The Compass focuses on school board elections and how churches can help
>> Rick Beggs: Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction. Oh, I'm coming in hot today.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Oh, boy.
>> Rick Beggs: You've joined us on the Compass. The Compass is the official radio show of iVoterGuide But we do so much more than talk about voting here. Although that'll be a big topic today as we talk about school board races that we cover. And, as always, my co host is Debbie. What now? She is the president of iVoterGuide voter Guide and actually she's a VP at AFA Action as well. Debbie, this one concerns me. And you know, I mean, I, I'm. Let me just rant a little bit here. This is where the church comes in line with.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I'm almost speechless. You go.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah, I. To tell you, this one bothers me more than any topic that you and I always talk about. Only because I know the church here makes a huge difference. And if kids mean that much, they could. Yeah, well, they could. Yeah. Well, yes, they can. They should. Yes. I'm coming in hot on this. I can't. I can't talk about this.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Rick, I think you need to sit down and take a breath.
>> Rick Beggs: I need a,
>> Debbie Wuthnow: M. Step back from the ledge. Is Nancy around? Do I need to call anybody?
>> Rick Beggs: You. Well, you know how this one bothers me. I just, I. I know we have answers.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Our kids.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah, we don't. Even as a body of Christ, I don't think we really fully understand what the church can do, which means I'm not sure that the pastors fully understand. You know, we talk at churches that kids mean so much to us. I mean, there's discipleship. We have Christian schools. We, we do all these things.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Jesus loves little children.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah. When it comes to our local kids, we won't fight or put somebody on a school board, for their values, for a biblical worldview. Why? Because we didn't get out to vote for them. We may even find good candidates. Sometimes that's the hardest part, is finding a good candidate for school board races. But. But in this case, when we do find him, it only takes sometimes one church, Debbie. One church to swing the boat. Please take the microphone from me because I'm going to get all wrapped up here.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and I think I kind of contributed to that because when we started traveling around and talking, I would talk about, you know, the first time iVoterGuide covered school board races. And in a third of the races in Texas, the average winning margin was less than 400 votes. And so few people turn out to vote so that 400 votes is really. We were like, that could be a church. That church could make a difference. And, you know, the more we talked about it, the more on fire you got. So, the church really has a lot of power is part of the message in that, if they would participate, turn out and participate in the numbers that they should.
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, so you just said a number which to me is unfathomable, that that wouldn't persuade people to get out, but 400 votes.
Only 6% of registered voters turn out for school board elections
Let's talk about percent, because we know it looks different during the presidential year. The off years are different. School board races sometimes aren't even held at the same time. Other elections are held.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: So what is the number that usually shows up for school board races? What's sort of the average?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and it kind of depends, as you said, if there, if there's anything else on the ballot. So when a presidential race is on the ballot, that's when most people turn out the high. It may be 60. Only really 60% of registered voters. In primary elections, it drops down to like 20% of voters. But if there is no, you know, statewide races, there's no state legislative races. If all that's on the ballot is school board and municipal races, just local stuff, it's, you know, on average 6% of voters who turn out to vote.
>> Rick Beggs: So it's 3% plus one vote to win.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yep, yep. And most people don't even know there's an election going on unless they see, you know, they might see signs. People got. If they got yard signs up. But it's just a depressingly small number of registered voters that. That happened that participate then.
>> Rick Beggs: And usually, unless somebody like us comes along, one of those school board races, you don't really know even philosophically, politically, spiritually, where any of these people stand.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: No. And, and I will say, you know, one of the things we've looked at is in that 6% that the. The demographic, I guess that turns out at a larger percentage is the staff and the administration of the schools. So it's the teachers, the teachers union, the teacher staff, because they're very, you know, it's. That's there where they live, right. Superintendent saying, you guys go vote, and here are our candidates. So if there's, you know, and that's going to be the educational establishment, if that's coming from the superintendent. So explains part of how the education. The school boards got to, you know, what we discovered during Cove when schools became virtual and parents got to see what their kids were learning, they're like, whoa, what happened with all of this. And it's because we didn't participate in choosing our school boards. The school boards picked their curriculum. They'd been going on for decades. Generation. And they took the. Yeah, we lost the schools.
Okay, so you started down. Are you down? You sitting now
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, so you started down. Okay, I've calm. I'm down.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Are you down? You sitting?
>> Rick Beggs: Deep breath now. Sitting. And I'm breathing. I feel like I'm in a lama class. but it.
Why it matters to have a good school board position filled by biblical worldview
Tell me, you started a little bit down this road. Why it matters to have a good school board position filled by our people, a biblical worldview. What's at stake?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, it's the kids. To me, it starts with the curriculum because they choose the textbooks. They choose, you know, the topics they're going to be taught. You know, depending upon the state, there's something that comes down from. Maybe there's a state board of education, but even then, they typically give like, a set of books. And each school board or district chooses what curriculum they're going to teach. They, determine. I mean, we've heard about these things on bathroom policies and can the transgender sports and bathrooms. They're ruling on those types of policies. and they're also setting your tax rate. So even if you don't have a kid that's in the school, at least in Texas, where I live, most of my taxes goes to the schools. So it's a huge part. It impacts us, by our children, our grandchildren, the peer group of our children, and it even hits our homes in our pocketbooks.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, and, so in a smaller scale, they're setting policy about what they read in the library, what sex ed looks like.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Correct.
