Another election cycle come and gone.

Across the country and in South County, voters weighed in on a number of important local races for representative, senator and U.S. Congress, in addition to deciding the fate of several different amendments to the state’s constitution.

With all the decisions voters have to make in midterm and general elections, isn’t it a good thing that they also don’t have to consider school board and municipal seats —typically decided in April — as well?

In 2019, state lawmakers proposed that school board and municipal elections should be held in November in even years when there is a midterm or general election. The measure could cut down on costs, but at what cost to voters’ knowledge on the issues?

Imagine if in addition to having to pay attention to who is running for your local representative, who your U.S. Congress member is and what constitutional amendment changes what, you also have to pay attention to whose seats are up on the school board and who is running for what aldermanic position. It’s not far-fetched to conclude that voters would be less informed on the issues, and how many would actually pay attention to these races, even though they are tend to be the most important to your wallet and property values.

School board races and city races are non-partisan and we believe they should stay that way. Tacking them onto November elections — which are highly-partisan -— would be detrimental.

Conservatives and liberals have served alongside each other in relative harmony on school boards and aldermanic boards in South County. More often than not, in major decisions like continuing masking during the pandemic, school boards leaned on data rather than political viewpoints to inform their decisions. Besides, paying attention to the way a board member votes on a particular issue is often telling enough as to what their political affiliation is.

We may have a lot of problems here in Missouri, but let’s not add partisan school boards to that list of issues.

For the sake of better-informed voters, keep school board races and municipal elections in April where they belong.