• More than 2,000 men and women serve on local public school boards in Iowa, guiding the education of more than 480,000 young people while overseeing a budget of  $4.4 billion.
• School board members are elected by their local communities in an election held the second Tuesday of September in odd numbered years. They serve four-year terms.
• Local school boards may have five or seven members. They may be elected at large, from director districts or in several combinations of at-large and districts, depending on the system locally adopted. The school board secretary can inform prospective candidates about the structure of the local board, and the voters who may cast ballots for each seat. About 70 percent of Iowa’s 359 public K-12 school boards have five members and 30 percent of the boards have seven members.
• School board members receive no pay. Their reward is the satisfaction they receive from public service.
• The board of directors of a school district operates as a corporate body. Individual school board members have no authority to act independently, and cannot commit or bind the board by their individual actions. Powers and duties of the board must be exercised by the board as a whole.

Gender

Length of Service on the School Board

K-12 School Boards by District Enrollment Size

Note: These facts are from the 2010-11 school year and are the most current available.