Local school board elections have taken a nasty turn this year in some parts of Maryland as they have elsewhere across the country. No longer are the candidates chosen from the usual pool of school volunteers, retired educators and community activists — often running without opposition. Campaigns aren’t the amicable PTA-like chitchat about budgets or where to draw district lines or how to support teachers. This year, it’s more like our national politics with book bans, Pride flags and trans rights hotly disputed and the Democratic and Republican parties contributing directly to the candidates and outside interest groups like Moms for Liberty or the 1776 Project PAC getting deeply involved.

And it’s not just ugly — as reprehensible as the hostility directed at LGBTQ+ youngsters has often been this election season — but often idiotic. How can we focus on raising classroom achievement, filling gaps in learning caused by COVID-19 pandemic measures or even early reading when we can’t seem to decide how to deal with restrooms? Given that only about 3% of U.S. high school students identify as transgender, it all seems like a monumental waste of time and energy. As for “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Color Purple” that stir the book banners, shouldn’t we be delighted to see kids interested in quality literature?

But here’s one more important element to consider: A lot of voters aren’t paying attention. They choose not to express a preference for school board candidates. That shouldn’t come as any surprise. Down-ballot races often get ignored by voters but school board races seem to fare especially badly. Just two years ago, for example, voters in Baltimore County cast 272,054 votes for governor. And when it came time to pick the county’s seven-member Board of Education? Just 199,300 people voted in their local districts. Some may not have expressed a preference because their candidate ran unopposed but even for the “yes” or “no” vote to retain a Court of Special Appeals judge in 2022, far more county voters made that choice.

There might be a better way. While most Maryland counties elect their school boards, a handful have embraced the “hybrid” model with some members appointed and some elected (Baltimore County is one of these). If partisan politics and the culture wars continue to haunt public education, parents may find themselves grateful for the moderation, diversity and stability offered by appointees. It wouldn’t necessarily make school boards less answerable to stakeholders so much as less susceptible to getting hijacked by special interests.