>> Rick Beggs: How disciplined is handled, and if nobody's there, America.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. What are they? I'm amping again. What they teach you about America, because even that has been whitewashed, blackwashed in a way.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: You know, it's that they're teaching climate, or climate change and social justice. And, you know, America is evil. It's founded on slavery, needs to be torn down. I mean, that's what's been in. In many schools. And it's just embedded throughout the curriculum, the whole crt. You know, your oppressor or you're a victim and all by your race, is what we allowed to get into the schools and, and indoctrinate our kids.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, I think, and for most people, I. I think they understand. iVoterGuide If you go to ivoterguide.com you put in your address, you can have your own ballot show up. we're not we're not covering every school board race. We can't do that. We can't afford it. Matter of fact, just if you're listening, a good way to give a gift towards these things would be give a gift to iVoterGuide so that we could do more of these school board races. We can't do them all, Debbie. So how do, how are we deciding what we're doing here?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, we try to be a good steward of the resources that, you know, our listeners and supporters have, have graced us with, blessed us with and so want to work where there's some criteria where we, we know there's good candidates that are on the ballot. So we try to work with grassroots organizations or if there's a church that's really politically engaged or a nonprofit that's recruiting good candidate, biblically minded candidates, training good candidates, even mentoring solid conservatives that are on school boards, we want to work in that area because they will help raise awareness that there is an election. And here's a tool to help you identify the candidates who share your biblical values. So we look for that grassroots engagement. We potentially look for well, I said churches, but we if it's a toss up congressional race, we have found that there are even you know, statewide and congressional races that have very small winning margins. And when people get more information on their down ballot races, their school boards, that sometimes they'll turn out to vote when they weren't going to turn out to vote because they want to vote for the school board, but then they'll vote for those higher races on their ballot. So it can make the difference in more biblically minded voters turning out an impacting even up ballot races. we try to cover them where AFR has coverage. So where you're listening, we, because we are able to, you know, talk about it on the radio on this show and, and we send out PSAs. So there's other criteria like that because we want to be good stewards of the resources we have. We can only cover, you know, we only have like four or five staff who help us researching school board candidates and they can only do about 75 candidates per election, you know, couple month election cycle. So but we keep growing every year, because we understand the importance of it.
>> Rick Beggs: So what we're saying is we would take a gift if you wanted to give it to us in order to help us with staffing with school board races. So what we're trying to do really at iVoterGuide is sort of pull back the curtain so everybody can kind of see by letting them know in particular races around the country who the people are who are running. And you said something earlier and it made me think, sometimes Christians decide, or maybe it's churches, maybe even as pastors, sometimes they decide. We're not that engaged here. Why? Because, well, we have a Christian school. My kids are grown and gone.
>> Rick Beggs: Even my grandkids might be grown and gone. I don't have any real interest in this district I'm in now. But it does affect us in so many ways when we think that somehow we're not affected by who a school school board member is.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and that's why to me it becomes the peer group of our kids and grandkids. It's the next generation of Americans. and you know one, I have a guy on my staff and his question is always, do you think the children today are educated as well as you were at the, you know, when you went to school? Are they teaching things the same way? And they really are not. So. but. And that lands not public schools, not public schools. But. And the other argument as to why I should care, you know, some people pull their kids out, they go to private school, they go to charter school, they homeschool, but it still impacts your peer group of your kids, it impacts your communities and, and your pocketbook because I mean a lot of your tax money goes to those schools.
>> Rick Beggs: We've had a lot of people who give to us, we've met out there, in the wonderful United States who actually don't have any family member going to a public school, but they're on the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: One of the founders, they know it makes a difference. Yeah. One of the founders of iVoterGuide served on his local school board, but his kids went to his church school. So he understood it really, it matters and we need to not only be, you know, maybe you run for school board, but at a minimum you need to be finding out not just what their names are, but you need to be knowing what they believe, what do they stand for, what will they do with the power if they receive it. And that's, that's the purpose of iVoterGuide
>> Rick Beggs: So we're really as the church, we're coming against special interest groups. You mentioned well funded special interest groups. Yes. So the, the established ah, will funded groups of, I've heard them called the teacher unions. so what, what could it look like if we either a recruited somebody out of our church or got a Church to stand behind one, two or three school members. What, what could it look like for us as a country?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I mean we have a story of a school district that we covered in two successive elections in Katy, Texas that prior to our coverage was a 6:1 activist, liberal school board. And they had allowed all the, you know, boys and girls bathrooms and all the, all the things that we don't like, the library books. And over two cycles we helped through I voter guides coverage to get four conservatives elected to that school board. And the new board president said parents need to know what their kids are taught. If parent doesn't want the kid taught it and we're not going to teach it, we need to get this gender, indoctrination out of our schools. And boys are only in boys bathrooms and girls and girls bathrooms. And I mean he made it very clear. And that's what can happen when you change the makeup of a school board.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah. And I think Christians also, have done real good job of keeping their head down, raising their family, teaching values at home, involved in the local church.
