School boards

What this level is

A school corporation is not a department of the county and does not answer to the county council. It has its own elected board, its own budget and its own tax levies. Schools receive the largest share of the property tax, so a school board decision shows up on the same bill as the county's and uses the most room under the cap. The diagram below also shows the limits of the office, because several things people expect a board to control are decided by the state instead.

• School corporations receive about forty-two cents of every property tax dollar levied in Indiana, more than any other kind of unit. ^[1]
• The board hires, evaluates and can dismiss the superintendent, and a public meeting with time for comment has to be held before any superintendent contract. The board approves the staff the superintendent recommends, so almost everything the corporation does is carried out through that one appointment. ^{[2, 3, 4]}
• The board does not set academic standards, choose the state tests or assign the A–F grades. Those are decided by the State Board of Education and the Department of Education, neither of which is elected at this level. ^[5]

How these offices work together

Each item below is one step the law requires: which office hands what to which, and why.

1. School Board → to Superintendent (Hired by the board, not elected.)

   The board hires, evaluates and can dismiss the superintendent, and approves the staff the superintendent recommends. A public meeting with time for comment comes before any superintendent contract. ^{[2, 3, 4]}

2. School Board → to Voters, at a referendum (A ballot question, not an office.)

   The board adopts the budget and the tax levies, the capital projects plan and the bus replacement plan, and decides whether to ask voters for an operating, safety or construction referendum. ^{[2, 9, 7]}

3. School Board → to Teachers' representative (A union the board bargains with, not an office on the ballot.)

   The board bargains with the teachers' exclusive representative over salary, wages and wage-related benefits. The scope of that bargaining is fixed by statute, so neither side can widen it at the table. ^[10]

4. State Board of Education and the Department of Education (Appointed, not elected.) → to School Board

   Academic standards, the state tests and the A–F grades are set by the State Board of Education and the Department of Education. A candidate for a school board cannot change them, because the office does not have that authority. ^[5]

5. County Treasurer → to School Board

   A school corporation does not collect its own taxes. The county treasurer bills and collects for every unit, so a school levy arrives on the same bill as the county's. ^[11]

6. School Board → to County Treasurer

   The cap is a percentage of a property's value rather than of any one government's levy, so when a bill hits the cap the school corporation and the county both lose a share of what they levied on that property. ^{[12, 6]}

Every office at this level 632 races on this ballot

• School Board Member

  632 races in Indiana this year

  A school board is the elected (or partly appointed) governing body of a public school corporation. It hires and evaluates the superintendent, adopts policies and the budget, and decides whether to ask voters for a referendum;…

The problems this level has to solve

What the people elected to these offices will have to decide in the term starting in 2027, and why each one is a problem.

• The 2025 overhaul reduces the taxable value that a school levy is applied to, and schools are the largest claim on that value, so they lose the most when it shrinks. More boards will face the question of whether to ask voters for a referendum in this term than in the last one. ^{[6, 7]}
• Enrollment is the pressure underneath the money, because most school funding follows students. When enrollment falls far enough, the decision about which buildings stay open belongs to the board alone. ^{[2, 5]}
• Indiana school board races are nonpartisan, so there is no party label on the ballot to go by. What a candidate has said and done is the only guide a voter has. ^{[5, 8]}

Sources