In Akron, the incumbent school board president criticized for sharing “transgender to transformed” and other incendiary LGBTQ+ commentary on Facebook lost re-election last week. 

So  did the incumbent board president of a rural district in Allen County, a conservative stronghold in central-northwest Ohio, after first winning office two years ago on a promise to crackdown on bathroom assignments of transgender students. 

Voters levied the same result in Delaware County, in a wealthy suburb of Columbus, where several school board members behind a district-wide banning of LGBTQ+ flags lost their re-election bids. 

During President Joe Biden’s administration, a backlash to perceived encroachment of social liberalism into school curricula powered a sweep of social conservative candidates into ostensibly non-partisan school board seats. Organizations, such as Moms 4 Liberty, organized candidates on platforms opposing  legal and practical acceptance of transgender students and “critical race theory.”

But in at least five Ohio cities, voters in 2025 purged those social conservatives from office. In each case, they came to power during the Biden era and attracted splashy headlines for agendas fixed around rolling back LGBTQ+ acceptance in schools. 

Conservative Ohio Value Voters-backed candidates had a mixed night around Ohio

It’s unclear just how widespread the new trend is. Ohio Value Voters, a Christian conservative advocacy group, endorsed nearly 50 candidates in school board races around the state. Only about 44% of them won, according to election analysis by Signal Ohio. That includes at least nine candidates who ran unopposed. 

John Stover, who leads Ohio Value Voters, didn’t return a call or email. 

Rachel Coyle, a political operative with Ohioans Against Extremism, a progressive nonprofit,  compiled similar data on what she called “troubling” school board candidates – namely those with anti-LGBTQ+ and other socially conservative platforms. By her count, when you remove the candidates who ran unopposed, just one in fourof the ‘troubling’ candidates won last week. 

The trend held in deeply conservative areas in the state. For instance, Will Wright, a candidate in Buckeye Valley Local Schools district, which spans rural counties like Morrow and Union, lost on Tuesday. In a Facebook post Coyle archived, he listed as his top priority to “keep all indoctrination out of BV which incudes sexual LGBTQ material and the subsequent pornography, anti Chrsitian values, Critical Race Theory or any other propaganda.”

In an interview, Coyle said she thinks voters got sick of candidates deviating from the nuts and bolts of setting school policy to focus on limiting LGBTQ titles from school libraries, opposing levies and other measures. Voters, she said, are angry and increasingly informed. 

“It shows that people are realizing that you can’t just pay attention in presidential years,” she said. “It takes years upon years to build what the Trump administration has, and that you have to start local and keep people who have dangerous ideologies out of office at every level.”

Mike Gonidakis, a lobbyist and longtime operative of Ohio Right to Life, emphasized two macropolitical trends. For one, the out-of-power political party tends to overperform nationally in the first two years after a partisan power shift at the national level. For two, Tuesday’s elections were decided by an extraordinarily small electorate. 

That said, he conceded that Democratic voters seem to be engaged and lashing out against social conservative zeal in school board politics. 

“I think there are some people in the state that did not like the fact that Ohio made sure that boys couldn’t play women’s sports, and restrooms had to be designated based on gender,” he said. “They were motivated to show up and speak their mind, and unfortunately social conservatives in those races stayed home. Why? I don’t know. Shame on them. I don’t know.”

Here’s a closer look at some of the cities where socially conservative incumbents lost. 

Akron Public Schools 

Carla Jackson, the now-lame duck board president of Akron Schools who also serves as the head of middle school academics at Emmanuel Christian Academy, has waded into multiple controversies around social issues. 

According to the Akron Beacon Journal, Jackson voted against a policy that requires staff to use the preferred names and pronouns of other staff and students. She has also shared  Facebook musings comparing adults asking children about their preferred pronouns to pedophiles. 

She also signed a candidate pledge with Moms 4 Liberty, which has pushed for LGBT+ restrictions and book bans, promising “to advance policies that strengthen parental involvement and decision-making, increase transparency, defend against government overreach, and secure parental rights at all levels of government.”

Jackson and Cynthia Blake, another Ohio Value Voters endorsed candidate, lost Tuesday. 

Elida (Allen County)

In Allen County, home of the Speaker of the Ohio House, Elida Local School Board President David Peters lost his election bid. 

Peters ascended to the board two years ago on a promise to reverse the district’s policy of allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their assumed gender identity, according to the Lima News. Since then, he has wrapped himself in fights with board members and the public over lawyers, levies and social issues. 

He lost, along with two outsiders running on his slate, Seth Ciminillo and Jon Geise.

Big Walnut Schools (Delaware County) 

In Delaware County in 2023, three school board members voted to ban the display of LGBTQ+ flags and other symbols deemed “controversial” or “activist,” WOSU reported. 

Of those three, Board President Doug Crawl and Vice President Alice Nicks lost on Tuesday. 

South Western City School Board of Education (Franklin County)

South of Columbus, South Western City School Board of Education President Chris Boso and two allies on the board lost their races. 

In their last term, they courted controversy by affiliating with organizations advocating for “English-only education” and opposition to LGBTQ+ rights and “DEI.” He has also called on the district to “stand up to Title IX,” a reference to federal civil rights law used to establish legal protections in schools against discrimination based on sex, gender, religion or race. 

The board also came under fire for its decision to spend $9,000 per month on an attorney for the district, the Columbus Dispatch reports. The attorney, Omar Tarazi, has appeared on Fox News decrying transgender-friendly pronoun policies. 

Instead, three candidates backed by the Democratic party swept the races. 

Signal background

Upper Arlington Schools (Franklin County)

Lou Sater took office as president of Upper Arlington schools, in a wealthy Columbus suburb, in 2021. 

Weeks before election day, he was the only one on the board to oppose an “equity in education” policy, the Columbus Dispatch reported, including expansive definitions around equity, inequity and gender identification. 

“If we have a problem, I’m more than happy to work to fix that problem,” Sater said.. “I do not believe we have the problem. I believe we’re trying to add another statement on top of what I thought was a very good nondiscrimination policy

He has also regularly shared opinion articles and commentary from social conservatives like Jack Posobiec, according to  Coyle’s research.