{"id":21065,"date":"2024-08-09T21:38:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T21:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/2024\/08\/09\/republican-backed-school-board-candidates-key-on-parental-rights-jacksonville-today\/"},"modified":"2024-08-09T22:12:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T22:12:26","slug":"republican-backed-school-board-candidates-key-on-parental-rights-jacksonville-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/2024\/08\/09\/republican-backed-school-board-candidates-key-on-parental-rights-jacksonville-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican-backed School Board candidates key on parental rights &#8211; Jacksonville Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-8864793242727901\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Monica Gold, a Duval County language arts teacher, is prepping her classroom for the middle schoolers who will show up Monday. One thing she\u2019s not putting out this year is books.<\/p>\n<p>A few years have passed since the <a href=\"https:\/\/jaxtoday.org\/2022\/12\/22\/duval-schools-to-keep-73-diverse-inclusive-books-out-of-classrooms\/\">initial flurry of controversy and confusion<\/a> over \u201cparental rights\u201d policies in Florida\u2019s public schools, but teachers in the trenches of Jacksonville\u2019s classrooms feel the lingering effects today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time I just put a book on a shelf, I\u2019m scared,\u201d Gold says. \u201cWhat if it\u2019s on a list, and I just don\u2019t realize it\u2019s on a list? I don\u2019t want to get a felony charge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although Gov. Ron DeSantis <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/florida-ron-desantis-education-book-bans-65daf4420318a837487976c10bb75d86\">recently backtracked a bit<\/a> on the state\u2019s book-challenging process, the sociocultural issues broadly grouped under the heading of parental rights are again a topic of conversation because of the prominent role they play in Florida\u2019s increasingly partisan school board elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On July 19, DeSantis <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RonDeSantis\/status\/1814388504392065297\">formally endorsed 23 candidates<\/a> for Florida\u2019s nonpartisan school board races, including three candidates in Duval County: Tony Ricardo, Becky Nathanson and Melody Bolduc. He did not endorse Reggie Blount, who has the support of the local Republican party.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the governor said the candidates he selected had \u201cpledged to serve with a focus on student success, parental rights and curriculum transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Parental rights is a dicey topic, though. It\u2019s sharply partisan \u2014 think book bans, gender identity and pronouns, and curriculum content that may or may not include critical race theory. It\u2019s a favorite talking point of conservative candidates, but it\u2019s unclear how frequently the issues arise in classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Duval Schools says the district does not have data readily available that would help answer that question.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, parental rights is generally not a salient topic outside Republican circles. The platforms of opposing candidates Nadine Ebri, Hank Rogers and Sarah Mannion express a need for transparency and student security, but they don\u2019t mention parental rights.<\/p>\n<p>Those candidates have the support of local Democrats (<a href=\"https:\/\/jaxtoday.org\/2024\/07\/17\/askjaxtdy-whos-behind-mailers-in-school-board-district-3-race\/\">if not a full endorsement from the local party<\/a>) and are endorsed by groups like Equality Florida. A third candidate in the race for District 5, Nahshon Nicks, also does not dwell on parental rights.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Janson is an associate professor at the University of North Florida and an expert in educational leadership and the role schools play in communities. He says Republican-backed candidates tend to be the ones bringing parents\u2019 rights into their races.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey seem to be the only ones talking about sociocultural issues,\u201d Janson tells <em>Jacksonville Today<\/em>. \u201cWhen I see the other board candidates, they\u2019re talking about policy, and they\u2019re talking about \u2014 on a deep grassroots level \u2014 what schools need to be funded equitably, to have the tools and the community buy-in to be able to function at their highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Politics in a nonpartisan race<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Florida\u2019s school board elections this year are, on paper, nonpartisan \u2014 though <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Florida_Amendment_1,_Partisan_School_Board_Elections_Amendment_(2024)\">there\u2019s an amendment on November\u2019s ballot<\/a> to change that. But in practice they\u2019re rather partisan, thanks in part to DeSantis\u2019s decision to endorse candidates <a href=\"https:\/\/jaxtoday.org\/2022\/08\/23\/aug-23-election-results-duval-voters-approve-higher-tax-for-schools-desantis-endorsed-school-board-candidates-win\/\">in 2022<\/a> and again this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Jacksonville, four seats are up for grabs on the Duval County School Board. The local Republican Party is working hard to win them. Duval GOP Chair Dean Black told <em>Jacksonville Today<\/em> last month that it\u2019s a strategic and purposeful move on their part.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Their efforts fall in line with priorities espoused by DeSantis. All of Duval\u2019s GOP-backed candidates have made parental rights a central tenet of their campaigns \u2014 something they say means focusing on academics instead of social-cultural issues in the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no activist agenda in schools,\u201d Janson says. \u201cThere just is no evidence of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Duval\u2019s Republican-backed slate of School Board candidates are leaning into politicizing the race in the name of empowering conservative parents.