Local school board races heat up ahead of Election Day

School board races are garnering greater attention in this election cycle, marking a shift in voter trends

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - While races like District Attorney and Governor get most of the attention, there’s a lot of interest this year in school board races, as meetings have grown contentious. The normally small races have a lot of people talking and bringing about a shift in voting trends.

The night before election day, workers setting up Horsham Community Center to welcome voters Tuesday. For some, it’s to vote in a race that they likely never paid attention to before.

The local school board.

"You’ve got folks talking about their kids, their kids’ health and safety, their kids’ education, so it’s personal for an awful lot of voters," stated political analyst Bruce Gordon.

After more than a year of extremely contentious school board meetings regarding district decisions on everything from in-person learning, to masks and vaccines. The typically non-partisan, non-controversial race is heating up in many communities.

"I don’t think any of us would have imagined that school board would be the hot topic or the hot race to go out for," commented Executive Director of Back to School PA and mom Clarice Schillinger.

So much so that races statewide have seen an influx in cash. The Back to School political action committee put $600,000 into school board races around the state, with 75 percent going to Republican candidates and 25 percent going to Democrats, while five percent went to independent candidates.

"Most voters don’t even know who’s running so the extent that you can spend any kind of significant cash to boost name recognition, you’re really doing something," Gordon explained.

But, will it drive a bigger turnout?

Montgomery County’s Director Elections says they have seen a larger voter turnout, but it’s in line with what they saw in the primary. They expect mail-in ballots to also help with turnout.

"We saw a 50 percent increase over 2017 in the primary and were hoping to see that kind of increase for this election as well," Montgomery County Director Elections Dori Sawyer remarked.