By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
March 26, 2025
Once again, the Indiana General Assembly is considering legislation to turn school board races into partisan contests, but, unlike in previous years, GOP lawmakers appear closer to advancing such a bill to the governor’s desk this session.
Senate Bill 287, authored by Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrneville, passed through the Indiana Senate and the House Elections and Apportionment Committee and could be called for a vote this week in the Indiana House. The measure would enable candidates for school boards to run under either a political party affiliation, such as Republican or Democrat, or as an Independent, or with no party label.
Opponents say the measure would needlessly inject partisan politics into school boards and shift the focus away from the students and the community. Proponents counter politics are already a part of school board races and listing party affiliation on the ballot would give voters more information about the candidates.
In introducing SB 287 to the House elections committee, Byrne said school board members have heavy responsibilities like most other elected officials. Local school boards are “one of the more important elected offices in our state,” he said, because the members craft policies on controversial issues and make decisions on how to spend millions of dollars in property taxes, sometimes overseeing budgets that are larger than the budgets of many cities.
“For that reason, both candidates and voters deserve transparency,” Byrne said. “Knowing which political party a candidate identifies with will help Hoosiers know what kind of principles that person would apply to their position on the school board.”
Still, SB 287 may have to surmount some potentially high obstacles in order to become a law.
The bill narrowly passed the Senate on a 26-to-20 vote with 12 Republicans joining Democrats in opposition to the legislation. Also, when SB 287 arrived on the House floor for a second reading, two Republicans voted with Democrats for an amendment authored by Rep. Pat Boy, D-Michigan City, which would have kept school board races nonpartisan by removing the party affiliation requirement from the bill.
In addition, the elections committee adopted an amendment, authored by Rep. J.D. Prescott, R-Union City, which pasted language from his own partisan school board elections measure, House Bill 1230, into SB 287. Specifically, SB 287’s provision that required school board candidates run in both a primary and general election was stripped and replaced with language that kept these contests solely on the November ballots. Also, candidates must state if they are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, or if they are choosing to run as a nonpartisan candidate.
Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, questioned Prescott why he was including provisions from HB 1230, when that bill was never called for a vote in the House. Prescott replied that he made the decision to consolidate his bill with SB 287, since the Senate measure had already progressed to the lower chamber.
“This language has been in negotiations with the School Board Association and others, and I think this is the best route as of right now,” Prescott said.
Although Prescott’s amendment passed, it got a “reluctant yes” from the committee chair, Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, who said he preferred the Senate version of the bill.
SB 287 is scheduled for a vote on the House floor on Thursday.
In 2023, about four bills seeking partisan school board elections were introduced. Three died in committee and one, HB 1428, authored by Prescott, did not have enough support to get through a third reading in the House.
The previous year, about seven bills with provisions for partisan school board elections were introduced, but all died in committee.
Testifying before the House elections committee earlier this month, Byrne described SB 287 as giving some transparency about school board races and candidates to parents and voters. He said the “quaint, romantic view of school board elections” that most people hold does not match what he claimed was the reality of “thousands of dollars from teachers’ unions or other outside interests” pouring into the campaigns. Under this situation, he said, voters will be disadvantaged in making an informed choice because they will not have as much information about the candidates who do not have the significant financial backing to get their message out.
Errington was not persuaded. She asked how a party affiliation would tell voters about a school board candidate’s ability to understand school finances or be good at management or know what students want.
“What does it tell you,” Errington quizzed Byrne. “What does it add?”
Byrne replied, “It gives you some ideologies. Maybe both parties have different platforms they stand for, so you would have that … knowledge of what’s in the mind of the individual.”
After Byrne finished introducing his bill to the House committee, school board members, candidates who lost their school board races, parents, and leaders of various organizations and nonprofits testified for nearly two hours. Many filled every seat and stood along the walls of the small committee hearing room, while others waited in a hall and watched a video feed of the testimony.
School board members serving in Hamilton County highlighted the deep division over the issue of partisan elections. Juanita Albright and Tiffany Pascal, both members of the Hamilton Southeastern School Board supported SB 287, but John Shapiro and Kristina Wheeler, both members of the Carmel Clay School Board, opposed the bill.
