballot. Non-incumbents won 40.81 percent of the seats, and another 1.02 percent were either not filled in the election or else were filled by informal candidates, such as write-in candidates.
The map above details how many seats were up for election in the largest school districts in each state. States depicted in gray did not hold school board elections. |
Overview
The top 1,000 school districts held fewer school board elections in 2015 than they did in 2014. A total of 671 school districts held elections for 2,190 school board seats in 37 states in 2014, as opposed to the 440 school districts that held elections for 1,377 seats in 32 states in 2015. This discrepancy comes from disparate timing of school board elections. Some districts hold elections every other year, ensuring that general elections are either always in even-numbered years or always 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.
Incumbents saw very similar success rates in both years. In 2014, 81.31 percent of incumbents who ran for re-election won another term on their respective school boards. In 2015, 82.66 percent were elected to additional terms. A slightly higher percentage of incumbents ran to retain their seats in 2014. A total of 75.56 percent sought another term, compared to the 70.37 percent who sought another term in 2015. Incumbents also kept a higher percentage of seats that were up for election in 2014. They retained 61.44 percent of seats, compared to the 58.17 percent of seats incumbents retained in 2015.
The 2014 elections had a higher average number of candidates run per seat. That year, an average of 1.89 candidates ran per seat up for election. In 2015, an average of 1.72 candidates ran per seat. The 2014 elections also had a lower percentage of unopposed seats. A total of 32.57 percent of seats were unopposed in 2014, compared to the 35.95 percent of seats that were unopposed in 2015.
Details on each year's overall statistics can be found in the table below.
| School board election statistics by year | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | States | School districts | Seats on the ballot | Total candidates | Unopposed seats | Opposed seats | Candidates per seat | Incumbent success rate | ||
| # | % | # | % | |||||||
| 2014 | 37 | 671 | 2,190 | 4,145 | 713 | 32.57% | 1,477 | 67.43% | 1.89 | 81.31% |
| 2015 | 32 | 440 | 1,377 | 2,375 | 495 | 35.95% | 882 | 64.05% | 1.72 | 82.66% |
Methodology
 Election Analysis |
Methods of election Opposition Non-incumbent success rates |
Success rates |
Analysis of incumbency advantage in the 2014 school board elections |
School board elections, 2015 |
In 2015, Ballotpedia covered school board elections in the top 1,000 school districts in the United States by enrollment. Of those districts, 440 held school board elections. These elections took place in 32 states. The 18 states where the largest districts by enrollment did not hold elections in 2015 were Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming. These states are not included in this report.
The elections in the 2015 scope were not equally divided across states. The range runs from a high of 218 school board seats on the ballot in Texas to a low of one seat on the ballot in Mississippi. 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. School districts were compared by eight enrollment ranges, with the largest enrollment size at over 100,000 students and the smallest enrollment size below 10,000 students.
This report looks at overall numbers from the 2015 school board elections related to election methods, opposition, incumbency advantage and the rate that non-incumbents were elected. The total number of candidates includes a small number of duplicates as certain individuals ran for multiple seats. If that was the case, they were counted for each seat they ran to represent. To calculate the percentage of unopposed seats and the average number of candidates who ran per seat, this report counts only formal candidates. Candidates are considered formal if they completed the regular filing process stipulated for school board elections in their state. Write-in candidates are 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 newcomer who faced only write-in challengers was considered unopposed. No write-in candidate beat a formal candidate to win a seat in 2015; they only took open seats. Candidates were also considered unopposed if no formal candidate filed to challenge them who could actually defeat them. For example, if a state required a certain number of seats to be filled by a minor party, and the number of minor party candidates equaled the number of seats required to be filled by a minor party representative, those minor party candidates were considered unopposed.
Candidates were not considered unopposed if they faced any challenge throughout the election process. For example, if they saw opposition in a primary but not a general election, they were still considered opposed.
Method of elections
A variety of election methods were used in the 2015 school board elections. Some states mandated that all school board elections be nonpartisan; others allowed candidates to run with a political party designation. Elections could also be held at large, by district, by a combination of those two, or by multi-member districts.
Most districts used at-large or by-district election methods. By-district elections were held by just a few more districts, but the at-large method attracted more candidates. When looking at the partisan nature of school board elections, the numbers were less evenly split. Nonpartisan elections were far more common. A total of 408 districts kept political party designations off the ballot, and just 32 districts allowed them.
For more information on election methods and the partisan nature of elections in the 2015 school board elections, check out our method of elections analysis page.
Opposition
Over a third of school board seats on the ballot in 2015 saw no opposition. Unopposed candidates were most often incumbents. A total of 40.45 percent of them were unopposed in their bids to win additional terms. By comparison, just 7.35 percent of non-incumbents were unopposed in their campaigns.
An average of 1.72 candidates ran per school board seat on the ballot in 2015. A total of 2,375 candidates ran for 1,377 seats. For more information on opposition in the 2015 school board elections, check out our 2015 opposition analysis page.
Incumbents
A total of 969 incumbents ran to retain their seats in 2015. With 1,377 seats on the ballot, that meant 70.37 percent of incumbents sought re-election. In 2014, a slightly higher percentage of incumbents—75.56 percent—ran for re-election.
Of those incumbents running in 2015, 801 won additional terms, meaning incumbents had an overall success rate of 82.66 percent. This was very similar to the 81.31 percent of incumbents who were re-elected in the 2014 school board elections. A total of 392 incumbents—40.45 percent—ran unopposed in 2015. Of those who did face formal challengers, 70.88 percent retained their seats. In 2014, the same percentage (70.88 percent) of incumbents who faced challengers retained their seats, and 35.87 percent of them ran unopposed.
For more information on incumbency advantage in the 2015 school board elections, check out our incumbency analysis page.
Non-incumbents
Non-incumbents won 40.81 percent of school board seats up for election in 2015. A total of 1,406 of them ran for a seat, accounting for 59.20 percent of school board candidates. Of those running, 103, or 7.33 percent, ran unopposed.
Of the 32 states that held school board elections in 2015, Nebraska had the highest percentage of non-incumbents elected to school boards. When comparing by enrollment size, school districts with a student enrollment of 30,001 to 40,000 had the highest percentage of non-incumbents elected.
For more information on non-incumbent success rates by state and by enrollment in the 2015 school board elections, check out our analysis page on non-incumbents.
See also
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