Filing begins for 2026 Oklahoma school board elections

The filing period for the 2026 Oklahoma school board elections begins Monday, December 1, 2025, and ends Wednesday, December 3, 2025. Candidates file at the election board of the county which contains the district; for districts that extend into neighboring counties, candidates file in the county in which the school district headquarters is located. Across Oklahoma, every geographical K-12 (independent) school district, K-8 (elementary) school district, and technology center district has at least one seat up for election every year. Filing is open each day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The school primary election will be held on February 10, 2026, and the general election on April 7, 2026. If only two candidates file for an office, no primary will be held. If three or more candidates file, a primary will be held, and if one candidate receives more than 50% of ballots cast, that candidate is elected; otherwise, a general election will occur with the two candidates receiving the highest number of ballots in the primary.

Elementary school districts have three board members elected at-large and also elect one member every year to a three-year term. Technology Center districts have seven members with rotating seven-year terms. Independent school districts in Oklahoma (except for three) have five board members who serve five-year terms, and Ward 1 will be up for election this time around. Oklahoma City, Enid, and Tulsa districts each have seven election districts, each with a board member elected to a four-year term, and Oklahoma City also has a board chairman, elected by the entire OKCPS district to a four-year term.

I should point out for those new to our state that in Oklahoma school district government is completely disconnected from county or municipal government. Although school districts often take the name of the city or town where they're headquartered, their boundaries do not align with municipal boundaries, and the City of [Place] has no involvement in the management and operation of [Place] Public Schools.

In the Tulsa Technology Center district, the term of District 7 board member Dr. Jim Baker is expiring. District 7 covers the southernmost part of the Tulsa Tech district, including all of Liberty, Glenpool, and Bixby school districts, the bulk of the Jenks school district, and portions of Union and Broken Arrow districts.

This year, two Tulsa Public School board seats are up for election: District 4, held by conservative Republican E'Lena Ashley, and District 7, held by progressive Democrat Susan Lamkin, the current board president. In 2022, Ashley conducted a door-to-door, grassroots campaign to defeat the incumbent, while Lamkin prevailed in a high-dollar battle against former District Attorney Tim Harris, a conservative Republican. District 4 is the eastern part of the TPS district (basically anything between Pine and 31st Street east of Memorial), while District 7 is the southernmost strip (roughly south of 51st between the Arkansas River and Memorial).

In most years, the vast majority of school board seats draw only one candidate. That's not surprising when the filing period falls at the beginning of the Christmas season when our energy and attention is focused elsewhere. Even if there is an election, it typically draws very low turnout. The two-month-long campaign period features short days, cold temperatures, bad weather, and holidays, all of which hinder door-to-door campaigning and volunteer availability. BatesLine has long promoted the idea of holding municipal, school district, and county elections in the fall of odd-numbered years, with two-year terms for every school board seat. This creates a regular rhythm of election season, with statewide and federal elections alternating Novembers with local elections.

We won't know for sure who's running until the close of filing. In state elections, you could often get advance notice by seeing which candidates for a given race had filed a Statement of Organization form with the State Ethics Commission, required within 10 days of your campaign spending or receiving in excess of $1,000.

Soon, we'll be able to do that for school and municipal races as well. SB 890, authored by Sen. Julie Daniels and passed unanimously in both houses this past session, moves reporting for county, municipal, independent school district boards, and technology center boards to the State Ethics Commission. The changes in the law went into effect on November 1. (Daniels, a Republican, represents Senate District 39, covering Washington & Nowata Counties and northern Rogers County.)

That's good news for the public, as we'll no longer have to file an open records request with the school board clerk and pray for a timely response. Eventually, we'll be able to search for all reports on a given school board race on the web, with no gatekeeper. Rather than request filings from various county election boards, city and town clerks, and school district clerks, rather than having to decipher and digitize handwritten reports, we'll be able to search online through electronically filed reports for nearly every elected office in the state.

But not quite yet. The State Ethics Commission has been rolling out a desperately needed update to their online filing and search website, known as Guardian. Guardian 2.0 is in beta-test, and the Ethics Commission has prioritized the tools needed for campaign committees, lobbyists, and elected officials to file required reports, but the public search functions are not yet operational. The Ethics Commission website advises: "Campaign finance information remains available by request until public reporting tools are fully enabled [by emailing] ethics@ethics.ok.gov." Keep in mind that some school board candidates may have filed Statements of Organization for this election with the district clerk prior to the new law taking effect.

For now, we'll have to look to public announcements and the daily report from the election board to track who has filed for next year's school board races.