DORAL, Fla. — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is working to rally a crowd of school board loyalists across Florida as he seeks a second term in the nation’s third-largest state.
“We need help at the local level,” DeSantis told a fire department building before 430 cheering supporters during a campaign rally Sunday. “You in your power getting out and voting will make a huge difference.”
The governor has endorsed 29 conservative candidates ahead of Tuesday’s election in school board races, which typically get little attention and are technically nonpartisan.
School board members make decisions about spending, schedules, supplies, curriculum, and other matters. But in more than a dozen counties where DeSantis has endorsed candidates, school boards defied the governor last fall by requiring students to wear masks.
The election has focused more on voters who were disillusioned after US schools remained closed during the coronavirus pandemic. DeSantis and other Republicans have taken note of the energy behind these races and have also moved to limit school curriculum or practices around race, gender and sexual orientation.
“We’re not going to surrender to wake up,” said DeSantis, whose political committee has donated to school board candidates. “We will prevail and Florida is the state where the revival goes to die.”
Lt. Gen. Jeanette Nuñez, who also appeared at the event, told the crowd that the DeSantis administration focused on education because “it’s the key to opportunity, it’s the key to our future.”
“I call on each of you to join us in this fight to take back our school boards,” he said.
Criticizing the Democratic Party as a “woke garbage fire,” DeSantis said during his speech that he would double down on many of the education issues he has tackled over the past four years, which are outlined in his 10-point education agenda on his website.
They include rejecting school lockdowns and “keeping the woke gender ideology out of schools.” DeSantis pledged during his speech to support higher pay for teachers.
Florida has some of the lowest relative pay for teachers of any state in the U.S., according to the National Education Association, even though state lawmakers and the governor have raised pay over the past year and given bonuses to teachers.
On Tuesday, DeSantis proposed a plan to ease teacher shortages in Florida by providing temporary teaching certificates to police officers, paramedics and firefighters.
Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar called the idea a “shortcut” in an interview on Yahoo Finance Live and said it’s “not really the root of the problem.”
“We want to make sure we have fully qualified, fully certified teachers in our classroom with the experience and support they need to teach every child,” the union leader said.
Newly sworn in Governor Ron DeSantis arrives with his wife Casey DeSantis for an event at the Freedom Tower where he named Barbara Lagoa to the Florida Supreme Court on January 09, 2019 in Miami, Florida. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
DeSantis touts anti-lockdown record
Doral, which is in Miami-Dade County, was the first stop on a tour Sunday that would also include Sarasota, Volusia and Duval counties. The event in Sarasota drew a crowd of more than 1,200 people, according to the DeSantis campaign.
In November, DeSantis will face either Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried or Rep. Charlie Crist, a St. Petersburg lawmaker who was previously Florida’s GOP governor from 2007 to 2011. Voters will decide the winner of the Democratic nomination for governor during Tuesday’s primary.
DeSantis has recently campaigned for Republicans in other states, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate JD Vance in Ohio.
DeSantis is widely rumored to be eyeing the White House. Running against candidates in other states — particularly battleground states — is one way presidential candidates build political allegiances and burnish their brands as leaders of their respective parties.
“It’s very important to raise awareness of his policies right now before he becomes so powerful,” Avani, a 28-year-old transgender woman protesting outside DeSantis’ campaign, told Insider in an interview. She declined to share her last name.
During his roughly 30-minute speech, DeSantis celebrated his actions as governor that included setting new education standards that reduced testing and requiring school districts to show how they choose textbooks.
DeSantis celebrated how he defied federal health officials and teachers unions in the fall of 2020 when he decided to reopen schools during the pandemic. Although it faced backlash for months, many blue states eventually followed suit as they concluded that closing schools did more harm than good.
The governor said during his speech Sunday that being a parent of three young children has influenced his views on schools.
“It makes me and her more sensitive to a lot of things that parents have to think about with kids these days,” he said of himself and his wife, Casey DeSantis.
Those attending the rally said they were excited about the governor’s political future. Gianni Lehmann, 73, of Miami’s Westchester neighborhood, said “we need new blood” on school boards and that “education should be the first priority.”
DeSantis supporter Max Morgan, 50, of Broward, said “every parent is conservative when it comes to their kids” even if they themselves are politically liberal.
“We want the best for our children, we want the safest environment, the best education,” he said.
Opponents of Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis’ education agenda gather outside a campaign event in Miami-Dade County on August 21, 2022. Kimberly Leonard/Insider
“Save our children”
During his speech, DeSantis also championed policies that have sparked backlash and lawsuits, including the Parental Rights in Education Act.
Dubbed by critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” the new law bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, particularly in kindergarten through third grade.
“Kids are exposed to things that rob them of their innocence,” said Jackie Rosario, one of the school board candidates for Indian River County. “The content is often not age or grade level appropriate. We need a new slogan: Save our children.”
But critics say the bill could be extended to higher grades because it contains ambiguous language that prohibits such instruction “in a manner that is not age or developmentally appropriate.” They worry about LGBTQ teachers speaking coldly and students being sent to families that don’t accept them.
Another area of curriculum that DeSantis touted at his campaign rally was “critical race theory,” which he defined as teaching “kids to hate our country and hate each other because of race.” Republicans have used the term as shorthand for racial debates and teachings they say are linked to Marxism.
Formally, critical race theory examines racism in American institutions stemming from slavery and the Jim Crow era. Democrats have argued that it is mostly taught in law schools and accuse politicians who favor the ban of trying to whitewash the story.
The DeSantis event drew about 30 protesters across the street who chanted “We say gay!” as the governor’s supporters left the event.
Protesters held signs condemning a new state law that makes abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a state effort to consider barring transgender minors from access to puberty blockers and DeSantis’ education policies.
“Teachers feel uncomfortable that they can’t speak their mind, that they can’t be themselves,” Avani said.
