Florida's schools could get even more partisan after November

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Floridians will vote on a ballot measure this November that would add party labels to local school board races for the first time in decades, potentially supercharging what have already become contentious contests across the state.

These offices have been under increasing scrutiny since the pandemic, when the lessons and content taught to students became a front and center issue that grabbed the attention of parents and policymakers. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies view winning control of school boards as key to reshaping the state’s education system, something GOP leaders have been chipping away at over the last few years. And it isn’t just in Florida — there have been increasingly fierce fights over school board seats across the country, from swing counties in Pennsylvania to Republicans trying to gain a toehold in blue California .

DeSantis waded into 30 school board contests in 2022 with endorsements and fundraising help — a near unprecedented level of involvement for a governor in these local elections — and won nearly all of them . This year, facing more organized opposition from Democrats and the state’s largest teacher unions, DeSantis had a mixed record in school board contests in August — with a handful of races still to be decided in November.

Now, voters will have a chance to decide whether they want to officially scrub the nonpartisan veneer off these contests that have already seen significant involvement from the parties, possibly reversing a choice from 1998 to strip away party labels for local school leaders.

The Florida Republican Party, GOP lawmakers and some school board candidates support the idea, believing that the proposed change to Florida’s constitution will give voters more clarity about who is running for office in their communities.

“This is not something that is an insane idea,” said state Rep. Spencer Roach, the North Fort Myers Republican who sponsored the legislation in the House. “Why should you be able to use the cover of the law to hide your ideology or platform from voters?”

Those who oppose the measure, however, contend that fully embracing partisanship in these races will siphon attention away from setting sound education policy for kids, in lieu of politics charged by culture war battles.

“I don’t think our children should be politicized or that our teachers and children should be caught in the middle of social issues,” said Cindy Pearson, a Duval School Board member and registered Republican who won a reelection bid in August against a candidate endorsed by DeSantis.

The upcoming November referendum, slotted as Amendment 1 on the ballot, comes after the latest round of school board elections influenced by partisan fighting and riffing on school choice and culture war issues such as the state’s contentious “book bans.”

These races, which featured dueling endorsements from DeSantis and Florida Democrats and teachers unions, could prove to be the last officially nonpartisan campaigns in Florida. Out of 23 candidates endorsed by DeSantis this year, six won their races, with another six heading to November runoffs. DeSantis officials heralded the election cycle as a win for flipping Duval County’s school board to lean conservative, yet candidates backed by the governor also lost races in deep red areas like Sarasota and Indian River counties.

DeSantis supports adding partisan labels to school board races, with a spokesperson pointing to comments he made in 2023.

"What we've seen over the years is you have counties in Southwest Florida that voted for me by like 40 points. And yet they're electing people, the school board, who are totally the opposite philosophy,” DeSantis said in January 2023. “But those people are running saying that they're sharing the philosophy, then they get on and they do something different."

If the amendment passes, school board candidates starting in 2026 would be nominated in partisan primaries ahead of the general election.

Long debated by lawmakers at the statehouse, it was added to the ballot against the wishes of the majority of legislative Democrats who voted against the idea.

But the proposed school board amendment is flying under the radar this year, with Floridians contemplating major constitutional amendments surrounding abortion rights and legalizing recreational marijuana. Unlike those two amendments, which have seen tens of millions of spending, there has been comparatively little outreach or ad spending from supporters or opponents.

One August poll conducted by Suffolk University reported that 48 percent of voters were against the amendment compared to 33 percent who supported it. A July poll from the University of North Florida found that a significant number of voters have not made up their minds on the issue: Forty percent said they would vote no and 37 percent said they supported it, with the remainder undecided.

Amendments need 60 percent to pass.

School board races are nonpartisan in the vast majority of states, with only four — Louisiana, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Connecticut — listing partying affiliation on the ballot for all school board contests, according to Ballotpedia . More than 90 percent of school board members across the country are picked by voters without any party labels.

Opponents of the amendment worry it will lead to more political influence in these races and could choke out grassroots efforts by local candidates running for office. The state Democratic Party also opposes the measure, with the party's executive committee voting this weekend to urge Floridians to vote no, as the party slips further behind the GOP in voter registrations in the one-time swing state.

“Partisan politics should not be in our school districts,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told reporters in August. “We should all be focused on one thing and one thing only: teaching our children.”

But supporters contend there is a need for transparency with conservatives and liberals fighting for different ideologies in public education.

“I’ve seen the scenario where someone will go to an area they know is leaning one direction and present themselves in that way,” said Layla Collins, a DeSantis-endorsed candidate who ran for Hillsborough’s school board. “The next day, what they say in another area has someone convinced the opposite is true.”