Eight out of the 15 seats of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) are up for election this fall. One of them is District 5, which includes Bastrop, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Hays, Travis and parts of Blanco and Williamson Counties.

The main role of the SBOE is to decide what is taught in K-12 schools. Its 15 members adopt curriculum standards for each subject area, known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). They also approve instructional materials, including reading lists, and execute the purchase of textbooks. The board also oversees the Texas Permanent School Fund and votes on the approval of charter schools.

The current board is composed of 11 Republicans and four Democrats. Over the last year, the board has been in the spotlight for approving a Christian- and Texas-centric social studies curriculum and a mandatory reading list that, as some have pointed out, is long, lacks diversity and emphasizes Bible passages. In 2024, the board approved the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum, which included thousands of errors that will cost $8.4 million in taxpayer dollars to fix.

With Democrats in the minority, the upcoming election could level out the votes in the room for the next two years. These are the candidates running for District 5.

Dolores “Mica” Arellano

A 30-year educator from Kyle, Mica Arellano is the Republican candidate for the SBOE District 5 seat. Her website says she has seen firsthand what helps students succeed.

“From early learning to long-term academic development, Mica understand what works in real classrooms– not just in policy discussions,” the website reads. “She’s stepping in because she knows what needs to be fixed – and how to fix it.”

Arellano is running on a plan to improve five areas of public education to help students succeed and teachers thrive. Those areas include school safety, strong curriculum standards, retaining and supporting educators and ensuring tax dollars are spent on students and classrooms, not “unnecessary bureaucracy.”

Arellano declined an interview with KUT News.

Allison Bush

Allison Bush has spent 25 years teaching in classrooms across Texas, including Pflugerville and Bastrop. Bush became the Democratic candidate for District 5 after running against five other candidates in the primary and winning a runoff election.

Bush said she decided to run for the SBOE because the current board does not have many voices of people who know what it’s like to be an educator.

“I know the decisions that you’re making at the state level, how they impact a student or a teacher,” Bush said. “I was tired of seeing those impacts happen at the local level. And I said ‘I want to step up and help make those decisions.’”

Bush said that over the last few years the SBOE has made a lot of changes “motivated by political agendas,” such as the new social studies TEKS or the newly approved reading list. She said she wants to help the board put political ideology aside and work together for Texas students because schools are at the heart of communities.

“We need a rigorous curriculum that is historically accurate and that represents every child. When our students see themselves in what they’re learning, they learn better,” she said. “I’m seeing that the state board and what they’re passing is telling our students what to think and not teaching them how to think.”

While Bush understands there have to be regulations in place for school districts, she said Texas is a diverse state, and a one-size-fits-all curriculum could be detrimental to some students and teachers. She said she would push for districts to have more autonomy in how to achieve the standards that are set by the state.

“The way that the TEKS are being written now, there’s very little room for that,” she said. “It’s like a scare tactic to the teachers, they don’t want to go off script. We’re giving them too many steps, too many things to fit and in a short amount of time.”

As part of a board that in the last year has had divided votes and perspectives, Bush said she would not be afraid of standing up against “nonnegotiables.” For her, those include “pushing agendas on our educators,” by making them teach about one faith over another or giving them unattainable reading lists. She said she would try to work across the aisle, putting the community’s concerns at the center of the conversation.

Bush said it’s important for people to be informed and get to the SBOE section of their ballot because the decisions made by the board have an impact on the future of the Texas workforce.

The first day of early voting is Oct. 19. Election day is Nov. 3.