SB 287 “School Board Matters”

This bill to make school boards partisan is up for Amend and Vote on Wednesday morning (March 12, 2025) in the House Elections and Apportionment Committee. Reach out to the committee legislators and tell them why we don’t need partisan school board elections.

Indiana Coalition for Public Education is against the concept of partisan school board elections. Public schools should have local control, not political control. 

Two years ago, our ICPE co- founder and author of Vic’s Statehouse Notes, Dr. Vic Smith, wrote about similar bills:

“Making school boards partisan is a bad idea. It would further divide our state into partisan camps and create partisan controversies and ill-will in the boards running public schools that serve all children. This proposal comes from the same Republican party that in 2017 and again in 2019 passed bills to appoint rather than elect the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, an elective office for 166 years, saying at the time that politics should be taken out of K-12 education.How quickly they forget.” (Vic’s Statehouse Notes #371)

ICPE Lobbyist Joel Hand testified in opposition to partisan school boards on 3/5/25.

One of our newest ICPE board members, Jim May, (who also testified on this bill) captures why this bill should not progress any further this session. It’s worth taking five minutes to hear why senators on both sides of the aisle were adamantly opposed to making school board races partisan via Senate Bill 287. The bill narrowly passed the Indiana Senate (see the vote sheet below).

The bill will be heard in the House Elections and Apportionment Committee on Wednesday at 10:30 am. You need to voice your opposition to this harmful legislation and why it should not be voted out of committee.  Some talking points are below:

• • We must leave politics out of public education. Kids should be the focus.

  • Many highly qualified school board candidates would run in a nonpartisan election, but would not get involved if they had to run as members of a political party.

  • The Hatch Act bans federal workers, like military members and postal workers, from participating in partisan elections.

  • School board members should be accountable to their community and not political party bosses.

  • The partisan majority on the school board would likely establish a partisan test for selecting a superintendent, who might then do the same in hiring administrators.

By keeping school board races nonpartisan, voters are compelled to make informed decisions based on qualifications, not party allegiance.

How to contact: 

Emails for the committee are below. Include  your local representative in the email. You can also call and leave a message for the chair, Representative Wesco at (317) 232-9676.

House Elections & Apportionment Committee Members

Rep. Timothy Wesco, Chair (R) District 21 – Email: h21@iga.in.gov
Rep. Zach Payne, Vice Chair (R) District 66 – Email:h66@iga.in.gov
Rep. Kendell Culp (R) District 16 – Email: h16@iga.in.gov
Rep. Ethan Lawson (R) District 53 – Email: h53@iga.in.gov
Rep. Kyle Pierce (R) District 36 – Email: h36@iga.in.gov
Rep. J.D. Prescott (R) District33 – Email: h33@iga.in.gov
Rep. Jim Pressel (R) District 20 – Email: h20@iga.in.gov
Rep. Ben Smaltz (R) District 52 – Email: h52@iga.in.gov
Rep. Tim Yocum (R) District 42 – Email: h42@iga.in.gov
Rep. Carolyn Jackson (D) District 1 – Email: h1@iga.in.gov
Rep. Pat Boy (D) District 9 – Email: h9@iga.in.gov
Rep. Sue Errington (D) District 34 – Email: h34@iga.in.gov
Rep. Cherrish Pryor (D) District 94 – Email: h94@iga.in.gov

Copy and paste the addresses into the “To” field of your email.

h21@iga.in.gov
h66@iga.in.gov
h16@iga.in.gov
h53@iga.in.gov
h36@iga.in.gov
h33@iga.in.gov
h20@iga.in.gov
h52@iga.in.gov
h42@iga.in.gov
h1@iga.in.gov
h9@iga.in.gov
h34@iga.in.gov
h94@iga.in.gov