Several school board candidates backed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis failed to get across the line in a number of elections. The Republican hopes to reshape education in Florida by filling boards with conservatives, but most of those he backed failed in their bids. However, DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern took a positive spin and said, “You don’t shift the culture by only supporting winnable races.”
Mr. Redfern also pointed out that DeSantis-backed candidates were successful in Duval County, where the board flipped from Blue to Red. Nevertheless, in Pinellas County, sitting board members Laura Hine and Eileen Long kept conservative candidates at bay, with Hine winning 69% of the vote. Eileen Long kept her seat with 54%.
In Hillsborough County, two school board members criticized by the Republican Governor held their positions with 52% and 58% of the vote. Additionally, in Democrat-dominated Broward County, two individuals appointed to a board by DeSantis lost their seats to Democrat challengers.
The support of conservative candidates is part of Mr. DeSantis’s plans to fight “woke” culture in the Sunshine State’s educational institutions. The Republican argues that radical gender ideology and critical race theory have no place in schools or colleges, and he has removed several books from a transformed school curriculum.
In January, universities were forced to drop sociology courses in favor of “Introductory Survey to 1877.” The Florida Board of Governors said the latter would provide a historically accurate account of America’s founding, including “the horrors of slavery, the resulting Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era.”
The change was enacted after Education Department commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. insisted that sociology courses had been “hijacked by left-wing activists” and were therefore not fit for purpose. He added that under the leadership of Ron DeSantis, Floridian students would use their education to prepare for jobs and not to be indoctrinated with “woke” ideas.
Sociologists angrily responded to the changes but said they were not surprised by them, given how much DeSantis had influenced Floridian education. The Governor made international headlines in 2022 when he introduced so-called “Don’t Say Gay” laws that prohibited discussions on sexual orientation or gender identity in children’s schools.
