Local Governance and Digital Platforms: Explaining the Variation in School Boards’ Data-Accessibility Tools

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Governing the Modern School District: Data, AI, and the Impact of Local Economics

Abstract

As school board meetings grow more politicized, understanding how districts choose to share information is critical to assess their commitment to democratic governance and community involvement. This paper examines the association between districts’ characteristics and their platform of choice to share board meeting information (minutes, policies). Across 499 Pennsylvania districts, 53.31% use BoardDocs. This study introduces a binary variable for platform of choice (BoardDocs vs. alternative platform) and examines its association with district size/geographic locale. Logistic regression shows that, compared to rural districts, town, urban, and suburban districts are significantly more likely to use BoardDocs, a structured and accessible platform. Understanding these variations is essential to ensuring equitable access to school governance data and avoiding bias in data-driven research studies.

Author

• Ghadir Al Saghir, Pennsylvania State University