K-12 school boards have historically served as key institutions for establishing school district goals, strategies, and policies that reflect community needs. In California, they hold a particularly central role in a governance system that values local control, particularly around the allocation of resources. As political institutions, boards frequently face tensions in how to balance diverse stakeholder interests, electoral pressures, and systemic challenges within the educational landscape. Prior research and media narratives have demonstrated the many ways that boards are experiencing escalating conflicts and polarized educational environments in recent years, including the influence of national groups (e.g., Moms for Liberty) alongside longstanding internal challenges (e.g., labor-management conflicts and declining enrollment). Yet, there has been relatively limited research on the experiences of board members themselves, how they are navigating the current climate, and what if anything can be done to better support them.
As such, our study sought to better understand how board members navigate complex, rapidly changing sociopolitical contexts (e.g., shifts in federal oversight and resources, state-level mandates around ethnic studies) and what kinds of capacity-building and supports may help board members manage new realities and the ongoing challenges of school district governance. The findings outlined below draw on a sequential mixed-methods study that included a pilot qualitative study of 10 school board members (2023-24), a state-wide survey of 801 board members (2025), and follow-up interviews with 31 of the survey respondents (2025-26). This report focuses primarily on the data collected through the survey and follow-up interviews in 2025-26.
Overall, California school board members (SBMs) in our sample reported largely positive experiences and perceptions of their work. They expressed confidence in board operations, relationships with district leadership and constituents, fiscal conditions, student outcomes, and community engagement efforts in their districts. In some respects, these assessments appear strikingly optimistic, particularly when contrasted with the tone of recent media coverage of school board governance and public education in California and beyond.
That said, SBMs’ positive assessments coexist with widespread strains. Although public discourse has often emphasized culture-war issues as a primary source of conflict in school governance, our findings suggest that these concerns are not the dominant challenge facing most boards in California at present. Instead, fiscal pressures and the effects of recent federal policy decisions emerged as more immediate and consequential sources of stress. Declining enrollment, uncertainty surrounding federal funding, recent changes in immigration enforcement, and labor issues were said to be sources of strain impeding board progress. Additionally, roughly half of SBMs indicated that serving on the board had become more politically challenging than expected, often citing interpersonal conflict on the board. Many also reported persistent problems in ensuring meaningful and representative engagement from the community.
Despite their confidence in multiple areas, board members also expressed a clear desire for additional support. In particular, they cited needs related to navigating legal guidance on recent policy changes and social media dynamics and using data effectively for evaluation and decision-making. Importantly, SBMs emphasized that these supports should be locally-informed and/or differentiated based on need and context, and many expressed interest in expanded peer networks and cross-district learning as means of support.
Overall, findings related to race, as well as state-local relations, were complex. While issues such as the teaching of race and racism were not widely reported as major challenges, and most members indicated confidence in their board’s ability to work together to navigate hypothetical race-related issues, responses to an experimental survey question suggested potential greater challenges among boards in handling conflicts when they become racialized than when they are more race neutral. Similarly, members expressed mixed views about the role of the state in their work. While a large majority valued local control, many also expressed a desire for clearer guidance from the state, underscoring the ongoing ambiguity around the proper role of state leadership in local school governance.
Board members’ future plans were often uncertain, with approximately half unsure about running for another term. For these members, re-election remained an unresolved decision, perhaps shaped by the growing demands and political complexity of board service, as those who experienced more or greater political challenges were more likely to say that school board service had negatively impacted their well-being and were less likely to say that they planned to pursue reelection. Counter to some common perceptions or narratives, relatively few members viewed board service as a steppingstone to higher political office.
