[ New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked
their school superintendents over the span of one week.]
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DESANTIS-BACKED SCHOOL BOARDS BEGIN OUSTING FLORIDA EDUCATORS  
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Andrew Atterbury
November 30, 2022
Politico
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_ New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked
their school superintendents over the span of one week. _

Conservative school board candidates are in office — and are
purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.,
Lynne Sladky/AP Photo

 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight
behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida
during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some
educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.

New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their
school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were
spurred by how the superintendents carried out local policies like
efforts to support the rights of parents, an issue inflamed by schools
imposing student mask mandates last fall in defiance of DeSantis.

And while not tied to the 2022 election, the school board in Broward
County earlier this month fired its superintendent through an effort
led by five members appointed by DeSantis. All combined, school boards
with ties to DeSantis pushed out three superintendents in November
alone — and each of them served over districts that implemented
student mask mandates.

“We had a wave in school districts that spit in parents’ faces,”
said state Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay), who earlier this year sought
to punish schools with mask mandates. “And now the people who did
that are gone.”

In Brevard and Sarasota counties, embattled school leaders have faced
immediate pressure from newly-installed board members and offered to
leave voluntarily rather than risk a vote on their terminations.

The boards in both counties now have conservative majorities who
sought a change in leadership immediately after the midterms. Although
school boards are nonpartisan posts, lines between Democratic and
Republican candidates were drawn in many counties through endorsements
from each party as well as outside groups. The newly-elected board
members in these cases support parental rights while opposing critical
race theory and teaching gender orientation in schools.

DeSantis in particular used his clout to endorse more than two dozen
school board candidates during the 2022 election cycle, a rare move
for a Florida governor that came with $1,000 cash contributions from
DeSantis and other GOP lawmakers. Most of the candidates DeSantis
endorsed won their elections and are now transforming the make-up of
school district leadership and will have huge influence over policies
affecting hundreds of thousands of students in the state.

Both Sarasota and Brevard’s school boards put the superintendents on
the chopping block the same day that new members endorsed by DeSantis
and conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty were sworn into
office.

[A poster helping those who want to run for a school board position is
seen in the hallway.]

A poster helping those who want to run for a school board position is
seen in the hallway during the inaugural Moms For Liberty Summit at
the Tampa Marriott Water Street on July 15, 2022 in Tampa, Fla. |
Octavio Jones/Getty Images

Sarasota board members called Superintendent Brennan Asplen’s job
into question at a meeting Tuesday night specially called to discuss
his contract. After fielding about four hours of public comment,
mostly in support of the superintendent, board members vented
criticisms over student performance in reading, how he handled masking
students and a perceived lack of transparency from Asplen.

Understanding he may not have a job much longer, Asplen offered up his
resignation on Monday night — the day before the board met to weigh
his ouster. But the superintendent also fought at the meeting to keep
his job by attempting to punch holes in the critiques from board
members.

“I have a feeling I’m going to be fired after tonight because I
just can’t hold this back,” Asplen told the board from as a
preface.

Asplen said that some of the board’s comments were “ridiculous”
given that he had been at the school since 2020, a timeframe that
included the Covid-19 pandemic. And yet despite the coronavirus
uprooting education, Sarasota earned “A” grades from the state
both years. The superintendent also claimed he was being shut out by
board members since the election and noted that he enacted a mandatory
student masking policy for only three weeks, and that was due to
Sarasota’s board voting 3-2 in favor of the mandate
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“You have to get the politics out of this school district,”
Asplen told the board. “This school district could be No. 1, but we
shoot ourselves in the foot every single time. We are getting in our
own way all the time.”

It was clear after Asplen addressed the board that a separation would
be imminent. Board members said they felt the relationship with the
schools chief was “adversarial” and beyond repair. Many of the
claims by Asplen were “not accurate,” according to new board
chair Bridget Ziegler.

“I am very concerned,” said Zeigler, who was endorsed by DeSantis
and co-founded Moms for Liberty. “I don’t know how respectfully we
build a relationship where we are functioning together for the right
reasons with mutual respect.”

One Sarasota board member, Thomas Edwards, noted the similarity
between the pushes to remove school leaders in Florida and elsewhere
in the country, including in Berkley County, South Carolina, where a
newly-elected school board fired a superintendent. Edwards suggested a
possible political motive behind the move and lobbied for Asplen to be
granted a chance to fix issues spelled out by the board.

“Whatever rationales I’m going to hear tonight, I really have to
throw out the window. Because we just have to — all of as a
community — look at the tealeaves,” Edwards said.

But Edwards fell short of reaching the majority of the board,
including the members endorsed by DeSantis and other conservatives,
who voted 4-1 to move forward with negotiating a separation agreement
with the schools chief.

The local teachers union in Sarasota planned a rally in support of
Asplen ahead of the meeting Tuesday and dozens lined up to speak on
his behalf. But local organizers in Brevard County didn’t
demonstrate when its superintendent, Mark Mullins, was pushed out last
week.

Instead, the Brevard Federation of Teachers contented that Mullins’
ouster could lead to positive changes within local schools. Union
leaders claim that district officials did too little to quell student
discipline issues and lingering teacher vacancies facing the county.

“Students verbally and physically abuse teachers and staff, and
there will be no end in sight unless meaningful systemic changes are
made,” union leaders wrote in a statement Monday on social media.

Similar to Sarasota, the leadership shift in Brevard was aided by new
board members. Discussions to split with Mullins came at the
suggestion of Megan Wright, who was backed in her race by DeSantis and
installed on the board and elected vice chair about four hours before
triggering the change.

Elsewhere in Florida, new board members endorsed by DeSantis are also
scoring leadership roles. In Lee County, for example, new board
members Armor Persons and Sam Fisher, both endorsed by DeSantis, were
elected as chair and vice chair of the school board, as reported by
the Fort Myers News-Press
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With at least three superintendent jobs opening in Florida, these
new-look school boards are now facing the critical task of finding new
leaders.

Teachers union leaders are staying optimistic that these board members
will be focused on supporting educators and staff in local schools,
said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the
state’s largest teachers union. And in choosing a new
superintendent, they hope board members will pick candidates who are
aligned with the community and not only DeSantis.

“Firing is the easy part,” Spar said. “The hard part is finding
the right person.”

_Andrew Atterbury covers education for POLITICO’s Florida bureau. As
one member of the team, Andrew’s beat spans from a
multibillion-dollar K-12 budget to coverage of 12 state universities
and dozens of state colleges._

* Florida
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* public schools
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* school boards
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* Right-wing agenda
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* Ron DeSantis
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