<\/p>\n<p>District 3 incumbent Cindy Pearson, 54 and a registered Republican, says she first ran for School Board precisely <em>because <\/em>it was a nonpartisan seat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think our kids should be politicized,\u201d Pearson tells <em>Jacksonville Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>She says she considers how her votes will affect Duval Schools\u2019 stakeholders \u2014 but doesn\u2019t give much thought to how her decisions align with the party divide.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, Pearson lost her party\u2019s support.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the height of the pandemic, the Duval School Board voted for a mask mandate that Lakewood mom Becky Nathanson says violated state law and the will of the community. Around that time, Nathanson \u2014 who is now running against Pearson to represent San Marco and much of the Southside \u2014 also learned about a newly formed advocate group called Moms for Liberty. She helped to establish a chapter in Duval County, which she chaired until recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nathanson says she wasn\u2019t pleased with how Pearson voted on hot-button cultural matters. Pearson says politics aren\u2019t her priority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI look at each issue; I try to learn as much about it as I can. I talk with people; I listen to constituents; I ask questions, and then before I vote, I pray, and I have a peace about how I vote,\u201d Pearson says.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, DeSantis included the District 3 spot in a list of 14 school board seats <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldtribune.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2023\/02\/22\/desantis-targets-florida-school-board-member-seats-woke-parental-rights\/69932270007\/\">he wanted to flip<\/a> in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany of us who are conservative felt like someone should run against her,\u201d Nathanson says. \u201cThere was just this groundswell of concern that the person representing us on the School Board didn\u2019t really represent the voters who put her in office. So I decided to run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nathanson, 50, has the support of many Republican leaders, including DeSantis, but treating the District 3 race as strictly partisan has proved trickier for the local GOP because both candidates are registered Republicans. Consequently, GOP Chair Black told <em>Jacksonville Today<\/em> that the party did not endorse a candidate in that race. However, Black personally endorsed Nathanson in his capacity as a state representative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis\u2019 list also included Duval\u2019s District 1. There, longtime resident and local artist Tony Ricardo says he\u2019s glad to treat the race as fully partisan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost voters, when you go door to door, they ask you, \u2018Are you a conservative? Are you a Democrat? Are you a liberal? How can we tell what you\u2019re going to be for?\u2019\u201d Ricardo says. \u201cAnd I think those are fair questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nathanson said party affiliation comes up a lot while knocking on doors, canvassing for votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first question voters ask is, \u2018What party are you affiliated with?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s actually something voters want to know. If I\u2019m asked, I tell them. It\u2019s not a secret if Ron DeSantis is endorsing me.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Parents have the right<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>DeSantis picks candidates who lean into the idea of parental rights. They understandably spend more time discussing cultural issues than do their opponents \u2014 even if by talking a bit paradoxically about how cultural issues don\u2019t belong in classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>Ricardo says he\u2019d rather bypass the cultural discussions and focus on what he calls \u201cthe main thing\u201d \u2014 academics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the biggest problem we have in the School Board is not gender identity issues or anything like that. It\u2019s how to read, write, how to do math problems,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t care what your gender is or what you think it is \u2014 you still have to be able to read and write and do the math.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ricardo says schools spend too much classroom time focused on social and cultural issues. He suggests that students sometimes ask for specific pronouns because they \u201cwant the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t hate anybody. Their lifestyle is their own business, but in the public realm, it gets in the way of instruction,\u201d Ricardo says. \u201cLook, our kids can identify 57 different genders, but they can\u2019t identify anything on a map. That\u2019s a problem, you know?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the Westside, Army veteran and Duval Schools grandfather Reggie Blount is also running on a parental rights platform. He has the support of the Duval GOP and Moms for Liberty in his quest to secure the District 5 seat Warren Jones is vacating. But unlike the three other conservative School Board candidates, Blount doesn\u2019t have an endorsement from Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe in parental rights. I don\u2019t think the government or any official should come in and dictate to your children what they should be,\u201d Blount said during a recent appearance on <em>First Coast Connect<\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s stuff that they\u2019re coming out with telling kids that they can crawl like animals, and we have to respect that. That\u2019s a part of social engineering, and that is absolutely ridiculous. We\u2019re not animals. So why would you put out books telling kids that because you can be what you want to be, this is acceptable. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nathanson says she\u2019s focused on transparency and considers herself a parental rights advocate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like I can offer a perspective on the board that is going to provide a little more oversight and scrutiny, maybe not just go with the status quo,\u201d she says. \u201cFigure out how to get some of the spending under control, how to be transparent with not only where the money is going, but what decisions they\u2019re making within the school walls that they don\u2019t want parents to know about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like other advocates in this arena, Nathanson seemingly sometimes feels at odds with the public school system. