South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
DeSantis surveys school board candidates’ politics
Offers certificate pledging support for governor’s priorities
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign this week launched a questionnaire designed to gauge how closely local school board candidates align with his education priorities.
The campaign is sending what it calls the DeSantis Education Agenda survey to school board candidates. The questionnaire also provides the opportunity for candidates to sign a certificate pledging their support for the governor’s priorities.
And the campaign is encouraging parents to evaluate whether candidates’ views line up with DeSantis.
“The DeSantis Education Agenda is a student-first, parent-centered initiative focused on setting Florida’s children up for success, ensuring parental rights in education, and combatting the woke agenda from infiltrating public schools,” a description on DeSantis’ reelection campaign website says. “This statewide agenda is for school board candidates and school board members who are committed to advancing these priorities at the local school board level.”
The survey’s questions reflect some of DeSantis’ most high-profile policy positions, some of which have resulted in legislation that has sparked tense debates and garnered national media attention.
“Does CRT (critical race theory) belong in K-12 public education classrooms in Florida?” one asks.
Some questions prompt the respondent to record a video answering the question or provide a written answer.
“How will you protect a parent’s right to publicly disagree with their school board?” one such question asks.
Another question asks if Florida
students should “be locked out of school or subjected to forced masking.
DeSantis’ clashes with school boards reached a fever pitch during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the governor pushed to block districts from enacting mask mandates at the beginning of the last academic year.
The DeSantis campaign questionnaires come as Florida school board members for the first time face term limits.
DeSantis’ campaign survey also includes a section entitled Parental Rights, which has become an educational cause celebre for the governor and other Republicans nationally. The new law that caps school board members’ terms also will increase parental involvement in the process of selecting books and materials for classrooms, an outgrowth of DeSantis targeting what he calls “indoctrination” in schools.
“Do you support a parent’s right to know what their child is being taught in the classroom?” a survey question asks.
The survey drew criticism from U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat who also is running for governor this year.
“There are no limits to Governor DeSantis’s authoritarian impulses,” Crist said in an email. “Whether limiting Florida families’ access to life-saving vaccines for kids under five, building his own militia, or trying to hand-pick school board members to politicize Florida’s classrooms — his extremism is on full display every day.”