First time in 2021 we covered school boards, we didn't have any grassroots engagement
But they really haven't lifted their head to look around and what's happening. And if they do happen to have a school, child, elementary especially, who ends up at a public school even for a while, they go, when did all of this happen around me?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.
>> Rick Beggs: And now you have to decide, am I willing to put the time in to go to school board meetings and hear how things are being discussed.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: and I think usually that is sort of the time somebody gets so fed up.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.
>> Rick Beggs: That they say I want to run.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: And, and we have heard testimony like that. And you know, I will say we, we assume. It's like you assume things are going to be like they always were. Right. So I assume they're teaching in school. What the way that I learned and as a parent I was engaged. I was going into the school, but I wasn't there when they were teaching. Right. I was there for party day and for field day and for special events. So you're not as aware. but going to the school board meetings, if there's curriculum review, get involved in that. Go look at the books, ask questions, and really dive deep into what they're teaching. Read your kids civics or history book, if they're even doing that. look at what they're learning, especially as you get into middle school, high school because it might surprise you.
>> Rick Beggs: I don't know. I may not remember the church's name. You may remember It. But you and I met with, some of the pastors and one in particular at this church, I believe it was in Texas. We were. And they actually had an engagement portion of their staff that got involved.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: He was a pastor on staff. Yes, yes.
>> Rick Beggs: Pastor told this guy, I would like you to run for the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Remember this discussion, or was it city council?
>> Rick Beggs: it was one of.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, it was Prestonwood Baptist in Dallas.
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, well, there you go. We just went ahead and named him. I love that they had a pastor of engagement like this.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: and when you and I met with them, he's like, oh, and this Sunday happens to be registration Sunday, so bring your stuff. We're like, yay. This is the type of church engagement we would love to see in more churches.
>> Rick Beggs: and it gives you great hope when you see that and they take it serious, that we can affect not just the body of Christ, but those who are affected outside the body of Christ. Yes. Your community, which ends up affecting people to follow Christ.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: So it's so encouraging. And I will. I cling to the fact that. And, we know God works through a remnant. It doesn't have to be every church for God to make a difference. He can work through a remnant. One strongly engraved church can make a difference in their community.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, tell me, are we being successful? Are we. As we have this stuff going on out there and people can see it on their ballot now. I know we started in 2021, but have we seen success? I mean, you didn't mention one or two things that we've already done and we heard good news about. Yeah, but is it. Are we doing the right things?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I think we're. We're trying to do the right thing. And there are other groups doing adjacent things and working all together. God is working through all of us. You know that first time in 2021 when we covered school boards, it was in Texas, and we didn't have any grassroots engagement. And it was in a third of the races. I said the winning margin was so low. But in a third of the races, because we actually evaluate the candidates and where they stand on their political philosophy. because it's a nonpartisan race. Ah, in Texas, every state's slightly different. So we didn't know who was a Democrat or Republican. We just rated them on their policies and their positions. And in a third of the races, there was not even a conservative running. There wasn't one on the ballot. So that's where we realized it does. But that's where we realized there's got to be people or groups, you know, working to recruit candidates to let individuals. And if you're listening and God nudges on your heart, he may be telling you that, you know, think about that in your community. It's a great job for a, you know, a grandparent or retired person. It's not as time consuming as some of the other elected offices, but it's such impactful. And so we started working with other groups and that's where we, we really added to our criteria that is there a group locally engaged in making parents aware, recruiting candidates, training candidates? Even a church like up in the Dallas area, there's several that are very politically engaged so that, you know, they're going to wake people up and give them the tool that I voterguide is that helps them to identify the candidates who share their biblical values.
>> Rick Beggs: I have these stats in front of me, so tell me, make sure I'm saying them right. But I think we started with 49 races back in 2021, in May of 2020. Then we grew it to 160 races. Just that next year in 2022. But today it's. What are we doing?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I think that this year we're covering about four, almost 450 rate, school board races. And that's in 2026. There's, there have been elections all throughout the year. It's not just primary in general. We've had them in February, March, April, May, you know, in different states based on their calendar. We'll be covering them in six different states in November. select school boards that, you know, check all of our, our, our criteria boxes of the grassroots groups we look for, the schools that have, are on the watch lists of the ones doing those pronouns, pro lgbt, CRT types of things so that the, the issues are involved in the school.
We need volunteers to help us dig into school board races
>> Rick Beggs: we, we talked about there may be somebody out there who wants to run for office and for school boards office, but we also need people who go and evaluate.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: We do
>> Rick Beggs: talk a little bit about that because, this is an area where it's really tough sometimes to find information out about who's running or, or what they even did in the last five, 10 years they've been on the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, my school board team describes it as looking for the needle in the haystack. Because imagine most of these people have never held any elected office before. Their parents, you know, lawyers, business people, and they're running for office. A lot of them don't even set up a campaign website, right? They just Kind of spread the word, word of mouth. So sometimes we even have to file a Freedom of Information act, one of the FOIA to even find out who's run for office. We frequently have to file Freedom of Information act to get their campaign finance reports because they go to the school district or district of the county. And it's just really digging for that little glimmer of, of the, the, the positions of these candidates. We do send them questionnaires. we're, we're doing all of our digging, but we're also looking for volunteers that are willing to help us in the digging, and be panelists. So if you would be interested in helping iVoterGuide voter guide be a panelist, go to our website, ivoterguide.com click on the take action and look at apply as a panelist. We need panelists for legislative races. We need panelists for school board races. And even if you don't get picked or get selected to work this year, we, we're going to be more school board races next year. and if you have questions about any of this stuff, please contact us. Email compassivoterguide.com say, I feel like God's nudging me to do this. I don't know what to do next. And we can, help guide and direct you and equip you, for how to step into how God's leading you.
