Sarasota School Board due to name new chair for coming year

It appears likely the board could select Vice Chair Karen Rose, who was first elected in 2020, as the chairwoman on Tuesday. She and Tom Edwards, who was also elected in 2020, are the most senior members not to have been chair. But Edwards is the only Democrat on the board and is often a dissenting voice to the four-person Republican board majority.

Both Rose and Edwards will be campaigning for reelection next year.

The current chairwoman is Bridget Ziegler, who also served as chair in 2017. The board has had consecutive chairpersons in consecutive years, but typically members cycle out who holds the gavel each year.

Rose has filled in for Ziegler as chair several times, with some in the public commending her poise in running the meetings and handling fierce public comment.

In the last year, Rose has garnered both backlash and support for many of her decisions on the board. She raised the idea for the board to redraw its member districts, which it approved just weeks later despite strong opposition from both Moms for Liberty and other school board advocacy groups like Support Our Schools.

Rose also advocated for the hiring of current Superintendent Terry Connor, which came just months after she made the motion to terminate the previous superintendent Brennan Asplen. Her advocacy for terminating Asplen came with strong backlash from teachers and the public, with meetings in the wake of his separation being filled with people speaking in support of Asplen.

Her push for Connor, however, was largely met with praise. She noted Connor’s classroom experience and focus on academics as strong positives for his candidacy over other candidates favored by the conservative majority, such as Charles Van Zant who attached to his resume a letter of recommendation from former Donald Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.