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A Southlake mother and lawyer spent recent months relaying to other conservative parents the playbook that catapulted her onto the Carroll school board.

Hannah Smiths path proved to be an inspiration to trustee hopefuls, Republican donors and the state GOP. And now, ahead of several school board elections in May, the resonance of her story could be put to the test at the ballot box.

Conservatives across North Texas found a rallying cry in taking back local schools. And though its still early, their interests and dollars are coalescing into new political action committees.

At least 10 conservative PACs have launched in the past year in cities across the Dallas area with the goal of steering local districts in a more conservative direction. And Tuesdays primary election which showed early wins for many far right candidates hint to the growing momentum.

Underlying many of new PACs efforts is a belief that schools are not transparent to parents, that children have access to sexually inappropriate books and an intense opposition to the idea of critical race theory.

One of the stated goals of a Keller PAC the KISD Family Alliance PAC is to keep politics out of the districts curricula.

We believe that the Districts curriculum framework should be void of political partisanship and in keeping with conservative values, its website reads. Efforts to reach the groups leadership for an interview were unsuccessful. The group raised more than $41,000, according to their most recent filing.

Another PAC, Prosper Citizen Group, said that it would support school board and city council candidates that believe in individual liberty, limited government, transparency and accountability, fiscal responsibility, and alignment to the U.S. and Texas Constitution.

Included in its website is a form to report issues with Prosper ISD to district administrators. Five of eight checkboxes address current hot-button concerns pushed by conservatives: sexually inappropriate content in books or curricula; anti-bias training or diversity, equity and inclusion work; social emotional learning; anti-American bias in instruction or teaching environment; and Critical Race Theory.

The groups leadership did not respond to an interview request.

Republicans are rallying around these issues particularly critical race theory galvanized by wins locally and across the country. The academic theory is a decades-old academic framework that probes the ways United States policies and laws uphold systemic racism. However, some conservative politicians and pundits conflate it with a wide host of schools diversity, equity and inclusion efforts even as school officials continue to insist it is not part of K-12 curriculums.

The Texas GOP made clear it would tap into such energy to push more conservative candidates into school boards and other municipal seats. It announced in December a new initiative to build momentum around these nonpartisan races.

As part of their announcement, state Republican officials specifically highlighted Smith and other conservatives positions on Southlakes school board victories as a win. Those candidates were backed by Southlake Families PAC, which currently has more than $168,000 cash on hand.

The general sense of unease with some of the cultural direction of contemporary public education thats a real thing, said Matthew Wilson, a Southern Methodist University political science professor. What political form that takes depends on the actions of these local political leaders and groups and how they seek to capitalize on it.

Smith laid out her playbook at a recent meeting hosted by a PAC targeting Frisco school board seats.

She explained how she was prompted to run after Carroll ISDs diversity council proposed a cultural competency plan, which recommended the school system hire a director of equity and inclusion; establish a grievance system through which students can report discrimination; and audit the district curriculum through an equity lens.

It was decried by many in the mostly white, affluent community as creating diversity police and promoting a left-wing agenda. At the same time, students of color and their parents were pushing school leaders to recognize racism on campuses.

With conservatives on the board, Smith told the crowd, the diversity councils work has been destroyed. The group was disbanded and their cultural competency plan rejected.

After her win, Smith said she heard from a mother, now running for school board herself, who told her: We want to do in Frisco what you guys are doing in Southlake.

Having conservatives on your school board really makes a huge difference from curriculum to teacher trainings to whats in your kids classroom, Smith said at the event.

Smith did not respond to an interview request.

The recent Families 4 Frisco PAC meet-up featured two board candidates, Stephanie Elad and Marvin Lowe. The groups leadership declined requests for comment, as did Elad. Lowe did not respond.

As of the Jan. 18 filing, the PAC had $5,640 cash on hand. Donors to the group include conservative trustees from other school districts, including Southlake, and $1,000 from Star Patriots, another political action committee.

Speakers at the Families 4 Frisco event highlighted the need to raise more money and door-knock, specifically because school board races tend to have low turnout.

In general, races for school board seats even those in large school districts have fewer than 10,000 votes. Campaigns are similarly smaller in scale, with total contributions rarely topping $50,000.

The roughly 100 people who attended the Frisco meeting held in a local retirement community were encouraged to text their friends, host meet-and-greets and get others excited about conservative Frisco ISD candidates.

The keynote speaker was Allen West, the former Texas Republican Party chair who unsuccessfully campaigned for the gubernatorial nomination. Before he left, he held up his phone to announce he had just donated $100 to the Families 4 Frisco PAC.

School board is the most important elected position in the United States of America, West said.

Smith reiterated that idea when speaking at this years Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida. During a panel discussion, she ended with a call to action for those in the crowd.

This movement is a tidal wave, she predicted.

Conservative politicians are increasingly campaigning on the idea of parents rights, a trend seen from local school board races up to the gubernatorial one.