>> Rick Beggs: And I would say that would be true for anybody who was thinking about running, that maybe we could pinpoint them to the right place or somebody who would like to be a panelist for us who could help us with the research locally. Now we can't cover them all, and we're trying to do it at least in red states that we know, least lean towards our values. and I know we're doing some races in blue states, but sometimes those are really tough.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, but sometimes school, board is where we can have the bigger impact in those states. I know we're covering some California school boards this year. We're covering some in Virginia, Nevada, we've covered this year. So states that are, you know, not necessarily your deep reds, but yet those kids are still there. And sometimes the, the school boards are even in worse shape, but the parents can have that power because of that small turnout. You know, an engaged church really can make a difference. And there have been conservative movements of churches getting engaged and, you know, moving their school board in the right direction, even in California.
>> Rick Beggs: Do you, gosh, there's so many more things I want to say here. Do you, do you want to talk about some of the questions that we ask on the questionnaire? Because that's a real different questionnaire than we would typically talk to about a congressman or even a city councilman.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I would say that we cover the same topics. You know, we talked about the other questionnaires. We have right to life and values questions and health care and things like that. But all of the questions get framed from the authority that a school board member might have. So even like on a right to life question, we're going to ask the question from the perspective of what role should a school serve in helping a student with an unwanted or crisis pregnancy? so it's not just, you know, do you believe abortion is wrong? So we do ask that type of a question. On the economy, we're getting more at student loan and debt and government funding of education, lots of more education questions about, you know, the rights of parents, the rights of, of, of. Of controlling what they're, or influencing what their kids could be taught, consequences for bad behavior. So discipline that gets in there. We even in second amendment ask if, if teachers who are licensed to carry and have had ongoing training should be allowed to carry guns in school. So it all, it reframes the question in the framework, I guess, of, of
>> Rick Beggs: schools and there is a portion like our other, questionnaires for other, races, other candidacies. But we do talk to them or we ask them to talk about themselves.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: 100%. Yeah, 100%. Because our goal is again to make an informed electorate to know what that person more about them than just their name. So, so, we ask about, have you ever been convicted of a felony or penalized for sexual misconduct? how would you describe yourself on a political spectrum in matters ranging from religious liberty to immigration? So we want them to tell us about themselves, but yet also answer all of our issue questions. And we factor all of that into the evaluations that we do of these nonpartisan school board candidates.
>> Rick Beggs: Quickly tell us some of the, resources that we have or they can get their hands on in regards to educational ebooks, like Whose side Are they On?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, if you go to ivoterguide.com There is an issues and articles page that you can see all of the content iVoterGuide has created and there's little tabs of topics and school boards is one of those topics. And we have written an educational. It was started out as an ebook. You can actually get it printed now called, Whose side Are they On? What does your school board member really Believe if you're convicted about running or even want to understand more about, what to look for in school board candidates, go find that and download that ebook. It will be very informative in helping you know what to look for. And just look at. We've got our questionnaires up there on the website, different articles about what to look for in school boards, that you can factor in if we're not covering your school board to give you guidance into. What should you look for to find out, more about the people running for your school. School board.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, Debbie, you know what that sound is.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I do.
>> Rick Beggs: We're on the short leash of, primaries to give it, get us caught
>> Debbie Wuthnow: up, ready to be done with primary season. So this coming Tuesday, September 1st, Massachusetts, your primary election will occur. Your polls are going to open from 7am down to 8pm and we have a couple of states up in the northeast that have early voting going on. Delaware, early voting begins on September 2nd for your election. That will be September 15th. In NewSong Hampshire, in person, early voting is not available, but absentee voting with approved excuses is allowed for your election. That will be on September 8th. And that's all we have this week in elections. We are wrapping up primaries and the generals are on the horizon.
I totally believe the church is the answer. We ought to fight for our kids in the public
>> Rick Beggs: Well, I, I can't believe this show is already over today. I apologize if I got too ranty on this thing. I. I totally believe the church is the answer. This is not political. This is biblical. We ought, as good Christian citizens, be fighting for our kids in the public. In the public, not just the Christian. Remember, we are iVoterGuide and you can find [email protected] and if you got a question, Debbie already said it. Write to [email protected] Debbie and I may even respond. Respond. We are grounded in God and rooted in research. I want to thank our producer, Brent Austin. And remember, on the compass, our true north is Jesus Christ.
The Compass focuses on school board elections and how churches can help
>> Rick Beggs: Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction. Oh, I'm coming in hot today.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Oh, boy.
