School board candidates urged to fill out Mercury online questionnaire

Although municipal elections in the region, for the most part, are pretty quiet, with many uncontested races, the same cannot be said of school board elections.

Some of these elections have become quite heated and, like elsewhere in the country, have taken on aspects of national debates about how and what to teach about American history, which books are appropriate for students and even which bathrooms should be used by whom.

There are six school board races in the Montgomery County region covered by The Mercury which are contested, adding up to a total of 29 available seats. They are in Spring-Ford, Methacton, Perkiomen Valley, Pottsgrove. Boyertown and Upper Perkiomen.

In The Mercury’s Chester County coverage area, two school board elections, in Phoenixville and Owen J. Roberts, are contested with a total of 10 seats up for grabs.

Taken together, it all adds up to 78 candidates in the running, and that is not even including municipal races for borough and township boards.

Given the logistical impossibility of conducting 78 separate interviews prior to the election, The Mercury has posted an online questionnaire for school board candidates to fill out and submit if they wish to be included in our election preview articles.

The link can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TMP6ZBB and candidates must fill it out and submit it by Friday, Oct. 27, in order to guarantee inclusion in our coverage.

The Mercury will add responses submitted after that date to the online version of articles about any given race, but cannot guarantee inclusion in the published version.

Candidates will be asked to respond to 10 questions. In addition to basic information, subject matter includes questions about teaching unpleasant parts of American history, candidates views on things like school vouchers, the influence of outside groups and political action committees, bathroom and athletic policies and how best to determine which reading materials are appropriate for school-age children.

Election Day is Nov. 7, although many people may vote prior to that through mail-in ballots.