Violent threats and hostile attitudes toward school board members are becoming increasingly more common. Topics centered around race, gender, sexuality, and COVID-19 masking policies are often at the center of the angry confrontations.
Where do local school districts go from here in navigating an increasingly polarized environment?
George Theoharis
George Theoharis is a Professor of Educational Leadership and Inclusive Elementary/Early Childhood Education at Syracuse University. He has extensive experience as a principal and teacher. His research specialties include equity, social justice, diversity, inclusion, urban education, and school reform.
Theoharis says:
“We are not going to see this charged environment end soon as it is a product of our increasingly polarized nation and an increasingly emboldened minority of people who are openly racist, openly anti-science, openly hostile to the idea of the common good.
“School board elections are becoming increasingly important to protect the common good and support schools becoming more inclusive of historically and currently marginalized communities. Educators, administrators, board members, and community members cannot accept as a new normal the kind of threats and intimidation that we are seeing. This moment requires strong courageous leadership and strong community organizing to work together to protect a diverse, equitable, inclusive, pro-science, and pro-common good agenda.”
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