While school boards grapple with increased rates of hostility toward their members, they are concerned with the negativity’s potential spillover effects on students, according to the report Mitigating Threats Against School Board Officials: Mixed Methods Research to Understand and Respond to Rising Hostility — released in July by the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI), a nonpartisan research initiative at Princeton University.
Instances of hostility can include insults, harassment, threats and physical attacks.
“Even at a time of heightened risk, officials remain deeply committed to serving their students and their communities, and many have developed effective frameworks to push back on hostility,” the report states.
With more than 80,000 individuals serving on local boards of education nationally, trustees are one of the largest groups of democratically elected officials in the country and wield significant influence over the school systems they govern.
“Recently, as public education has re-emerged as a flashpoint for broader cultural and partisan disputes, school board officials — often unpaid community members — have experienced an upsurge in hostility over a wide range of disparate issues, many of which are fueled by national political debates far removed from the work of running local schools,” according to the report, which draws on a survey of more than 820 trustees in 2024, roughly three dozen in-depth interviews and BDI’s longitudinal event dataset of threat and harassment incidents.
Among the key findings:
- Minority, women and younger trustees experience higher rates of hostility and worry compared to their peers
- Experiences of/concerns about hostility can lead to feeling vulnerable and powerless and reduce engagement in activities like discussing controversial topics or seeking reelection
Still, researchers found an “overwhelming” amount of resolve and resilience and that most officials remained committed to their community and boosting student outcomes. Trustees, “stress the importance of transparency, professionalism and collaboration to mitigate the impacts of hostility, but point to insufficient training, outdated policies, and limited law enforcement support as current barriers,” according to the report.
By the numbers
Trend data indicates that there has generally been an uptick in incidents involving threats and harassment against trustees since 2022.
Thirty-six percent of school board members reported experiencing hostility in 2024, and 39 percent worried about hostility, the survey showed. “In interviews, officials shared their experience facing hostility, doxing and personal threats, particularly related to controversial issues like sex education, policies related to LGBTQ+ students and vaccine and mask requirements,” the report states. Both community and non-community members have contributed to the issue.
“Officials reported that a significant amount of hostility occurred at public meetings or in direct relation to their school board work. Typically, this hostility has ranged from insults during public comments to intimidation during school board meetings,” according to the report. “But school board members also shared how hostility frequently carried over into their personal, private lives. The risk increased when issues garnered media attention.”
One board member shared the negative impact such behavior has on schools’ responsibility to educate the next generation, stating “We’re all here for student outcomes — we want everything we need to support students to be successful human beings. [National attention resulted in] actual zero change on anything we do except make teachers and staff very afraid.”
Recommendations
BDI offered three recommendations to lessen risk, strengthen supports and better prepare school board members for the hostility they may face:
- Offering safety training and de-escalation resources for trustees that are proactive, formalized and relevant to local context
- Creating training programs for law enforcement and city attorneys and administrators on ways to identify and mitigate threats/harassment
- Supporting proactive, unified communication with constituents
“Our findings underscore the urgent need for policies and practices that offer clear, accessible pathways for school board officials to address threats and harassment. Looking forward, the coming year may see an intensification of the risk environment amid increased national debate on education policy,” the report concludes. “It will be crucial to monitor shifting trends in hostility and support officials as they work to overcome these challenges and the broader impacts on public trust and political engagement. By filling these gaps and fostering a supportive environment, we can better equip school boards to safely navigate hostility and uphold their commitment to positive student outcomes.”
Read the report to learn more.
