For a snapshot of the culture wars, watch a school board meeting

To attend a Loudoun County School Board meeting, you must pass through a police cordon in the parking lot and a metal detector inside the building. More officers guard the shiny new auditorium and hallway, and bags larger than a sheaf of printer paper are not allowed inside. Nor are containers, voice enhancement devices, large signs, banners, “visual props” or “any item . . . that may be used as a projectile or weapon.”

What’s going on?

This wealthy Northern Virginia suburban county has become a culture-war hot spot, and school board meetings, ground zero. Rowdy parent protests against critical race theory have ended in arrests. Last year, a high-profile sexual assault case in the schools was (wrongly) portrayed as a transgender bathroom issue.

Yet last Tuesday’s board meeting was business as usual — almost reassuringly so. On the agenda: naming the new middle school, awarding a contract to buy musical instruments, reviewing the effects of school-zone changes, hiring American Sign Language interpreters. Partway through, a high school choir arrived to sing the national anthem.

And then came “public comment.” Parents and others exercised by the various controversies showed up to make their voices heard.

“Let go of all the far-left politics and release the report,” said one parent, in a shirt that read “Moms for Liberty.”

She referred to the school district’s internal assessment of its handling of attention-grabbing sexual assaults in the schools, which the board, at its previous meeting, decided not to make public.

“I hope all your political aspirations and careers fail,” hissed another speaker on the same subject, calling board members out by name.

I asked others in the room which issue they thought the board most urgently needed to address.

Many championed the teaching of Black history and equal opportunity for students and teachers alike.

Librarians protested book bans. And one parent stood up to support the board, denouncing the threats of violence some members have received. “This is not what democracy looks like.”

(Last fall, the county discontinued its covid-era practice of providing free meals for students during breaks, citing lack of funding.)

In his 1835 classic “Democracy in America,” French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville observed, “To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows.” School board meetings remain, despite all interruptions, some of the most accessible venues for civic engagement in the country.

“I’m a community member, I’m a taxpayer, and I care about the future of education,” said Susan Cox, a mother of two Loudoun County students. “That’s why I came. All that CRT stuff is” — she waved her hand — “way up here. No one is even teaching that stuff. I wish they’d just focus on . . . you know, equality. Learning.”

Perhaps, in the end, the citizens who end up having the most influence will be the ones who show up.

(Asked to verify that charge, Dan Adams, the school district’s media and communications coordinator said, “Because of our need to protect student and staff confidentiality, we cannot share details about any specific medical emergency.”)

Others were more concerned about social media and phone usage turning classrooms into a “dystopia” and about a fentanyl-fueled drug epidemic spilling over into high school restrooms.

Students spoke, too, offering an eye-level look at school life.