Calling all NJ journalists: Use this kit to build your school board voter guide
Reporting stipends of $500 will also be offered to 16 newsrooms
Local school board races often appear on the back of the ballot or on the bottom line, leading voters to leave those boxes blank. As a result, the National School Boards Association estimates that only 5-10% of voters weigh in on who sets policies and controls the purse strings for local public schools — and most of those voters don’t have children in the classroom.
Meanwhile, in some districts, historically non-partisan school board races have become more politicized as advocates with particular agendas vie for seats.
That’s why the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in partnership with NJ Spotlight News is offering an arsenal of resources to journalists across the state who want to elevate the coverage of school board elections in their area, including a new school board voter guide toolkit.
The toolkit is part of NJ Decides 2024, a multi-faceted initiative to keep New Jersey voters informed about this year’s elections. The collaborative project funded by a grant from the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium also includes six reporting fellows from New Jersey ethnic media outlets who will cover the 2024 general elections and a comprehensive voting guide on the state’s candidates for the U.S. Congress and Senate.
“School board elections have grown ever more critical to our communities, in some ways even more than state and federal races that are also on the ballot,” said John Mooney, founding editor of NJ Spotlight News. “These races are determining who decides what is taught — and not taught — in our public schools and, just as importantly to many, how and how much to pay for that education.”
Upcoming webinars
On Sept. 10, the Center will host a webinar for local reporters, featuring tips and tricks from NJ Spotlight News education reporter Hannah Gross and Mooney, a veteran education reporter.
Later in October, the Center will host a virtual roundtable featuring school superintendents and former school board members to talk about what school boards do, the relationship between board members and school staff, why voting is important, and where voters can look for reliable candidate information.
School board voter guide kit
Most importantly, the Center wants to help local news outlets produce voting guides for respective school board races. Ideally, every district in the state would have an easily accessible school board voter guide. Local news outlets can build custom 2024 voter guides about school board candidates in their respective local districts by accessing an easy-to-use kit. Click here to access the kit.
The kit includes a questionnaire you can send to each school board candidate and instructions for how to easily access their answers and copy them into your CMS to create your voter guide.
School board voter guide stipends
The Center will also offer reporting stipends of $500 each for up to 16 local and hyperlocal outlets to help produce a school board voter guide and any additional coverage.
We know that producing the guides will take some time and manpower — and for small news orgs, that can be difficult. The stipends are meant to allow news orgs a little extra capacity to help offset that cost.
You can apply for a stipend when you download the starter kit.
The guidelines for the guide and stipends are simple:
- Any New Jersey journalist can use the school board voting guide template! Instructions for use are included when you click the link. Any questions, email Joe Amditis at amditisj@montclair.edu.
- Any New Jersey journalism organization can apply for a reporting stipend. Priority will be given to small, independent, nonprofit, hyperlocal, and ethnic media outlets. Outlets receiving a stipend MUST produce a voter guide in October about local school board candidates using the Center’s easy-to-use template here.
Newsrooms can submit applications via this Airtable form by August 30, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Stipend notifications will be sent out after Labor Day. Payments will go out in September.
NJ Decides 2024 project coordinator Manya Brachear Pashman will answer questions about the application through August 29. Prospective applicants can email Manya directly at elections@centerforcooperativemedia.org.
Manya Brachear Pashman is the project coordinator of the NJ Decides 2024 collaboration at the Center for Cooperative Media. She can be reached via email at elections@centerforcooperativemedia.org.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism and support an informed society in New Jersey and beyond. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, the Independence Public Media Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.
