It remains extremely strange to me that we have our school boards be largely totally non-professional laypeople in the US. Obviously there's no absolute requirement that you be a "professional" for almost any elected position in the US, but school boards are one of those situations, like judges and comptrollers, where it seems like there should be some basic qualifications for running. Especially because many of the folks elected to school boards are either 1) crazies with a bone to pick with a specific teacher/administrator/school or 2) moderately ambitious ladder climbers hoping to launch their political careers without having to work too hard.