Can a right-wing PAC help conservatives flip Maryland school boards?

A full slate of conservative candidates — backed by the national right-wing 1776 Project political action committee — is trying to take control of four Maryland school boards in next week’s midterm elections.

The candidates in Somerset, Frederick, Howard and Talbot counties are promoting an agenda that includes limiting some books in school libraries, eliminating diversity initiatives, and embracing fiscal conservatism and school choice. If they win and successfully carry out their election promises, clashes between state education officials and county school systems will likely become more frequent.

In the 18 months since right-wing school board members took control of Somerset County schools, state officials have temporarily blocked the school board from firing the superintendent and implementing age restrictions for certain library books, among other actions.

Aided by about $40,000 in campaign contributions from the 1776 Project, the candidates say they want an agenda that gives parents a greater say in what their children read and learn in schools and reduces the influence of teachers’ unions.

After the parental backlash to school pandemic closings in 2020, candidates from the conservative group Moms for Liberty were elected to a few seats in some counties. But they have rarely gained a majority on a local school board.

In Somerset County, the board can continue its conservative policies if one more candidate who shares their views is elected this election cycle.

In August, Somerset’s board passed a book policy that is viewed by opponents as the most restrictive library book policy in the state. The ACLU and the state’s largest teachers union have asked the state school board to strike it down.

With no polling on school board races and the tendency of voters to skip these down-ballot races, it is hard to predict how successful the efforts will be.

Nearly half of 1776 Project spending is aimed at Frederick, where four conservatives — Heather Fletcher, Shelley Potter, Geoff Seidel and Tyler Walker — are running.

The Frederick teachers union has endorsed a more liberal slate of candidates to go up against a new conservative slate created by Marie and Charles Boshoff, who are looking for more diversity of views in members. For years the Maryland State Education Association, a teachers union, has termed its endorsed candidates the “Apple ballot.” The Boshoffs wanted to call the conservative candidate ballot by a different fruit to distinguish them from the teachers.

The Boshoffs’ Orange ballot website shows a decaying apple next to shiny orange halves. The website says the Orange ballot wants to be “an important counterbalance and a final line of visibility for parents and taxpayers who want a different direction for their schools.”

They say that teachers union-backed candidates are controlled by special interests and “political agendas.” The Boshoffs did not respond to a request for an interview.

“Frederick has been a county that has been ground zero for the culture war fights,” said Samantha Zwerling, managing director of political and legislative affairs at the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. She said the fight to keep culture wars out of education “has gotten somewhat nasty.”

One point of contention for the Frederick candidates is a gender policy the board passed in 2025 that attempted to protect transgender students from harassment. In a May 2025 protest, Fletcher interrupted a school board meeting by walking onto the platform where members sit wearing cat ears and saying that she identified as a school board member, according to the Frederick News-Post.

A sheriff’s deputy escorted her out of the meeting. Fletcher received about 15,000 votes in the primary, the largest number of any of the Orange ballot candidates.

“I don’t believe we will have a flip of our board,” said Frederick County teachers union president Justin Heid, adding that the Apple ballot candidates had done better in the primary than the Orange ballot candidates. “I think we have some strong education candidates running.”

However, with 14 candidates in the primary, only a few thousand votes separated the final winners who advanced to the general election.

Attempts by conservatives to field like-minded candidates started two years ago in Frederick, Heid said, after they had some success in elections to the Carroll County school board.

In Somerset and Talbot counties on the Eastern Shore, several candidates are running to unseat the conservative majority. One conservative board member, Andrew Gleason, was defeated in the primary in June, but enough conservatives remain in the race to continue the board’s current agenda.

In Talbot County, three conservative candidates are on the ballot. One is challenging school board chair Emily Jackson, a two-term incumbent.

U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, who represents Maryland’s 3rd congressional district, was so concerned about the conservative trend in school board elections that she headed to Talbot to help campaign for Jackson — even though she doesn’t represent Talbot County.

Politics come in many shades of blue in Maryland, Elfreth said. While there is a perception that the state is blue because the Democrats control the state House and legislature, many parts of the state are conservative.

Amy Dodson, another incumbent finishing her first four-year term, is trying to fend off a conservative opponent. She said she is trying to keep her head above the fray. “The first time I ran it was nowhere this inflammatory,” she said.

In a Facebook post, the Talbot County sheriff asked the public to “uphold the principles of civility, mutual respect, and responsible civil engagement” after school board campaign signs were vandalized and destroyed last month on the same street corner.

Lisa Hayes, a day care provider in Talbot County, said she is running for school board because she doesn’t believe students in the public schools are being held to high enough standards. She wants stronger discipline and says the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future gives state officials too much say in local issues.

“I think there is a bit of overreach of what they are telling counties can and can’t do,“ she said.

Hayes, who is backed by the 1776 Project, said she is not concerned about having literature about LGBTQ relationships in school libraries. “I do not have a problem with that, I am there for any student and every student,” she said, but she said she did not approve of a book she found that described pedophilia. While she supports a diverse teacher workforce, she says she wants “the most highly qualified teachers available.”

She said she is impressed that the superintendent spends a portion of her time teaching a class in a school system with 4,300 students and would like to see all administrators tutor students in schools.

She has been watching the actions of Somerset County board members and likes that they have limited books in their school libraries, she said. If elected, she would suggest that school board members divvy up every book in school libraries and decide whether they contain inappropriate material.

“I do also think we should bring parents into the conversation,” she said. “Let parents have a say.”

Book bans have been a hot topic in Harford County, where an attempt to take one book off the shelves ended last week in a court ruling against the board. Four candidates there are supported by the 1776 Project.

School board races are nonpartisan in Maryland, so voters cannot tell whether a candidate is registered as a Republican or a Democrat. Vote tallies are often low because voters tend to skip voting for the candidates.

“We know that we have a lot on the line here, whether it is staffing decisions or funding for public education,” Zwerling said.

“We need to make sure that we have good candidates that are winning these offices.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.