>> Rick Beggs: You've joined us on the Compass. The Compass is the official radio show of iVoterGuide But we do so much more than talk about voting here. Although that'll be a big topic today as we talk about school board races that we cover. And, as always, my co host is Debbie. What now? She is the president of iVoterGuide voter Guide and actually she's a VP at AFA Action as well. Debbie, this one concerns me. And you know, I mean, I, I'm. Let me just rant a little bit here. This is where the church comes in line with.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I'm almost speechless. You go.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah, I. To tell you, this one bothers me more than any topic that you and I always talk about. Only because I know the church here makes a huge difference. And if kids mean that much, they could. Yeah, well, they could. Yeah. Well, yes, they can. They should. Yes. I'm coming in hot on this. I can't. I can't talk about this.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Rick, I think you need to sit down and take a breath.
>> Rick Beggs: I need a,
>> Debbie Wuthnow: M. Step back from the ledge. Is Nancy around? Do I need to call anybody?
>> Rick Beggs: You. Well, you know how this one bothers me. I just, I. I know we have answers.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Our kids.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah, we don't. Even as a body of Christ, I don't think we really fully understand what the church can do, which means I'm not sure that the pastors fully understand. You know, we talk at churches that kids mean so much to us. I mean, there's discipleship. We have Christian schools. We, we do all these things.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Jesus loves little children.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah. When it comes to our local kids, we won't fight or put somebody on a school board, for their values, for a biblical worldview. Why? Because we didn't get out to vote for them. We may even find good candidates. Sometimes that's the hardest part, is finding a good candidate for school board races. But. But in this case, when we do find him, it only takes sometimes one church, Debbie. One church to swing the boat. Please take the microphone from me because I'm going to get all wrapped up here.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and I think I kind of contributed to that because when we started traveling around and talking, I would talk about, you know, the first time iVoterGuide covered school board races. And in a third of the races in Texas, the average winning margin was less than 400 votes. And so few people turn out to vote so that 400 votes is really. We were like, that could be a church. That church could make a difference. And, you know, the more we talked about it, the more on fire you got. So, the church really has a lot of power is part of the message in that, if they would participate, turn out and participate in the numbers that they should.
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, so you just said a number which to me is unfathomable, that that wouldn't persuade people to get out, but 400 votes.
Only 6% of registered voters turn out for school board elections
Let's talk about percent, because we know it looks different during the presidential year. The off years are different. School board races sometimes aren't even held at the same time. Other elections are held.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: So what is the number that usually shows up for school board races? What's sort of the average?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and it kind of depends, as you said, if there, if there's anything else on the ballot. So when a presidential race is on the ballot, that's when most people turn out the high. It may be 60. Only really 60% of registered voters. In primary elections, it drops down to like 20% of voters. But if there is no, you know, statewide races, there's no state legislative races. If all that's on the ballot is school board and municipal races, just local stuff, it's, you know, on average 6% of voters who turn out to vote.
>> Rick Beggs: So it's 3% plus one vote to win.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yep, yep. And most people don't even know there's an election going on unless they see, you know, they might see signs. People got. If they got yard signs up. But it's just a depressingly small number of registered voters that. That happened that participate then.
>> Rick Beggs: And usually, unless somebody like us comes along, one of those school board races, you don't really know even philosophically, politically, spiritually, where any of these people stand.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: No. And, and I will say, you know, one of the things we've looked at is in that 6% that the. The demographic, I guess that turns out at a larger percentage is the staff and the administration of the schools. So it's the teachers, the teachers union, the teacher staff, because they're very, you know, it's. That's there where they live, right. Superintendent saying, you guys go vote, and here are our candidates. So if there's, you know, and that's going to be the educational establishment, if that's coming from the superintendent. So explains part of how the education. The school boards got to, you know, what we discovered during Cove when schools became virtual and parents got to see what their kids were learning, they're like, whoa, what happened with all of this. And it's because we didn't participate in choosing our school boards. The school boards picked their curriculum. They'd been going on for decades. Generation. And they took the. Yeah, we lost the schools.
Okay, so you started down. Are you down? You sitting now
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, so you started down. Okay, I've calm. I'm down.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Are you down? You sitting?
>> Rick Beggs: Deep breath now. Sitting. And I'm breathing. I feel like I'm in a lama class. but it.
Why it matters to have a good school board position filled by biblical worldview
Tell me, you started a little bit down this road. Why it matters to have a good school board position filled by our people, a biblical worldview. What's at stake?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, it's the kids. To me, it starts with the curriculum because they choose the textbooks. They choose, you know, the topics they're going to be taught. You know, depending upon the state, there's something that comes down from. Maybe there's a state board of education, but even then, they typically give like, a set of books. And each school board or district chooses what curriculum they're going to teach. They, determine. I mean, we've heard about these things on bathroom policies and can the transgender sports and bathrooms. They're ruling on those types of policies. and they're also setting your tax rate. So even if you don't have a kid that's in the school, at least in Texas, where I live, most of my taxes goes to the schools. So it's a huge part. It impacts us, by our children, our grandchildren, the peer group of our children, and it even hits our homes in our pocketbooks.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, and, so in a smaller scale, they're setting policy about what they read in the library, what sex ed looks like.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Correct.