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s well-defined \u2014 I would say, by our creator, but also in Supreme Court precedent \u2014 that parents have the fundamental right to direct the education, the health care and the moral upbringing of their children,\u201d Nathanson says. \u201cSchools can come alongside that. It doesn\u2019t mean schools can\u2019t choose or develop curriculum. That\u2019s not the argument. It\u2019s just that parents have every right to say, to opt out of certain messages or curriculum that run contrary to how they\u2019re teaching their children at home.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Social media candidates<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Ricardo, 65, regularly posts incendiary memes to his public Facebook profile \u2014 typically many times every day. Many of his posts, dating back many years, target the LGBT community in a hurtful or harsh way.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><\/figure>\n<p>Nonetheless, he says that if elected, he would work to represent everyone in his district \u2014 even if it means supporting things that he personally doesn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are trying to paint me as a, you know, kind of a bigoted person, or a person that\u2019s not going to be fair,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m definitely going to be fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blount, 62, doesn\u2019t post public content on his social media accounts often, and all of his recent posts focus on his campaign, but in 2022 he used a Twitter account to offer support to a North Carolina politician who was receiving criticism for homophobic comments.<\/p>\n<p>On <em>First Coast Connect<\/em>, host Anne Schindler asked Blount how he would fairly represent constituents in his district who are part of the LGBT community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey deserve respect. They\u2019re human beings, just like us,\u201d Blount said. \u201cI don\u2019t separate people by what they choose to do or what they choose to believe. If I am representing them, I represent them 100% and not with a biased view.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Team Duval<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Gold, the middle school teacher, says teachers want to partner with parents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an honor to work alongside parents, and every parent that I have worked with over my six years of teaching has been incredibly supportive and kind,\u201d Gold says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t ever want to do anything to belittle their position, and I\u2019ve not met many teachers that would want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On her campaign website, District 7 candidate Melody Bolduc, 46, calls herself an \u201cactive and unapologetic voice for parental rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a teacher \u2014 years ago within Duval Schools and now as the owner of a local educational consulting and tutoring company \u2014 Bolduc\u2019s perspective is more nuanced than some mainstream Republican sound bites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is very difficult for children to do well if there is not a partnership between parents and teachers,\u201d Bolduc tells <em>Jacksonville Today<\/em>. \u201cI don\u2019t think that parents need to be ruling what\u2019s going on in the classroom, but I do believe that they should have knowledge, that they should be able to ask questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For Bolduc, politics are a tool that help her play the game \u2014 even if it\u2019s technically nonpartisan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I could reach every voter and have conversations with every voter, that would be preferable. The problem is that you can\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cUltimately, I feel like I can have conversations \u2014 common-sense conversations \u2014 that most people agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like Nathanson, Bolduc says she believes in \u201cabsolute transparency\u201d between parents and their children\u2019s schools because such an arrangement is mutually beneficial.<\/p>\n<p>Bolduc says parents\u2019 rights has become a hot-button issue because news stories occasionally arise that worry parents \u2014 but it\u2019s not as pervasive an issue as some narratives suggest it is, she says. Bolduc says she could count on one hand the number of bad teachers she\u2019s encountered over the years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am hard-pressed to criticize. As a volunteer for many, many years and as a teacher who worked in the system, I did not personally meet any activist teachers,\u201d Bolduc says. \u201cMost of the teachers I know are working hard, are passionate, and are doing everything they can for their students.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gold says teachers \u201ccare deeply\u201d about their students and their families. She says the current cultural conversation about teachers sometimes feels as if people are trying to \u201ccatch them in every single moment of their day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead, she says she would like to see people trust teachers to do their jobs well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the people that think that we can keep politics out of everything, I would say that politics are in our lives, whether we want them to be or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/jaxtoday.org\/2024\/08\/09\/republican-backed-school-board-candidates-key-on-parental-rights\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monica Gold, a Duval County language arts teacher, is prepping her classroom for the middle schoolers who will show up Monday. One thing she\u2019s not putting out this year is&hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9701,1153,1481,9702,1204],"class_list":["post-21065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-duval-county-public-schools","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-parental-rights","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21067,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21065\/revisions\/21067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}