Highland Park residents recently opened their mailboxes to find flyers slamming a school board candidate because he put a Black Lives Matter sign in his yard.
Ahead of the May 1 municipal elections, some North Texas school board races have taken on a tenor infused with huge amounts of cash, political divisiveness and dog whistles evoking national wedge issues.
For more than a year, trustees have been at the center of some of the country’s most heated debates: People have packed into meetings to decry mask mandates or to demand they remain in place. They’ve come to say schools should be reopened to 100% capacity or that they must be closed completely to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They’ve testified that teachers should never talk about Black Lives Matter or that districts must be more active in dismantling systemic racism.