Gov. Greg Abbott, at a recent campaign event in Lewisville, unveiled his proposed Parents Bill of Rights, which he said would include expanding families access to courses with all lesson materials available online.

The Texas Education Code already contains a chapter that outlines parental rights and responsibilities. But Abbott suggested amending the Texas Constitution to reinforce that parents are the main decision makers in all matters.

Similar rhetoric in Virginia helped propel a Republican into the governors mansion in November.

The idea of how much control parents should have over their own childs learning as well as what level of control they should be able to exert over their classmates is driving much of the tension in Texas.

This is particularly apparent in the debate over library books.

More and more community members have challenged some school library books, many of which deal with issues of race, gender or sexuality. The titles specifically called out by Abbott are memoirs by LGBT authors.

Education advocates decry this trend as a threat to all students access to stories that may reflect their own lives or open their eyes to others experiences.

Richardson mother Sherry Clemens gained attention online from conservative outlets this fall after raising the alarm at a board meeting about titles listed as options for her eighth grade daughters book club, noting they included strong language.

She appeared on a podcast, saying the books included left-wing ideology theres homosexuality, theres a lot about gender identity, which I think is a huge hot topic right now and scary for our girls to be exposed to.

Clemens recently announced she was seeking a seat on the RISD board. She recently told The News that shes been considering a run for awhile.

I dont think its partisan politics, she said. Its moms and dads. Its parents of all political backgrounds. Theyre saying, We want transparency in schools.

The Richardson trustees will soon select a new superintendent after Jeannie Stone suddenly submitted her resignation in December. Stone was an outspoken advocate for racial equity in the district.

The passion and purpose of my work was all of a sudden named CRT and something that was bad to do, Stone told The Texas Tribune after her resignation announcement. And then that took off like wildfire, and I was never able to ever figure out a way to put that out.

The website for Richardson ISD Families First, a new PAC formed in that district, includes the work of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion department as part of the problem in RISD schools.

The group, which has yet to make official endorsements, has nearly $12,000 to spend, as of the Jan. 18 filing. Among their large donors are two local mothers who appeared on Fox News this fall to decry school closures because of COVID cases. Clemens gave a small amount.

The Texas GOP announced late last year that it would double down on local, traditionally nonpartisan elections. The Local Government Committees goal is assisting conservative candidates as they aim for often-overlooked school board and municipal seats.

Its important because its where the government is closest to the people and their daily lives, state GOP chair Matt Rinaldi said.

The immediacy of action is needed because he believes critical race theory is being injected into schools.

Rinaldi said that while grassroots efforts like the local PACs would play an important role in many races, the state GOP would enter the fray in a few selected races in May, including a Coppell ISD school board race.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has run Project LIFT since 2015, a program to support and train candidates for down-ballot races.

Spokesman Jestin Patton said that this round of elections, theyre looking to promote candidates who dont dabble in culture wars unlike the growing anti-critical race theory rhetoric from the right.

This is nothing more than fear-mongering that Republicans are using to gain leverage with voters, Patton said. Weve seen this on every front in partisan races and non-partisan races.

Democratic-backed candidates, he said, should focus on promoting solutions to issues such as teacher shortages and learning loss. He acknowledged, though, the gains and momentum conservatives are building around culture war issues.

We know that it doesnt mean we cant win, Patton said. It just means we have to do a better job of connecting with the people of those communities and explaining to them why candidates with Democratic support are best for the job.

Tuesdays primary election previewed the potential power of the conservative education momentum. For example, Evelyn Brooks who ran in part on the idea of upholding the critical race theory ban beat incumbent Sue Melton-Malone for the State Board of Education District 14 nomination. The district encompasses several North Texas counties, including part of Frisco ISD.

Edwin Flores, a Dallas ISD board member, was defeated in his bid for the Republican county judge nomination by Lauren Davis, a mother who railed against his support for mask mandates in Dallas schools.

School board races in Texas, however, have long been free of party affiliation. Ostensibly, such a design asks voters to focus on local issues and not national party platforms or movements.

But that line is eroding, said SMUs Wilson. (SMU is a supporter of the Education Lab at The Dallas Morning News.)

Everything in American political life has been drifting towards more polarization, more partisanship, and non-partisan local politics is part of that trend, Wilson said.

Prior to this election cycle, national progressive groups threw their support behind nearly a dozen school board candidates in the Dallas and Houston areas in 2017.

Current education debates about COVID response or how race and sexuality is being taught in schools have gotten wrapped up into a highly partisan culture wars framework, he said.

And so its going to be increasingly difficult for people on school boards to step aside from that partisan fray. I think these groups are right that, more and more, people running for those offices are going to have to pick a side.

The danger of that, said Wilson, is when these races become about cultural politics, they become less about competency of administration or educational policy expertise.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Labs journalism.

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Bolstered by CRT, book fights, conservative PACs aim to take back Texas school boards - The Dallas Morning News