By Lisa Renze

This is the first election cycle since the state’s 2025 law that paved the way for school board candidates to declare a party affiliation. The change was opposed by the Indiana School Boards Association, which argued that Hoosier students would be better served by nonpartisan candidates and elections. 

 Despite those concerns, lawmakers moved SEA287 forward, and Chalkbeat Indiana reports that of 1,044 school board candidates who have filed for office statewide, just slightly more than half have declared a party affiliation. 

 Of those 524 who have declared, about 72% are running as Republicans, 6% are running as Democrats, and 7% are running as independents. The change to partisan candidate races, some have argued, could bring an influx of outside-Indiana money to school board races. 

 To that end, Free Press Indiana is teaming up with the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism to help provide local news outlets with a deeper dive into school board candidate donor dollars. 

 Craig Lyons, managing editor at the Arnolt Center, and a small group of students will distill donor data to provide any outlets who want it an analysis of what was spent this cycle, compared to previous years’ races. Those analyses — pre- and post-election day — will then be available, without fee, for any outlets who want to do their own localized story on their races. 

 Additionally, after the election, Lyons and his team will write one overarching story providing a snapshot of if, or how, the state’s school board races fared relative to fundraising. 

 If you’d like to learn more about this project, or want to get on the list to make sure Lyons and his team distill your district’s data, please reach out to me at lisa.renze@freepressindiana.org.

If you have other projects that you’d like to discuss, give me a shout about those as well. We’re always on the lookout for ways that we can be in service to journalists around the state. 

 Thanks for all the work you all do each day. It is essential, to say the very least. 

 Lisa Renze, director of strategic partnerships

Free Press Indiana