Every so often a policy shift shows up in your kid’s classroom and you find yourself wondering who actually voted on that. In Utah, the answer is often the State Board of Education.

Good news: those fifteen seats are filled by elected people, which means you get a say in who sits in them. Below is what the board does, why these races might matter more than they tend to get credit for, and the two candidates we think deserve the chairs in 2026 — Trina Lyn Christensen in District 8 and Erin Longacre in District 7.

 

What the State School Board actually does

The Utah State Board of Education is fifteen people, elected from fifteen districts that cover the entire state. Each member serves a four-year term, and the seats are staggered so that part of the board is up for election every cycle. The board is the constitutional governing body for public K–12 education in Utah, which means a lot more than the name suggests. In practice, the State School Board:

• Sets state-wide K–12 education policy that every district in Utah has to follow
• Approves academic standards and the broad curriculum frameworks behind what gets taught
• Oversees the State Superintendent and the Utah State Board of Education staff
• Reviews and approves charter school applications, expansions, and closures
• Sets graduation requirements and the assessments students take along the way
• Weighs in on how billions of dollars in state education funding actually get used

Here’s the part that often gets missed. The State School Board doesn’t run your local school district. That’s your local school board’s job. But the State Board sets the rules and standards that every local district has to operate within. If you’ve ever wondered why a policy change at the state level suddenly showed up in your kid’s classroom, this is usually where it started.

 

Why these races matter more than they get credit for

Education touches almost every family in Utah, and the dollars involved are not small — public education is one of the largest line items in the state budget every year. Decisions about standards, assessments, charter schools, and how taxpayer money flows through the system are made by fifteen elected people most voters can’t name.

Add in the fact that State School Board races run at the same low-turnout end of the ballot as other down-ballot races, and you get a familiar Utah pattern. The people who show up early — at convention, in the primary, or in a special election — have an outsized say in who ends up making the calls.

In 2026, the Doers Network is backing two candidates in two very different races. Trina Christensen is heading into the June primary in District 8 after coming out of convention with the momentum to keep going. Erin Longacre is running in a special election in District 7 to keep the seat she’s already serving in. Different districts, different paths, same kind of work waiting on the other side.

 

Trina Lyn Christensen — State School Board District 8

Trina Christensen is running for the District 8 seat on the State School Board. She made it through the convention process and is now heading to the June 23, 2026 Republican primary, where she’s up against current Granite School District board president Nicole McDermott.

Trina is a West Jordan resident and a career educator. She started teaching music at 18 to pay her way through college, taught in two elementary schools, and for the past fourteen years has built and led after-school programs that help struggling students grow into confident, capable adults. She currently teaches with Sistema Utah, and she’s built a track record most candidates would kill for — nineteen Utah Best of State awards across early childhood music education, K–12 music education, employee training, and individual instruction.

Her core line says a lot about how she sees the job: "We simply CANNOT let the tyranny of low expectations limit our students, dismiss our parents, or stifle teachers." That’s not a slogan from a consultant. It’s how she actually talks about the work.

What she's running on

• Parents as essential partners — schools should welcome families to the table, not push them to the margins
• Practical policy grounded in classroom reality — built with educators in mind, not over their heads
• Accountability and transparency on every tax dollar and every decision
• High standards over the soft tyranny of low expectations — because excuses doom students and ambition opens doors
• Fourteen-plus years building after-school programs that help struggling students grow into confident, capable adults
• Nineteen Utah Best of State awards across early childhood music education, K–12 music education, employee training, and individual instruction

Trina’s pitch is that positive change in education requires meaningful connection — and that means showing up in classrooms, in communities, and at kitchen tables with the parents and teachers who are living the policy every day. Not just voting from a chair downtown.

More on Trina at trina4utahschoolboard.com.

 

Erin Longacre — State School Board District 7

Erin Longacre is running in a special election for the District 7 seat she’s already serving in, with election day on November 3, 2026. Her opponent is James Martin, a principal in the Salt Lake City school district.

Erin lives in Draper with her husband Chris and their three kids. She played Division I volleyball at Villanova and earned her degree in communications with a sociology minor — and pretty much everything she’s done since has been about being present in her community. She substitutes in local classrooms, volunteers in schools, supports the PTA, leads student groups, works as a crossing guard, and coaches mountain biking at Draper Park Middle School.

Her case to voters is built around that presence. She doesn’t see the State School Board as part-time work or a title to collect — she sees it as something that requires you to actually be in the schools, talking to the people doing the work. As she puts it, the best decisions in education come from being in the trenches.

What she's running on

• A boots-on-the-ground philosophy — show up in the schools, in the halls, and in conversations with the people doing the actual work
• Real, ongoing community presence: substitute teacher, classroom volunteer, PTA supporter, crossing guard, and mountain biking coach at Draper Park Middle School
• Strong support and clear tools for teachers, so they can do what they got into the profession to do
• Optimal learning environments for students, where they can actually reach their potential
• Parents who feel informed, heard, and connected — not talked at
• A campaign built on cottage meetings, round-table events, and job shadowing rather than just flyers on doors

Erin’s line is "There is always a solution to every issue — and I’m committed to doing the work to find it, advocate for it, and get it done." That’s the kind of energy that doesn’t always make headlines but tends to make policy actually work in practice.

More on Erin at Erin4Utah.com.

 

What both endorsements have in common

Trina and Erin are running for different seats on different timelines — Trina in a June primary, Erin in a November special election — but we’re backing both for the same reasons.

Both spend real time in schools with real students, parents, and teachers. Both treat the State School Board as a public trust and as full-time work, not a title to hold from a distance. Both put parents and teachers at the center of how they think about education, instead of treating them as obstacles to manage. And both bring a track record of actually getting things done in their communities, not just talking about doing them.

These are exactly the kinds of races where Utah’s broader political math tips the scales. Lower turnout means each engaged vote carries more weight. Showing up early matters.

 

How to plug in

If you live in District 8, head to trina4utahschoolboard.com to learn more about Trina, sign up to volunteer, or chip in if you’re in a position to. If you live in District 7, swing by Erin4Utah.com to do the same for Erin. Both campaigns are looking for volunteers willing to knock doors, host cottage meetings, and help spread the word in their neighborhoods.

If you want to be part of the bigger picture, get involved with the Doers Network. We’re building a community of Utahns who actually show up, study the issues, and back qualified candidates for offices that don’t make the headlines but do most of the work. You can sign up to volunteer with us, or just drop your email to get future articles like this one and a steady drip of ways to plug in across the state.

State School Board races won’t lead any newscast. But the people who win them will shape what happens in Utah’s public schools for the next four years. That’s worth showing up for.