The National School Board Association requested assistance from the Biden administration in dealing with increasing threats.
In recent months, school board meetings have been the center of a culture war about the coronavirus.
The FBI and DOJ offered assistance to the organization.
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The national school board meetings have become so contentious over the past months that the president for the National School Boards Association has asked the Biden administration to intervene and help with the growing incidents of violence or intimidation.
"America's public school system and its educators are under immediate threat," Viola M. Garcia (the president of the governing body) and Chip Slaven (the interim executive director) wrote to the president Wednesday.
The group asked federal law enforcement for assistance and stated that "immediate" help was needed to protect students, educators, school board members, and teachers who all became more vulnerable to violence due to the politicization and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once a staple of local government, community school board meetings have become the center of culture wars over critical race theory and the coronavirus. In an attempt to be heard, parents have threatened and accosted school board members.
Garcia and Slaven wrote that local school board members would like to hear from their community on important issues.
They added that "but, there must also be safeguards in order to protect public schools as well as dedicated educators leaders as they do what they do,"
In their letter, the group cited incidents of anti-mask parents attacking meetings and an incident in Virginia which resulted in an arrest following a violent school board discussion on critical race theory.
Academic evidence that racism is embedded in American institutions has sparked a political storm. Several conservative-run states passed legislation to ban the use of the framework in schools. Students have returned to class in the past two months after the outrage over critical racism theory spread to school-board meetings.
Ashley Collman, Insider's Ashley Collman, spoke with seven teachers from states that have passed anti-CRT legislation or are considering it. The educators stated that much of the conservative backlash against the college-level framework was exaggerated. Teachers expressed concern that misplaced anger from parents could have a chilling effect on education.
In recent weeks, another hot topic has been COVID mitigation methods in schools. This has included vaccines and masks. Advocates for "parents' Choice" have been fighting hard against school mask mandates.
The school board association wrote to Biden requesting that federal and state law enforcement agencies collaborate to track the threats. They specifically asked for assistance from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service. The school board association also requested that the US Postal Inspection Service intervene in the fight against cyberbullying and threats.
The letter stated that "As these acts have intensified, violence and threats have been made against public school officials, the classification of these heinous activities could be the equivalent of a form domestic terrorism or hate crimes."
On Thursday, the White House stated that it is looking into further measures to ensure public officials are safe.
Jen Psaki, spokesperson for Jen Psaki, stated that "Obviously these threats to school board member is terrible; they're doing what they have to,". "We are continuing to look at what can be done across administration, but a lot will be local law enforcement.
