A Florida School Board Member Speaks Out About Being Targeted by DeSantis

[Nevilledog]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/a-florida-school-board-member-speaks-out-about-being-targeted-by-desantis/

Last month, Fox News reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had set his sight on 14 school board members across the state whom he wanted to see defeated in the upcoming 2024 elections for not sufficiently upholding parental rights or protecting students from “woke ideologies.” The “target list” had come together after the governor reportedly met with Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, the state’s GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler, and two co-founders of the parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty.

The initial report didn’t name the school board members being targeted, but Tom Edwards, the last standing moderate member of the Sarasota County board, had a feeling he was going to make the cut. It turns out he was right. Ziegler, who recently took over as the Republican Party chair in Florida and is married to a Sarasota school board member, has called Edwards “perhaps the most ‘woke’ school board member in America,” according to the local SRQ Magazine.

“If ‘woke’ means fostering critical thinking, if woke means creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students, then I wear it as a badge of honor.”
Edwards, a retired businessman, was elected for a four-year school board seat in August 2020 after defeating incumbent Eric Robinson, a Republican campaign treasurer. He ran on a platform to safely reopen schools and protect public schools from privatization. “When I got elected as a school board member,” Edwards said, “I made a decision that I was going to use my platform to better my community and to provide better student outcomes.” The 2022 midterm elections saw three DeSantis-endorsed candidates win seats on the Sarasota school board, flipping it to a 4-1 conservative majority. Soon after, the new board moved to terminate the superintendent over Edwards’ sole opposition.

In a statement shared via email, Edwards said the governor “hit-listed those he sees as the few remaining ‘woke’ school board members” who do not “agree with his attempts to turn back the clock on public school education.” He went on: “Ironically, I appreciate the opportunity given to me by the governor…to be an upstander. I will never step away from what I believe is the right thing to do for Sarasota County’s students, teachers, parents, and citizens.” Mother Jones spoke with Edwards about the state of public education in Florida and what it’s like to be on the governor’s watchlist. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

*snip*

[Timeflyer]

1. School Board member Edwards is a true public servant, working in a corrupt state.

School boards are being infiltrated by tools of school privatization politicians who are pandering to conservative billionaire donors.