>> Rick Beggs: How disciplined is handled, and if nobody's there, America.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. What are they? I'm amping again. What they teach you about America, because even that has been whitewashed, blackwashed in a way.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: You know, it's that they're teaching climate, or climate change and social justice. And, you know, America is evil. It's founded on slavery, needs to be torn down. I mean, that's what's been in. In many schools. And it's just embedded throughout the curriculum, the whole crt. You know, your oppressor or you're a victim and all by your race, is what we allowed to get into the schools and, and indoctrinate our kids.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, I think, and for most people, I. I think they understand. iVoterGuide If you go to ivoterguide.com you put in your address, you can have your own ballot show up. we're not we're not covering every school board race. We can't do that. We can't afford it. Matter of fact, just if you're listening, a good way to give a gift towards these things would be give a gift to iVoterGuide so that we could do more of these school board races. We can't do them all, Debbie. So how do, how are we deciding what we're doing here?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, we try to be a good steward of the resources that, you know, our listeners and supporters have, have graced us with, blessed us with and so want to work where there's some criteria where we, we know there's good candidates that are on the ballot. So we try to work with grassroots organizations or if there's a church that's really politically engaged or a nonprofit that's recruiting good candidate, biblically minded candidates, training good candidates, even mentoring solid conservatives that are on school boards, we want to work in that area because they will help raise awareness that there is an election. And here's a tool to help you identify the candidates who share your biblical values. So we look for that grassroots engagement. We potentially look for well, I said churches, but we if it's a toss up congressional race, we have found that there are even you know, statewide and congressional races that have very small winning margins. And when people get more information on their down ballot races, their school boards, that sometimes they'll turn out to vote when they weren't going to turn out to vote because they want to vote for the school board, but then they'll vote for those higher races on their ballot. So it can make the difference in more biblically minded voters turning out an impacting even up ballot races. we try to cover them where AFR has coverage. So where you're listening, we, because we are able to, you know, talk about it on the radio on this show and, and we send out PSAs. So there's other criteria like that because we want to be good stewards of the resources we have. We can only cover, you know, we only have like four or five staff who help us researching school board candidates and they can only do about 75 candidates per election, you know, couple month election cycle. So but we keep growing every year, because we understand the importance of it.
>> Rick Beggs: So what we're saying is we would take a gift if you wanted to give it to us in order to help us with staffing with school board races. So what we're trying to do really at iVoterGuide is sort of pull back the curtain so everybody can kind of see by letting them know in particular races around the country who the people are who are running. And you said something earlier and it made me think, sometimes Christians decide, or maybe it's churches, maybe even as pastors, sometimes they decide. We're not that engaged here. Why? Because, well, we have a Christian school. My kids are grown and gone.
>> Rick Beggs: Even my grandkids might be grown and gone. I don't have any real interest in this district I'm in now. But it does affect us in so many ways when we think that somehow we're not affected by who a school school board member is.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and that's why to me it becomes the peer group of our kids and grandkids. It's the next generation of Americans. and you know one, I have a guy on my staff and his question is always, do you think the children today are educated as well as you were at the, you know, when you went to school? Are they teaching things the same way? And they really are not. So. but. And that lands not public schools, not public schools. But. And the other argument as to why I should care, you know, some people pull their kids out, they go to private school, they go to charter school, they homeschool, but it still impacts your peer group of your kids, it impacts your communities and, and your pocketbook because I mean a lot of your tax money goes to those schools.
>> Rick Beggs: We've had a lot of people who give to us, we've met out there, in the wonderful United States who actually don't have any family member going to a public school, but they're on the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: One of the founders, they know it makes a difference. Yeah. One of the founders of iVoterGuide served on his local school board, but his kids went to his church school. So he understood it really, it matters and we need to not only be, you know, maybe you run for school board, but at a minimum you need to be finding out not just what their names are, but you need to be knowing what they believe, what do they stand for, what will they do with the power if they receive it. And that's, that's the purpose of iVoterGuide
>> Rick Beggs: So we're really as the church, we're coming against special interest groups. You mentioned well funded special interest groups. Yes. So the, the established ah, will funded groups of, I've heard them called the teacher unions. so what, what could it look like if we either a recruited somebody out of our church or got a Church to stand behind one, two or three school members. What, what could it look like for us as a country?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I mean we have a story of a school district that we covered in two successive elections in Katy, Texas that prior to our coverage was a 6:1 activist, liberal school board. And they had allowed all the, you know, boys and girls bathrooms and all the, all the things that we don't like, the library books. And over two cycles we helped through I voter guides coverage to get four conservatives elected to that school board. And the new board president said parents need to know what their kids are taught. If parent doesn't want the kid taught it and we're not going to teach it, we need to get this gender, indoctrination out of our schools. And boys are only in boys bathrooms and girls and girls bathrooms. And I mean he made it very clear. And that's what can happen when you change the makeup of a school board.
>> Rick Beggs: Yeah. And I think Christians also, have done real good job of keeping their head down, raising their family, teaching values at home, involved in the local church.
First time in 2021 we covered school boards, we didn't have any grassroots engagement
But they really haven't lifted their head to look around and what's happening. And if they do happen to have a school, child, elementary especially, who ends up at a public school even for a while, they go, when did all of this happen around me?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.
>> Rick Beggs: And now you have to decide, am I willing to put the time in to go to school board meetings and hear how things are being discussed.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Right.
>> Rick Beggs: and I think usually that is sort of the time somebody gets so fed up.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.
