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These are lean times in public education. Public school enrollment is declining nationwide and in California. Major federal funding cuts to public education are looming, and California’s own budget woes mean that it will not be able to backfill these shortages. 

Lean times should call for intentionality in allocating scarce resources and conservation of the revenue we do have. However, districts across the country, including in California, are being targeted by single-issue interest groups, fueling culturally divisive conflict and, at times, violence in schools. 

These actions — book bans, censorship, and threats to the safety of public school educators — are often aimed at subgroups of students that have been and continue to be underserved and disenfranchised. And they cost school districts money.

These manufactured conflicts often originate in misinformation and “fake news,” such as unfounded allegations that books in school libraries contain pornography or that school bathrooms have kitty litter for children who identify as cats. Through right-wing news outlets and social media, these myths are amplified to the point that education leaders must respond to an onslaught of inquiries, public records requests, and even threats and harassment. They often have to hire lawyers, enhance security measures, or spend inordinate amounts of time formulating press releases and public responses.

A recent national study surveyed superintendents and found the nation’s schools spent $3.2 billion on managing culturally divisive conflict in a single year. The largest contributor is the cost of replacing teachers who leave, frustrated with politicized and intentional distractions from their core work. The heftiest direct costs tend to be for legal fees and security. 

But there are also less visible, indirect expenses, including increases in the proportion of central district administrators prescribed drugs for stress, anxiety, and depression; and time spent by administrators watching school-board meetings in neighboring districts to anticipate what issues will arise at their own meetings.

Extrapolating from the national study, our back-of-the-envelope calculations estimate these manufactured conflicts cost California $185 million dollars in the 2023-24 school year. We cannot afford this. 

These dollars are needed for expenditures that directly benefit student learning: for new and updated curriculum, professional development for teachers, investments in early childhood education and the expansion of transitional kindergarten, among so many other critical needs. 

As seen across the country, conflict on culturally divisive issues is affecting California districts of all sizes and all political leanings. 

In Temecula Valley, news media reported that legal fees had risen from $17,000 to $81,000 since conservatives took control of the school board in 2022 and sought to ban curriculum and restrict what could be taught. In Chino Valley, the district was left with over $280,000 in legal fees after school board members affiliated with a local mega-church led prayers and Bible readings at school board meetings in violation of the First Amendment.

In recent years, superintendents in two larger districts in Orange County — Orange Unified and Capistrano Unified — were fired without cause after a new slate of conservative school board candidates took office. 

In Orange Unified, the introduction of a fourth conservative board member who ran on “giving parents more say over what’s taught” resulted in the superintendent being fired and the board immediately hiring a replacement, who then resigned a month later after public outcry over his hiring. Taxpayer dollars were then expended on two lawsuits filed against the board’s voting majority.

In Capistrano Unified, where debates raged over health lessons and library books, the board’s decision to fire the superintendent without cause resulted in the district paying out a severance of about $550,000.

After such firings, costs to districts can include severance packages, legal fees, search committee firms, time spent by board members and educators serving on the search committee. A single superintendent search can take upwards of 80 hours and cost as much as $150,000.

To be sure, superintendent turnover is an ongoing challenge, and actors across the political spectrum file lawsuits, public records requests, or engage in other actions that drive up costs. But what we are seeing now in California are targeted efforts by agents of disruption, driven by such far-right organizations as Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys, as well as churches and political action committees. These groups are working under the guise of parents’ rights and grassroots movements while they are funded by national actors to seed misinformation and undermine public education.

We want to underscore that conflict and debate in and of itself is not the problem. School board meetings can and should be places to discuss diverse perspectives. But these culturally divisive conflicts have nothing to do with teaching and learning; they are distracting educators and leaders, and they are costing billions of dollars. 

What’s more, research shows that these tactics harm students and families from marginalized communities — students of color and especially LGBTQ+ youth — by taking away access to affirming books and curriculum, and create a chilling effect for librarians and educators.

What can be done? We need immediate action from local and state leaders, families in schools, and the public to refocus on what matters most for young people. To their credit, advocates and state leaders have stepped in to protect LGBTQ+ youth from forced outing policies passed in several districts. But more needs to be done. 

State leaders could support school districts with legal costs associated with such cases, perhaps providing a way for districts to defer a case to state attorneys rather than expend their own resources.

Local and state leaders could develop information campaigns encouraging community members to consider appropriate steps before filing a public information request or learn from leaders who have de-escalated conflicts with proactive communication. School districts could update and improve systems for book challenges, such as requiring specific reference to quotes or images.

Superintendents and school board members need better training to navigate conflict. The Collaborative on Political Leadership in the Superintendency has been thinking critically about tools to help develop the skills and dispositions needed to approach these challenges. 

Finally, more research is needed to understand the array of costs associated with culturally divisive conflict. State-specific research could uncover any unique challenges in California and inform nuanced approaches to ensure that lean public school budgets  focus on student learning.