Tears, politics and money: US school boards become battle zones

Local school boards around the United States are increasingly becoming cauldrons of anger and political division.

They are boiling with disputes over such issues as COVID-19 mask rules, the treatment of transgender students and how to teach the history of racism and slavery in America.

Meetings that were once orderly, even boring, have turned ugly.

And school board elections that were once uncontested have drawn slates of candidates galvanised by one issue or another.

A June school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, that dealt with transgender students and the teaching of “critical race theory” became so unruly that one person was arrested for disorderly conduct and another was cited for trespassing.

In Rapid City, South Dakota, and Kalispell, Montana, nonpartisan school board races devolved into political warfare as conservative candidates, angered over requirements to wear masks in schools, sought to seize control.

In Pennsylvania, a Republican donor is planning to pour US$500,000 into school board races.

“We're in a culture war,” said Jeff Holbrook, head of Rapid City's Pennington County.

In South Carolina's Lexington-Richland school system, a new majority of board members upset over pandemic restrictions forced out the superintendent, Christina Melton.

The superintendent had pushed to keep a mask requirement in place through the end of the academic year.

She had been honoured just weeks earlier as the state's superintendent of the year.

Melton broke into tears at a meeting in June as she offered her resignation.

A board member also quit that day, complaining the body decided behind closed doors to force Melton out and avoid a public vote.

The board censured the departed member at its next meeting.

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