DeSantis-backed school board candidates face off in Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn't on the ballot Tuesday — but his education agenda is.

DeSantis is once again throwing his weight behind county school board candidates across the state. Though the seats are officially nonpartisan, the Republican governor has endorsed 23 school board candidates on the ballot Tuesday in 14 Florida counties — and he's targeted 14 incumbent board members he wants to see voted out.

One board that conservatives are hoping to win a majority on is in Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Historically known as one of the state’s largest swing counties, Pinellas has been moving to the right in recent years. In a pattern playing out across the state, conservative activists there have equated certain teaching materials with pornography and labeled educators as “groomers.”

Much of the political debate in the races has focused on “parental rights” at a time when both parties are fighting to win over the contested voting bloc of suburban women. The modern parental rights movement grew out of opposition to pandemic precautions in schools and is now animated by complaints about classroom instruction on gender identity and systemic racism.

Florida's new school board members will take office as traditional public schools are facing dramatic declines in student enrollment, with districts large and small wrestling with whether to close schools and what to do with their real estate holdings once the campuses are shuttered. School districts are often among the largest employers and landowners in their communities.

Three challengers in Pinellas have won the endorsement of DeSantis and the local chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.

If elected, candidates Stacy Geier, Danielle Marolf and Erika Picard would join two current members who are endorsed by Moms for Liberty, constituting a majority on the nine-seat board.

“He knows who the true conservative is in my race,” Marolf said after winning DeSantis' endorsement. “My values are actually to protect children.”

But some in Pinellas say parents' rights activists have gone too far, like school board candidate Katie Blaxberg, a registered Republican who's found herself on the opposing side of Moms for Liberty. Blaxberg is running against Geier for an open seat on the board.

Activists aligned with Moms for Liberty have disparaged Blaxberg online and posted information about her children and her home. The chapter president did not respond to phone and email messages from The Associated Press.

“The misinformation that has been spread by this group of people and the intent to ... place mistrust in our teachers,” Blaxberg said, “people are tired of it.”

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Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.