Howard County voters had to wait one week and a day after polls closed last week to know who would be representing them on the school board for the next four years. It was an unusually long time to wait for a clear winner.

The Howard County Board of Elections ended up spending two full days counting mail-in and provisional ballots to close in on the winning candidates in three races with razor-thin margins on election night. Only one race saw a candidate concede.

In the end, voters reelected all three incumbents to their respective councilmanic districts: Antonia Watts, Jolene Mosley and Jen Mallo, the current school board chair. The two new faces joining the board are Meg Ricks and Andrea Chamblee.

So, why were this year’s school board races so competitive?

Ben Schmitt, president of the Howard County Education Association, the union that represents school employees, said that whenever there’s a presidential election, there’s more turnout in November.

But this time, there’s more to the story.

“I am going to go out on a limb and assume this one got a little more spirited because of national politics,” Schmitt said.

School culture wars have made their way into Howard County public schools. The local Moms for Liberty chapter is looking to have books with sexually explicit content removed from school libraries, and unfounded rumors swirled on Election Day about gender reassignment surgeries happening behind school doors.

As Schmitt put it, “the Moms for Liberty playbook” was at the polls last week. Trent Kittleman, who ran unsuccessfully for the District 5 school board seat, is a founding member of the Howard County chapter.

What was most striking for Dan Newberger, chair of the Community Advisory Council — a volunteer education advocacy group that provides feedback to the school board — in this year’s school board election cycle was “having political parties on both sides be more engaged,” with endorsements and campaign finance.

While school board candidates are nonpartisan on paper, this year’s endorsements say otherwise. Several candidates received support from the Howard County Democratic Party, the Columbia Democratic Club, the Howard County Progressive Project and The Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club of Howard County, Maryland.

“For better or worse, some of the politicization helps voters understand more,” Newberger said.

Paul Lemle, president of the Maryland State Education Association and former president of the Howard teachers union, isn’t shocked one bit about how competitive some of the district races played out.

Back in 2016, Mavis Ellis won by 1.4%, Jen Mallo won by 4% in 2020 and most recently in 2022, Linfeng Chen won the second at-large seat by only half a percentage point, Lemle said.

“This isn’t new,” Lemle said.

Roughly the same number of voters came out for the 2020 school board election in each district as they did last week.

Lemle’s advice for future school board candidates: Build relationships with educators and the teacher’s union.

“We [teachers union-endorsed candidates] win whether the wave is red or blue,” Lemle said. “You really cannot be serious about getting on the Board of Education without having a great relationship with HCEA.”

Both Ricks and Chamblee were endorsed by the teachers union. This election cycle, the union decided to not endorse in the races with incumbents. In the 2020 election, the first in which candidates ran for district seats, the union endorsed three candidates, and two were elected to the board: Watts and Mosley.

It’s one thing for candidates to share their points at campaign forums, it’s another, Lemle said, to join the operating budget review committee or to show up at school PTA meetings. In the District 1 race, for example, both candidates regularly attended town halls and county government meetings, and testified before the school board.

“These things matter,” Lemle said.

Ricks, 43, who came in last in the 2022 primary for the at-large seat, won the District 1 seat by 766 votes. Her opponent, Andre Gao, 64, conceded to Ricks early Sunday morning.

Mallo, 55, who came out on top for the 2020 primary and general election, had a different victory journey this go-around. In the May primary, she trailed behind newcomer Julie Kaplan, 52, by nearly 10%. But Mallo kept her District 4 seat, winning the general election by 1,150 votes.

When Mallo won in 2020, her opponent spent more than she did. This election, Mallo spent more than Kaplan — and more than double of her campaign war chest from four years prior.

In District 5, while voters were choosing between two newcomers to the school board, their names were recognizable. Kittleman, 79, served in the Maryland House of Delegates for about eight years and is the widow of state Sen. Robert H. Kittleman. Her opponent, Chamblee, 64, is the widow of John McNamara, a sports writer and editor, who was murdered in the 2018 Annapolis Capital Gazette shooting, and is a gun safety activist.

Chamblee, who maintained a small lead that only grew from election night, won by 1,958 votes.

The two at-large members, who are elected countywide, are not up for reelection until 2026. The current student member of the board, James Obasiolu, a senior at Atholton High School, is the last seat on the eight-member board.

Schmitt, who campaigned for Chamblee and Ricks on behalf of the teachers union, said it’s possible the next school board election could be as competitive as this year’s. But he is taking the election outcome as a sign of hope.

“I’m hoping in essence this is a signal that hate doesn’t belong here. We have to teach all children and we have to work with all families regardless of how anybody feels,” Schmitt said. “This is a public school system.”

Newberger also sees this year’s election outcome as a good thing.

“People come for the top of the ballot but the bottom of the ballot is also really impactful,” Newberger said. “School boards have a lot of power to build great schools but also tear down districts.”