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A polarizing local advocacy group lost ground in a closely watched Manhattan parent council race following a backlash over an effort to curb transgender sports access, according to election results released Monday.
Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, endorsed seven of the members currently serving on the Community Education Council in District 2, which passed a controversial resolution last year urging the city to revise its policy allowing transgender girls to join girls teams. (PLACE-backed candidates accounted for seven of eight “yes” votes on the transgender sports resolution.)
The resolution spurred an energetic movement to oust PLACE-backed council members that inspired similar opposition in other parts of the city. A total of 1,348 parents ran for the elections this year — an increase of 24% over the last election in 2023.
In District 2, the anti-PLACE organizing showed signs of success. Only three of the newly elected members were endorsed by PLACE, compared to seven last election. Maud Maron, a former PLACE president and co-founder who played a key role in the transgender sports resolution, did not get reelected.
In other districts, however, PLACE, which maintains it is focused on rigorous academics and does not want to get involved in national politics, endorsed almost all of the winning candidates, keeping a major presence citywide.
The increased engagement in District 2 and some other parts of the city didn’t make a dent in the abysmal voter turnout rates.
After a bumpy election process, participation in this year’s races dipped to its lowest level since all public school parents became eligible to vote in 2021 (PTA leaders previously decided the races).
Only 18,158 households voted in the elections this year — a participation rate of 2%. About 19,000 caregivers cast ballots in 2023 and 22,000 did so in 2021.
Every two years, parents across the city vote for representatives on Community Education Councils, which serve as a conduit between parent leaders and policymakers but have little formal power outside of approving school zones. There are 32 local councils across the city and four citywide councils representing English language learners, students with disabilities, and high school families.
Alina Lewis, a newly minted council member in Brooklyn’s District 20, said the low turnout citywide “serves to reinforce the entire lack of power and meaninglessness of the CEC structure itself, which is connected to the whole issue of mayoral control,” she said, referring to the mayor’s authority over the Education Department. “These bodies need to have real power and real teeth.”
Here are four takeaways from this year’s council races, including a Chalkbeat analysis of how the groups who endorsed candidates this year fared.
PLACE loses ground in District 2 after transgender rights backlash
No race in the city was more closely watched than that of District 2, the largest in the city. It spans most of lower and midtown Manhattan through the Upper East side.
The district’s CEC has become a national lightning rod in the wake of the transgender sports resolution, which was sharply rebuked by the city Education Department.
Maron has also spoken multiple times at events for the conservative national parent group Moms for Liberty, a move that sparked protests in deep blue Manhattan. In a surprise move and a sign of the mounting backlash, PLACE, the organization Maron helped put on the map, declined to endorse her for this election, citing a desire to move beyond distractions bogging down the council. Maron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Three PLACE-backed candidates, including current CEC 2 president and PLACE leader Craig Slutzkin, were reelected. Slutzkin got the highest vote total in the city with 687.
Both of the grassroots groups pushing to unseat PLACE members celebrated the results.
“We are thrilled that Maud has lost her seat and that PLACE candidates have limited representation on D2 going forward,” said a representative of the group Families for Change NYC in a statement. The group was one of several that cropped up this year to oppose PLACE-backed candidates. The group has not revealed the names of its members because of fear of harassment.
Megan Madison, a children’s book author who helped spearhead a loose coalition called Aunties and Friends 4 Liberation that began organizing around the council election following the transgender sports resolution, called it a “wonderful day.”
“We’ve proven that we can effectively fight the far-right by engaging everyday people in hyper-local politics,” she said.
Slutzkin, who emphasized that he has no affiliation with Moms for Liberty or President Donald Trump and has criticized the tactics of PLACE opponents, said in a statement that his reelection is a “reflection of parents’ desire for rigorous, quality education for all kids.”
PLACE-backed candidates pushed for the return of admission screens in district middle schools following the pandemic and are now pushing for accelerated math in more middle schools.
Culture war backlash spread beyond District 2
Backlash to efforts to curb transgender protections in District 2 also made its way into other council races. In Queens’ District 30, a group called “D30 Parents Protecting Trans Children” organized to endorse a slate of candidates.
In Brooklyn’s District 15, one of the top vote-getters campaigned explicitly on her experience as the parent of a transgender student who moved from Florida for a more welcoming environment. D15 Parents for Middle School Equity, a long-running group, endorsed candidates citywide for the second time, with 90 of its candidates winning seats, a Chalkbeat analysis found. That represents about 26% of all elected council seats.
Anger over the situation in District 2 — and heightened fears about threats from Trump — also motivated Alliance for Quality Education, or AQE, a well-known progressive advocacy group, to endorse for the first time. AQE-backed candidates won 89 seats, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. Candidates endorsed by AQE, D15 Parents for Middle School Equity, and NYC Families for Change NYC had significant overlap.
“We’re really excited about the results,” said Smitha Varghese, AQE’s senior New York City campaign strategist. “Parents knew that our schools are more vulnerable than ever and stepped up to lead in this moment of chaos.”
Families for Change NYC, the District 2 group which endorsed across the city, had 104 of its chosen candidates elected.
PLACE maintains strongholds
Despite the vocal backlash to some PLACE-supported candidates and the emergence of new advocacy groups, PLACE didn’t lose much of its footprint.
PLACE-backed candidates won 112 seats citywide (the group also endorsed over 200, the highest of any of the groups that endorsed CEC candidates). That represents about 33% of all elected council seats — down from about 37% last election cycle, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.
In districts in northeast Queens and southern Brooklyn, PLACE-supported candidates won almost every seat.
“We’re really happy,” said PLACE president Yiatin Chu.
She said the endorsement process involved parent volunteers combing through candidate bios and watching online forums to see which ones spoke about issues important to PLACE. The group launched to protect selective admissions criteria, and Chu said it’s now focused on “fundamental” issues including reading proficiency and chronic absenteeism.
Election snafus fuel criticism of family engagement office
Despite deep divides between parent groups about education policy, there is widespread agreement that the Education Department mismanaged the election.
Just hours after the election began, officials shut down the online voting system for several hours to fix “technical issues.” Things only worsened from there.
A candidate in Manhattan’s District 1 was left off the ballot entirely, a mistake that was corrected a week after voting began. The department’s office of Family and Community Engagement, known as FACE, told families who already voted that they would have to recast their ballots. A department spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about how many ultimately did.
In other cases, the problems were more mundane, such as inconsistently listing candidates on ballots. Some appeared with their last names first and others in the reverse order.
As issues with the election mounted, three education councils — District 1, District 20, and the citywide high school council — passed resolutions criticizing FACE, which has been gripped by internal turmoil in recent years.
“The persistent and systemic failures in FACE’s administration of these elections undermines parent trust in the process and threatens to depress parent participation in school governance,” according to language from all three resolutions.
An Education Department spokesperson did not comment on the concerns outlined in the resolutions.
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
