The School Board Project was founded by current and former educators and campaign staffers who were motivated by the far-right’s well-organized movement to embed harmful policies into school districts nationwide. Co-founders Isabel Alter, Annika Cole, and Jarae Hines, who met working on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign in Iowa, believed that providing school board candidates with some campaign support, access to resources, and individualized coaching could make a significant difference in these often close races.

And that’s how we landed in the 2023 iteration of the School Board Project. A group of a dozen or so of us put together a plan to help good candidates, people who truly represent their communities and are committed to advocating for students, win. We reached out to other electoral professionals in our networks and asked them to join us as volunteer coaches. The response was overwhelming- so many people wanted to get involved and help. We all were feeling the same frustration and fear about what we were hearing and seeing in school around the country.

At the same time we started reaching out to candidates. We had conversations with dozens of organizations around the country, most state and locally based, and connected with candidates they knew and trusted. Ultimately we ended up with over 60 candidates paired with around 40 volunteer coaches. Primarily, candidates received coaching and thought partnership, volunteer campaign services like messaging and design support, connections with other school board candidates, and access to a broad collection of resources from education policy to campaign budget templates.