Same Playbook, Different County: How Two Groups Are Remaking School Boards
You've probably heard the phrase "parental rights" attached to a school board race near you. Maybe a chapter meeting got announced at the fire hall. Maybe a candidate's yard signs mentioned "stopping indoctrination." It can look small and local, like a fight over one book or one curriculum.
It's not. It's about who ends up deciding which kids get to see themselves reflected in their own schools, and who ends up out of a job because of it.
FIRST: WHAT DOES A SCHOOL BOARD ACTUALLY CONTROL?
That's exactly what's been happening, over and over, in districts around the country, including here in Maryland.
WHAT HAPPENED
Two organizations show up again and again in these fights.
Moms for Liberty was founded in January 2021 in Florida by Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, two former Florida school board members. It grew fast, claiming 285 chapters and more than 100,000 members within a couple of years. Its first major PAC donation, $50,000, came from Julie Fancelli, the Publix supermarket heiress who also helped fund the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Moms for Liberty as a far-right group that "engages in anti-student inclusion activities," and has documented its affiliations with the Proud Boys and the anti-LGBTQ group Gays Against Groomers.
The 1776 Project PAC was founded later that same year, 2021, by political consultant Ryan Girdusky. Its stated mission is electing "reform-minded conservatives" to school boards, opposing critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In 2022, Maryland's state prosecutor and State Board of Elections fined the PAC more than $20,000 after it sent nearly 14,000 unlabeled campaign texts to Carroll County voters, a violation of Maryland's campaign disclosure law.
These two groups are not the same organization, but they run in the same lane. They frequently endorse the same candidates in the same races. National coverage routinely describes them as a pair: "parental rights groups," "conservative advocacy organizations." The Maryland Democratic Party names both together as a "dangerous fringe agenda" and has taken the unusual step of directly funding counter-campaigns against their candidates in school board races, races that are legally nonpartisan.
In Maryland, the 1776 Project PAC has endorsed more candidates than in any other state. In the 2024 election cycle alone, it endorsed 19 Maryland candidates across nine school districts and spent $75,409.58 on 13 candidates in Cecil, Queen Anne's, Talbot, Calvert, Somerset, and St. Mary's counties. It won control of the Somerset and Calvert county boards outright that cycle, and came close in Talbot. Moms for Liberty, meanwhile, has active chapters in Talbot, Carroll, Wicomico, Howard, Montgomery, and Anne Arundel counties. In Carroll County, the chapter succeeded in getting 21 books banned from public school libraries.
THE PLAYBOOK
Strip away the branding and the pattern is consistent enough that it has been documented, county by county, for several years now. It runs the same way almost everywhere:
A local chapter forms out of a specific flashpoint: a mask mandate, a library book, an email from a superintendent about equity or Black Lives Matter. Candidates are recruited to run as a slate, usually under shared, vague language like "parental rights" or "stop the indoctrination." National money and coordinated messaging flow into races that are, on paper, nonpartisan and local. The slate wins, often while being outspent locally but backed with unusual amounts of outside PAC money. Then, within days or hours of being sworn in, the new board majority moves fast: personnel changes, often targeting the district's superintendent, especially if that superintendent is Black; policy reversals, like disbanding DEI committees or banning books; and sometimes outside consultants brought in to rewrite curriculum.
This isn't a theory about coincidence. Moms for Liberty has taught it as a formal strategy at its own national conference. In 2023, a presenter named Jordan Adams, whose consulting firm has been hired by several "flipped" boards, ran a session at the group's annual summit called "The First 100 Days: Getting Flipped School Boards to Take Action." Attendees were handed worksheets on how to move quickly before opposition could organize.