>> Rick Beggs: That they say I want to run.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: And, and we have heard testimony like that. And you know, I will say we, we assume. It's like you assume things are going to be like they always were. Right. So I assume they're teaching in school. What the way that I learned and as a parent I was engaged. I was going into the school, but I wasn't there when they were teaching. Right. I was there for party day and for field day and for special events. So you're not as aware. but going to the school board meetings, if there's curriculum review, get involved in that. Go look at the books, ask questions, and really dive deep into what they're teaching. Read your kids civics or history book, if they're even doing that. look at what they're learning, especially as you get into middle school, high school because it might surprise you.
>> Rick Beggs: I don't know. I may not remember the church's name. You may remember It. But you and I met with, some of the pastors and one in particular at this church, I believe it was in Texas. We were. And they actually had an engagement portion of their staff that got involved.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: He was a pastor on staff. Yes, yes.
>> Rick Beggs: Pastor told this guy, I would like you to run for the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Remember this discussion, or was it city council?
>> Rick Beggs: it was one of.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, it was Prestonwood Baptist in Dallas.
>> Rick Beggs: Okay, well, there you go. We just went ahead and named him. I love that they had a pastor of engagement like this.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: and when you and I met with them, he's like, oh, and this Sunday happens to be registration Sunday, so bring your stuff. We're like, yay. This is the type of church engagement we would love to see in more churches.
>> Rick Beggs: and it gives you great hope when you see that and they take it serious, that we can affect not just the body of Christ, but those who are affected outside the body of Christ. Yes. Your community, which ends up affecting people to follow Christ.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: So it's so encouraging. And I will. I cling to the fact that. And, we know God works through a remnant. It doesn't have to be every church for God to make a difference. He can work through a remnant. One strongly engraved church can make a difference in their community.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, tell me, are we being successful? Are we. As we have this stuff going on out there and people can see it on their ballot now. I know we started in 2021, but have we seen success? I mean, you didn't mention one or two things that we've already done and we heard good news about. Yeah, but is it. Are we doing the right things?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I think we're. We're trying to do the right thing. And there are other groups doing adjacent things and working all together. God is working through all of us. You know that first time in 2021 when we covered school boards, it was in Texas, and we didn't have any grassroots engagement. And it was in a third of the races. I said the winning margin was so low. But in a third of the races, because we actually evaluate the candidates and where they stand on their political philosophy. because it's a nonpartisan race. Ah, in Texas, every state's slightly different. So we didn't know who was a Democrat or Republican. We just rated them on their policies and their positions. And in a third of the races, there was not even a conservative running. There wasn't one on the ballot. So that's where we realized it does. But that's where we realized there's got to be people or groups, you know, working to recruit candidates to let individuals. And if you're listening and God nudges on your heart, he may be telling you that, you know, think about that in your community. It's a great job for a, you know, a grandparent or retired person. It's not as time consuming as some of the other elected offices, but it's such impactful. And so we started working with other groups and that's where we, we really added to our criteria that is there a group locally engaged in making parents aware, recruiting candidates, training candidates? Even a church like up in the Dallas area, there's several that are very politically engaged so that, you know, they're going to wake people up and give them the tool that I voterguide is that helps them to identify the candidates who share their biblical values.
>> Rick Beggs: I have these stats in front of me, so tell me, make sure I'm saying them right. But I think we started with 49 races back in 2021, in May of 2020. Then we grew it to 160 races. Just that next year in 2022. But today it's. What are we doing?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I think that this year we're covering about four, almost 450 rate, school board races. And that's in 2026. There's, there have been elections all throughout the year. It's not just primary in general. We've had them in February, March, April, May, you know, in different states based on their calendar. We'll be covering them in six different states in November. select school boards that, you know, check all of our, our, our criteria boxes of the grassroots groups we look for, the schools that have, are on the watch lists of the ones doing those pronouns, pro lgbt, CRT types of things so that the, the issues are involved in the school.
We need volunteers to help us dig into school board races
>> Rick Beggs: we, we talked about there may be somebody out there who wants to run for office and for school boards office, but we also need people who go and evaluate.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: We do
>> Rick Beggs: talk a little bit about that because, this is an area where it's really tough sometimes to find information out about who's running or, or what they even did in the last five, 10 years they've been on the school board.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, my school board team describes it as looking for the needle in the haystack. Because imagine most of these people have never held any elected office before. Their parents, you know, lawyers, business people, and they're running for office. A lot of them don't even set up a campaign website, right? They just Kind of spread the word, word of mouth. So sometimes we even have to file a Freedom of Information act, one of the FOIA to even find out who's run for office. We frequently have to file Freedom of Information act to get their campaign finance reports because they go to the school district or district of the county. And it's just really digging for that little glimmer of, of the, the, the positions of these candidates. We do send them questionnaires. we're, we're doing all of our digging, but we're also looking for volunteers that are willing to help us in the digging, and be panelists. So if you would be interested in helping iVoterGuide voter guide be a panelist, go to our website, ivoterguide.com click on the take action and look at apply as a panelist. We need panelists for legislative races. We need panelists for school board races. And even if you don't get picked or get selected to work this year, we, we're going to be more school board races next year. and if you have questions about any of this stuff, please contact us. Email compassivoterguide.com say, I feel like God's nudging me to do this. I don't know what to do next. And we can, help guide and direct you and equip you, for how to step into how God's leading you.
