Qualifying for school board seats across the First State closes March 7, and so far, not very many people are signing up to run.
There are 28 open school board seats across the state, and more than half - 16 seats - have no opposition as of March 3. That includes five seats in New Castle County, one seat in Kent County, and nine seats in Sussex County.
In Sussex County’s Indian River School District, two seats in the 1st District are open, but only one candidate had qualified as of Monday morning.
A similar situation can be found in the Woodbridge School District, where only one candidate has qualified, with two at-large seats on the ballot.
Of the seats where one candidate is running unopposed, 14 are incumbents.
“If there's an incumbent who registers to file and has no opposition candidate, they sort of automatically win," said Julia Keleher, executive director of First State Educate, a group that provides support to current and potential school board members. "So is that what we want? Is that the way we want local government to run?”
While the qualifications to run for school board are fairly simple - you must be at least 18, live in the nominating district you want to represent, and pass a background check - Keleher said the job comes with big responsibilities, and sometimes, big budgets to manage.
“Some places in New Castle County - budgets are upwards of a quarter of a billion dollars," she said. "There are very few people in their lifetime that make decisions over that number of zeros.”
Keleher said sometimes people choose not to run because they don’t have kids in the schools.
“Some people who pay property taxes understand some of those taxes go to fund public education, but they might not have children in the schools," she said "Yet our position would be every citizen who's paying property taxes is a stakeholder in this.”
The deadline to qualify for school board seats is this Friday. Election Day is May 13.