Albright and Pascal echoed Byrne in telling the elections committee that partisan elections would bring transparency to school board races and give the voters more information about the candidates. Recalling her campaign, which included knocking on more than 5,000 doors, Albright said as she was greeting voters outside of the polls on Election Day, many had no idea who was running for school board or where they stood on the issues.
Pascal saw nonpartisan school board elections as “trying to fool the voter.”
“Our state’s biggest asset is our youth,” Pascal told the committee. “Why is it that we, as a state, drop the transparency when it comes to our youth and the government body that oversees and serves them? Let the school board reflect the community in a more accurate and transparent way by declaring party affiliation.”
However, Shapiro warned that having to align with a political party would change school board races. He said, currently, many who seek a seat on the school board care deeply about their local schools, rather than about politics, and, from his personal experience, many voters are interested in the candidates’ qualifications and knowledge of the school system, instead of party affiliation.
Wheeler told the committee that support for SB 287 was fueled by a false narrative based on “sour grapes.” She said some believe if residents in the Hamilton Southeastern and Carmel Clay school districts had known the political party of the candidates, the outcomes of the races would have been different.
“I assure you that the voters in Carmel and throughout Hamilton County know exactly who they voted for,” Wheeler said. “They voted for who they wanted. They voted for who they thought was most qualified.”
Both Boy and Errington offered amendments when SB 287 arrived on the House floor last week that would have removed the party affiliation requirement from the bill. Boy’s proposal also mandated that school corporations provide links on their websites to profiles of the candidates running for school board. The profiles, submitted by the candidates, would provide their qualifications, interests, talents, experience and whatever else they wanted voters to know about them, with the exception of the political party to which they belong, she said.
Rep. Cherrish Pryor, D-Indianapolis, applauded Boy’s amendment and, referring to testimony from the committee hearing on SB 287, said many of those who supported partisan elections were frustrated because they fell short in their attempts to get on their local school boards.
“We should not be making policy based on whether or not an election went in a person’s favor or not for the school board,” Pryor said. “We should be focused on whether or not we have quality candidates who are going to do what is in the best interest of students.”
The idea of partisan school board elections drew support from Republican Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith. He testified when the House elections committee heard Prescott’s HB 1230 in February. He told the committee that he was testifying in support of the bill on behalf of himself and Gov. Mike Braun, but he did not provide similar testimony for SB 287.
Under questioning from the Democratic members of the House committee, Beckwith said party affiliation would give voters one more piece of information about the school board candidates. Also, he disputed that partisan elections would bring politics into school boards, saying “we’re lying to ourselves if we don’t really come to grips with the politics that are already there.”
Beckwith said identifying as Republican, Democrat, Independent or nonpartisan allows voters “to recognize your ideology and your worldview.”
“The Republican Party platform strongly declares that parents have the sole right of training up kids. The Democrat platform does not declare that,” Beckwith told the committee, reiterating his belief that listing the party affiliation helps inform voters about the school board candidates. ”Those who push back, I just say, I think you’re trying to hide something. It looks like you don’t want people to know what you really believe. And I think that’s the problem we’ve got right now in Indiana.”
Speaking last week on the House floor in favor of Errington’s amendment, Rep. Carolyn Jackson, D-Hammond, seemed to question what information supporters of partisan school board elections wanted. She noted the elections committee spent hours listening to testimony about HB 1230 and SB 287 and often heard the same people echoing each other.
“But what I found very strange is they all had the same terminology,” Jackson said. “They all were concerned about the ideology. They were not concerned about whether or not the school board members were going to do their job effectively and efficiently.”
Ryan McCann, executive director of the Indiana Family Institute, testified in support of partisan school board elections, although, speaking to The Indiana Citizen after the House elections committee hearing, he said he really liked SB 287 because it was a cleaner bill. He noted that while affiliating with a political party does not tell the voters everything about a candidate, it does provide a baseline of information, particularly in school board races where information can be difficult to get.
“It’s not a silver bullet,” McCann said of including school board candidates’ affiliation with a political party. “You can’t tell everything by party identification, but it also doesn’t tell you nothing.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
