Rickardo Yoder, 56, spends his evenings driving a side-by-side utility vehicle from house to house, asking voters to support him in the local school board election. The parent of three Goshen Community Schools graduates, Yoder is a former educator with a lot to say about his priorities for the Elkhart County district.
Still, Yoder said, sometimes residents only have one question: “What party are you?”
When Yoder told one of the first voters he met that he was a Republican, she closed the door in his face.
“It made me a little sad for her that she couldn’t have a discussion about that and hear what’s important to me and make a decision based on that rather than party,” said Yoder, who also goes by Rick.
As national politics has become increasingly polarized in the U.S., the divide is shaping state and local elections — with voters overwhelmingly supporting the same party across the ticket. Indiana’s local school boards had been somewhat insulated from the political division because they were officially nonpartisan.
That changed this election. Now, Indiana school board candidates have the option to claim a party on the ballot under new rules approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
School board candidates still don’t compete in primaries, and most people are running without a party. But about 43% of candidates are using a party label, and the vast majority of those are running as Republicans.
Yoder is one of seven candidates running for four seats in Goshen, a politically competitive northern Indiana school district. The election has become an explicitly partisan contest, with every candidate declaring as either a Democrat or Republican.
Yoder decided to run as a Republican because other candidates were as well and he wanted support from the local party — which has helped him place yard signs and meet supporters. Yoder also hopes to pick up Republican votes.
But Yoder, who said he has not received money from the local Republican Party, considers party labels for school board races “kind of silly.”
“The things that are super important to me should have nothing to do with what party you’re on,” said Yoder, pointing to school safety as an example.
Goshen offers a model for how elections could play out in the coming years if local parties prioritize school board races or if the state legislature changes the law to create fully partisan elections, where candidates are selected in party primaries and straight-ticket votes apply to those races.
But to some observers and school board candidates, the change appears largely on paper.
“I don’t think this shifts anything. I think it reveals something,” said Sallie Landis Davis, 45, who is running as a Democrat. “It puts a label on it.”
“Four years ago, they were very partisan,” Davis said.
The 2022 Goshen election took place amid a national wave of conservative attention on local schools. Activists in Indiana were mad about issues like COVID-19 policies, the books in school libraries, efforts to support gay and transgender students, and how schools teach about race.
Those fights seeped into the local Goshen race, where three candidates were endorsed by the right-wing activist group Purple for Parents Indiana. In response, an opposing slate of candidates sent a mailer targeting them for the endorsement.
Three of the candidates behind the mailer prevailed, and just one of the conservatives won a seat.
But the candidates had paid for the mailer with donations that they reported as coming from a single donor, a school board member and former Democratic mayor of the city. In fact, the money had been pooled from a group of donors, a violation of state law.
Several people involved eventually pleaded guilty or were convicted of campaign finance violations.
The push to make school board elections explicitly partisan is also part of a national movement, experts say. While the vast majority of U.S. school board elections remain nonpartisan, several states have recently adopted or considered partisan contests.
Davis is running in a part of town she considers fairly conservative, so she is trying to persuade people to trust and support her even if they typically vote Republican.
As the mom of three current Goshen students, she said, “I understand what policy made at the board really looks like to teachers, students and families.”
Indiana Democrats largely opposed the law adding party labels to the ballot. But the Goshen City Democrats have been active in the school board election.
“They were very strategic in finding candidates to run for the school board on the Democratic ticket,” said Chad Crabtree, chair of the Elkhart County Democratic Party, which includes Goshen.
Crabtree, who is a middle school teacher in his day job, opposes having parties on the ballot. But candidates started running as Republicans, he said.
“If they could declare their party, then we’re definitely gonna challenge that race and make sure the opposing party is represented.”
The Goshen and Elkhart County Democratic parties have given school board candidates donations, lists of voters to target, campaign training, and help with the logistics of getting on the ballot and filing campaign finance disclosures.
The Goshen race is the “exception and not the norm” when it comes to the number of head-to-head partisan contests, said Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association.
Spradlin said that statewide, school board races have actually made fewer headlines this year than in recent elections.
“I’ve been encouraged that it seems that things have not been heightened as far as campaigning and partisan politics so far,” he said. “Maybe that’s a good signal of things to come.”
One of the arguments for including party on school board ballots is that it can provide helpful information for voters who may know little or nothing about the candidates.
As a result, it could lead more people to cast votes in school board races rather than skipping them, said Elizabeth Bennion, a political scientist at IU South Bend.
“We know that a party cue does provide information to voters,” Bennion said. “They use it as a heuristic, or a mental shortcut, to decide which candidates might represent them.”
Ryan Glick, 39, a candidate who currently sits on the school board, testified at the Statehouse in support of placing party labels on the ballot.
“You don’t cease to be a political person simply because you put ‘independent’ on your ballot,” Glick said. Knowing that he’s a Republican gives voters valuable information about his approach to governing, he said.
When Glick talks about his accomplishments on the board, he touts his work pushing for fewer closed-door board meetings, and he says he was instrumental in preventing the district from pursuing a renewed tax referendum.
“I’m not here to engage in national partisan mudslinging and name-calling and all the other stuff,” Glick said. “I don’t think that’s conducive to local governance.”
Some of the most polarizing issues in education are decided at the state level. It’s the Indiana legislature that has funded vouchers for students who attend private schools. And many school districts across the state are facing cuts as a result of state efforts to reduce property taxes.
For Cynthia Murphy, 64, who is running as a Democrat, those issues are top priorities that should be the focus of community conversations.
But Murphy said school board members should approach the position with a bipartisan mindset.
“This hyper-partisan era that we have been living through for the last couple of elections just does a disservice to all of us,” said Murphy, a retired counselor from IU South Bend whose two daughters graduated from Goshen schools. “It makes it more difficult for us to talk respectfully about the points where we’re not in agreement.”
Loanne Harms, 78, who is running as a Democrat, believes the party affiliation is helpful for her as a candidate. She has received guidance from the party on how to file for office and prepare campaign finance reports.
But she does not believe that knowing a candidate’s party is helpful for voters. Harms has a son who graduated from the district, and she has worked as a teacher, small-business owner and youth pastor. She wants voters to support her because they believe she will do what’s best for the schools.
“I had somebody I talked to just yesterday — they said they would vote for a Democrat dogcatcher because they’re just so fed up,” Harms said. “I don’t see that as helpful.”
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FPI News reporter Dylan Peers McCoy covers pressing issues throughout the state and how local communities are tackling those challenges. Reach her at 508-259-4809 or dylan.mccoy@fpinews.org.
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