Education

Bill would move Oklahoma school-board elections to November

January 15, 2025

Ray Carter

Turnout in Oklahoma school-board elections is often minuscule. One state lawmaker is continuing his effort to address that problem by moving school-board races to general-election ballots that generate much higher levels of community involvement.

State Rep. Chris Banning, R-Bixby, has again filed legislation to change the date of school board elections in Oklahoma.

If passed, House Bill 1151 would move school board elections to the same cycle as House and Senate elections, as well as modify term lengths for school board members by making both elementary district boards and independent district boards four-year terms.

There are approximately 2,500 school-board members elected across Oklahoma.

Banning noted that the legislation will not only increase turnout but also save school funds. Under current state law, school districts must reimburse county election boards for all costs of what are effectively stand-alone school board elections. In 2023, Oklahoma school districts spent a combined $16.8 million on school-board elections.

Banning said that money could go toward other purposes in education.

“This bill is simple—it repurposes millions of dollars for our amazing educators while providing a more accurate representation of community standards at the polling place,” Banning said.

Under HB1151, school-board elections would move to the same schedule as legislative elections, which are held in June and November. Currently, school board elections are held in February and April.

Because there is little public awareness of school-board races, very few people cast a ballot and community input is stifled.

Banning noted that in the April 2024 election to fill a Union Public Schools Board seat for Zone 4, only 146 people voted.

Bradley Ward, a fiscal analyst who is the deputy state director for Americans for Prosperity–Oklahoma, previously reviewed the April 2, 2024, school-board elections in Oklahoma and found extremely low voter turnout was the norm.

Only 6 percent of voters turned out, on average.

Only one school district in Oklahoma had voter turnout exceed 25 percent, and some districts reported less than 1 percent turnout.

In the Oklahoma City district, one of the state’s largest, only 2 percent of voters turned out for an April 2024 school board race. In the Western Heights district in the Oklahoma City area, just 67 votes were cast in a district with 16,691 registered voters.

Turnout is much higher in states that have shifted school-board races to November ballots in even years.

Oklahoma is currently one of only 12 states that mandates that school-board elections be conducted off-cycle on low-turnout dates for which there is little voter awareness.

Research published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University in January 2020 reviewed data from four states, including Oklahoma. Among other things, researchers found that “the majority of voters in a typical school board election in each of the four states we examine is ‘unlikely’ to have children.”

The working paper noted that “moving school board elections on-cycle, to coincide with higher-turnout national elections, is likely to significantly boost the political representation of households with children and increase the racial diversity of the electorate.”

Last year, Banning ran a nearly identical measure, House Bill 3563, which passed the House Elections and Ethics Committee but was not heard on the House floor.

HB1151 will be eligible for consideration in the upcoming legislative session, which begins Feb. 3.