>> Rick Beggs: And I would say that would be true for anybody who was thinking about running, that maybe we could pinpoint them to the right place or somebody who would like to be a panelist for us who could help us with the research locally. Now we can't cover them all, and we're trying to do it at least in red states that we know, least lean towards our values. and I know we're doing some races in blue states, but sometimes those are really tough.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, but sometimes school, board is where we can have the bigger impact in those states. I know we're covering some California school boards this year. We're covering some in Virginia, Nevada, we've covered this year. So states that are, you know, not necessarily your deep reds, but yet those kids are still there. And sometimes the, the school boards are even in worse shape, but the parents can have that power because of that small turnout. You know, an engaged church really can make a difference. And there have been conservative movements of churches getting engaged and, you know, moving their school board in the right direction, even in California.
>> Rick Beggs: Do you, gosh, there's so many more things I want to say here. Do you, do you want to talk about some of the questions that we ask on the questionnaire? Because that's a real different questionnaire than we would typically talk to about a congressman or even a city councilman.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I would say that we cover the same topics. You know, we talked about the other questionnaires. We have right to life and values questions and health care and things like that. But all of the questions get framed from the authority that a school board member might have. So even like on a right to life question, we're going to ask the question from the perspective of what role should a school serve in helping a student with an unwanted or crisis pregnancy? so it's not just, you know, do you believe abortion is wrong? So we do ask that type of a question. On the economy, we're getting more at student loan and debt and government funding of education, lots of more education questions about, you know, the rights of parents, the rights of, of, of. Of controlling what they're, or influencing what their kids could be taught, consequences for bad behavior. So discipline that gets in there. We even in second amendment ask if, if teachers who are licensed to carry and have had ongoing training should be allowed to carry guns in school. So it all, it reframes the question in the framework, I guess, of, of
>> Rick Beggs: schools and there is a portion like our other, questionnaires for other, races, other candidacies. But we do talk to them or we ask them to talk about themselves.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: 100%. Yeah, 100%. Because our goal is again to make an informed electorate to know what that person more about them than just their name. So, so, we ask about, have you ever been convicted of a felony or penalized for sexual misconduct? how would you describe yourself on a political spectrum in matters ranging from religious liberty to immigration? So we want them to tell us about themselves, but yet also answer all of our issue questions. And we factor all of that into the evaluations that we do of these nonpartisan school board candidates.
>> Rick Beggs: Quickly tell us some of the, resources that we have or they can get their hands on in regards to educational ebooks, like Whose side Are they On?
>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, if you go to ivoterguide.com There is an issues and articles page that you can see all of the content iVoterGuide has created and there's little tabs of topics and school boards is one of those topics. And we have written an educational. It was started out as an ebook. You can actually get it printed now called, Whose side Are they On? What does your school board member really Believe if you're convicted about running or even want to understand more about, what to look for in school board candidates, go find that and download that ebook. It will be very informative in helping you know what to look for. And just look at. We've got our questionnaires up there on the website, different articles about what to look for in school boards, that you can factor in if we're not covering your school board to give you guidance into. What should you look for to find out, more about the people running for your school. School board.
>> Rick Beggs: Well, Debbie, you know what that sound is.
>> Debbie Wuthnow: I do.
>> Rick Beggs: We're on the short leash of, primaries to give it, get us caught
>> Debbie Wuthnow: up, ready to be done with primary season. So this coming Tuesday, September 1st, Massachusetts, your primary election will occur. Your polls are going to open from 7am down to 8pm and we have a couple of states up in the northeast that have early voting going on. Delaware, early voting begins on September 2nd for your election. That will be September 15th. In NewSong Hampshire, in person, early voting is not available, but absentee voting with approved excuses is allowed for your election. That will be on September 8th. And that's all we have this week in elections. We are wrapping up primaries and the generals are on the horizon.
I totally believe the church is the answer. We ought to fight for our kids in the public
>> Rick Beggs: Well, I, I can't believe this show is already over today. I apologize if I got too ranty on this thing. I. I totally believe the church is the answer. This is not political. This is biblical. We ought, as good Christian citizens, be fighting for our kids in the public. In the public, not just the Christian. Remember, we are iVoterGuide and you can find [email protected] and if you got a question, Debbie already said it. Write to [email protected] Debbie and I may even respond. Respond. We are grounded in God and rooted in research. I want to thank our producer, Brent Austin. And remember, on the compass, our true north is Jesus Christ.
Introduction to School Board Importance
Statistics on Voter Turnout
The Church's Role in Elections
Curriculum and Policy Impacts
How to Get Involved
Success Stories from I Voter Guide
Conclusion and Call to Action
✍️ Episode References
iVoterGuide
https://ivoterguide.com
AFA Action
https://afa.net
Introduction to School Board Importance
Statistics on Voter Turnout
The Church's Role in Elections
Curriculum and Policy Impacts
How to Get Involved
Success Stories from I Voter Guide
Conclusion and Call to Action
✍️ Episode References
iVoterGuide
https://ivoterguide.com
AFA Action
https://afa.net
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