well this week marked the deadline for candidates seeking to run for local school boards across the state it used to be a relatively sleepy Affair but has since become the epicenter of culture War issues things like book bans curriculum parental and gay rights a movement spurred by the pandemic and now motivated largely by anger senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan takes a closer look driven by emotional crowds and impassioned debates over topics like banned books and gender identity school board meetings can now claim Ground Zero in the culture wars its transformed School Board elections from local low turnout contests into full-blown campaigns by special interest groups anger turns out votes and so you have National groups taking their National issues and making them local issues Darcy Drager heads districts for democracy a political action committee that wants to quash the anti-woke movement with its focus on censorship founded by former Congressman Tom malinowski it's dedicated to promoting School Board candidates who'll defend diversity and equity and help them raise funds now in order to run for school board you need money you do you need to you need money for lawn signs you need money to send mailings and that means you have to fundraise um it can get expensive Drager believes politicized pandemic anger over school masking and vaccinations morphed into a more General attack it's certainly where Nick Stouffer got involved she's now with New Jersey project which has thrown its support behind School Board candidates before and won 62 percent win rate so we did really well and it's mostly word of mouth so everybody thinks that we have all this money flowing in and it really isn't it's just a lot of social media and a lot of parents working like it's a lot of you know we have a large email list she expects to more than double the number of school board candidates who benefit from her groups support this fall they support the parental rights movement which opposes the state's policy supporting queer and trans students without outing them to parents moms for Liberty has stated Mental Health Care has no place in public schools but its Jersey rep says we would of course advocate for mental health services we just Advocate that the parents should be involved in that process like other special interests moms for Liberty selects like-minded School Board prospects to promote rep Sherry nardolillo says they don't funnel cash to candidates but we have them answer a questionnaire and they will submit it and then we'll interview them and award them an endorsement and then we will certainly post them on our website and our own personal social media they'll get a full count of their candidate soon and will endorse in September right now there's only the Morris County chapter but we have chapters in um Sussex County and Bergen County and they are getting off the ground Seth Grossman's liberty and prosperity movement also wants to seize this moment and reverse woke policies focused on diversity and Equity he's also backing a slate of candidates mostly across South Jersey they know we're on to something and hopefully this is going to be the beginning so I wish these candidates luck in November and again once they win in November that's just the beginning of a long battle it's a movement that's pushing now into the State Board of education's meetings a measure promoting gender Equity barely passed six to five Advocate Mike goddessman says Governor Murphy needs to wake up we cannot afford to have those by the skin of the teeth passages of Regulation you have 12 members of this board who are all on unexpired terms um it was incumbent on you to replace people if necessary that would no doubt prompt more protests I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight news