Florida’s primary elections are taking place Tuesday, and Democrats have amplified the stakes for one particular part of the ballot: county school board contests.
This year, the party supported its own slate of candidates for the first time in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 23 school board candidate endorsements, which he’s handed out since 2022. Democrats have said his backings contributed to a politicization in the state’s non-partisan races.
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said their roster of 11 endorsements are the party’s counter to the school district policies enacted by Moms for Liberty, the conservative group founded by three Florida mothers.
School board elections were among the discussions at a gathering for Florida delegates on the second day of this year’s Democratic National Convention.
Many delegates, when talking about education at the convention, pointed to the number of laws enacted within the past five years by a Republican-backed legislature.
Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which critics dubbed “Don’t Say Gay,” restricted the mention of LGBTQ+ people in classroom materials. More recently passed legislation permits the use of chaplains in schools.
“We had to engage and create balance back to our school boards and take partisan politics out of [them] again,” Fried said.
DeSantis released his list in July alongside a statement posted to X: “I’m happy to endorse this slate of school board candidates who have pledged to serve with a focus on student success, parental rights and curriculum transparency,” he wrote.
Daniel Henry, chair of the Duval County Democratic Party, said Florida school board races have previously fallen under the radar and have changed significantly in the past five years, even in candidate spending.
“In races like ours,” he said, “you have to spend north of like $50,000 to $100,000 just to stay competitive because of how expensive that they've gotten.”
Fried added that DeSantis’ involvement in schools, including him threatening to remove district board members, also contributed to the Democrats’ choice to endorse this year.
Jennifer Jenkins, a Brevard County school board member who defeated her district’s incumbent — one of the founding members of Moms for Liberty — said she was on DeSantis’ “hitlist” because she unseated a Republican.
“I quickly became the focus of harassment and intimidation campaigns of the far-right extremists that we're seeing all over the United States today,” she said.
Newly elected school board members can expect to tackle big topics, including school library book challenges, statewide teacher shortages and what some consider to be a growing concern for students’ mental health.
Meanwhile, a question on whether school board races should become partisan — a constitutional amendment change Jenkins said she vehemently opposes — will be presented to voters in November. If enacted, partisan races would start in 2026.
“Regardless of how red a county can be in the state of Florida — I'm a prime example of it — there are not only just Republicans in that county,” she said. “There needs to be different voices, and different representations sitting on that board and it doesn't have to do with party.”
Despite the changing school board races, Sally Garcia, 78, of Deland, said it’s the state Senate and House of Representatives races that are most important on election day.
“They're the ones who pass these horrible laws,” said Garcia, treasurer of the Volusia County Democratic Veterans Caucus. “The legislature is absolutely the lowest common denominator. They are the worst, and they dream up these things that I don't know how they stay up at night and think of them to put into law to tie the hands of the administrators and the teachers and make it hard to teach.”