THE DAMAGE
The clearest example is Berkeley County, South Carolina, the state's fourth-largest school district. In November 2022, six Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates won board seats. On the night they were sworn in, within two hours, the new board fired Deon Jackson, the district's first Black superintendent; fired the district's legal counsel; replaced the board chair with a Moms for Liberty-backed member; banned critical race theory; and created a committee to review and ban library books. Moms for Liberty celebrated on Facebook: "6 new board members clean house first night on the job." Jackson later sued the board, alleging gross negligence, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.
In Hamilton County, Indiana, a Moms for Liberty-endorsed slate won four board seats on Hamilton Southeastern Schools' board in 2022, each candidate raising roughly $20,000, far more than their competitors, with national backing. That board later bought out the contract of Yvonne Stokes, the district's first Black superintendent, ending her tenure after what community members and reporting described as "a bitter fight over social and political issues." The same chapter had already drawn national criticism for quoting Adolf Hitler in a chapter newsletter.
In Pennridge, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, five of nine board seats are held by members tied to Moms for Liberty. That board disbanded the district's DEI committee, twice; cut social studies credit requirements; banned books including Toni Morrison's Beloved; barred teachers from displaying Pride flags or other symbols marking safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students; and voted 5-4 to hire Vermilion Education, a consulting firm tied to Hillsdale College, to rewrite curriculum, despite the firm's founder admitting under questioning that he lacked the teaching and supervisory credentials Pennsylvania law requires.
In Sarasota, Florida, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler chaired the school board after a 2022 takeover and tried to push through the same Vermilion Education contract with only 24 hours' public notice. It failed there, 3-2, but the attempt showed the same national script being run.
Here in Maryland, the pieces are already on the board. Somerset and Calvert counties were flipped by 1776 Project PAC-backed candidates in 2024. Talbot County has an active Moms for Liberty chapter that meets regularly with district administrators and is holding candidate forums right now, ahead of its 2026 school board election. Carroll County has already seen 21 books pulled from library shelves. Queen Anne's County has also received direct 1776 Project PAC campaign funding.
Queen Anne's County has its own earlier chapter in this same story. In 2020, Dr. Andrea Kane, the county's first Black superintendent, came under sustained attack after sending families a letter expressing support for Black Lives Matter. A Facebook group called Kent Island Patriots, with more than 2,000 members, organized to demand her removal. Kane later filed a federal complaint alleging the school board had created a hostile work environment based on her race. She stepped down in 2021, at the end of her contract. That campaign predates the confirmed involvement of the 1776 Project PAC or Moms for Liberty in Queen Anne's County school board financing, which shows up in the record starting in 2024. It is not possible, from the public record, to say those specific organizations directed the campaign against Kane. What is fair to say is that the same underlying dynamic, a local backlash campaign against a Black school leader organizing outside the normal channels of school governance, played out in Queen Anne's County years before either national group had a documented financial footprint here.
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW YET
Talbot County's 2026 school board election is still underway. The local Moms for Liberty chapter held a candidate forum on September 17. Two days later, the chapter's own chair published an opinion piece accusing a Talbot County Public Schools administrator of retaliating against a school board candidate who is challenging the sitting board president. The same piece accuses the sitting board president of breaking school policy by using students and school property in her own campaign ads. As of this writing, the superintendent's office has not publicly responded to either claim.
This Dispatch does not take a position on who is right. What is confirmed is that the person making these accusations holds a formal leadership role in the local Moms for Liberty chapter. A credibility attack like this, timed right before a board election, is worth watching as part of the pattern described above. Whether Talbot's race ends up following the faster, more direct pattern seen in Berkeley County and Hamilton County, personnel and policy changes after a board is seated, won't be clear until after the votes are counted.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Go to your local school board meetings, or watch the recording if your district posts one. Most of what happens, happens in public first.
- Look up who is funding candidates in your local school board race. Maryland campaign finance filings are public record through the State Board of Elections.
- Support candidates, of any background, who center every child in the district, not just some.
- If you work in a district or serve on a board yourself, document decisions and communications in writing. Patterns like this one are easiest to stop when there's a clear record.
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