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The Editorial Board

On Tuesday, voters in the Francis Howell school district and other districts around the St. Louis region said, Enough. Enough of the race-baiting, enough of the ideological grandstanding, enough of weaponizing childrens education for the culture wars.

The electoral defeat of two right-wing Francis Howell candidates for open seats and similar outcomes in almost a dozen other area races this week is an encouraging rebuke of the recent movement to politicize school boards. That voters in even generally conservative communities are finally seeing through this MAGA-affiliated fog is the best message possible going into other crucial elections this year.

Francis Howell has been this regions epicenter for an alarming national trend in which right-wing activists are targeting school board seats. Contrary to their stated goals of bettering kids education, their real agenda is to promote their own restrictive political ideology in the classroom. Their obsessions are issues related to public health, gender and, especially, race.

The Francis Howell district in St. Charles County, one of Missouris largest, is overwhelmingly white and has been the site of disturbing displays of racial intolerance in the not-too-distant past, including protests at the transfers of students from the mostly Black Normandy School District.

The Francis Howell boards subsequent embrace of racial inclusion policies including the establishment of courses focused on Black history and the approval and posting of an anti-racism statement in the schools represented welcome evolution.

But it also sparked an ugly backlash from right-wing activists who view any discussion of Black culture or the undeniable fact of systemic racism in society as something that has to be cleansed from classrooms.

Touting bogeyman phrases like woke and critical race theory (a legitimate field of academia but one that virtually doesnt exist outside higher education), they have promoted the corrosive idea that policies seeking to combat racism are inherently reverse racism.

Recognizing the realities of systemic racism in society is a legitimate aspect of educating all students about the world they will inherit and hopefully make better. To condemn such recognition as some kind of attack on white students is a twisted, historically blinkered philosophy. But its one that helped a hard-right PAC called Francis Howell Families seize a majority of the boards seven seats over the past few years.

What they have done with that majority could not be more telling.

Last year, the all-white board voted to scrub the anti-racism message the earlier board had approved. The simple, five-paragraph statement wasnt radical; it simply pledged that the district will speak firmly against any racism, promote racial healing and recognize the challenges faced by our Black and brown students and families.

Surely the sight of those messages being literally, physically removed from school hallway walls on orders from the school board sent its own loud-and-clear message to the districts few Black students, as well as their white classmates.

The current board also briefly eliminated elective Black-themed history and literature course offerings. Public outcry at the course removals forced the board to almost immediately rescind that decision, which hinted at the possibility that district residents were finally tiring of the boards ideological antics.

Tuesdays election for the two open seats drove home that message.

Mainstream candidates Steven Blair, a pastor, and Carolie Owens, a retired teacher, both won the seats over two culture-warrior candidates backed by Francis Howell Families, marking a significant defeat for the right-wing PAC. Blair and Owens were backed by Francis Howell Forward, a PAC formed last year to counter the boards rightward tilt.

It was a victory for moderation and tolerance and not an isolated one. As the Post-Dispatchs Blythe Bernhard and Monica Obradovic reported this week, right-wing activist school board hopefuls in the St. Charles City, Wentzville, Lindbergh, Mehlville, Parkway, Rockwood and Ft. Zumwalt districts all lost to more mainstream candidates. In fact, every one of the 13 candidates endorsed in a concerted anti-woke campaign by right-wing radio talk show host Marc Cox lost their races.

The Francis Howell outcome doesnt eliminate the right-wing majority on the board (yet). But it stands as a strong sign that the reactionary political fever that has gripped local elections might finally be breaking.

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Editorial: Defeat of culture-war board candidates hints that a political fever is breaking - St. Louis Post-Dispatch