If You Give the Moms A Majority…
“We knew this was going to happen as soon as they got a majority,” one prominent schools official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This is just the beginning. It’ll get worse.”
https://veronews.com/2024/05/06/divisive-moms-agenda-a-blight-on-school-board/
Have you ever wondered what might happen if your school board was handed over to Moms For Liberty? Look no further than Indian River County, Florida and follow the work of Ray McNulty (@TCPalmRMcNulty). McNulty is a reporter and columnist for the Vero News and has been closely following the mayhem caused when Governor DeSantis appointed a new M4L-alligned school board member, giving the “moms” a majority.
This is a cautionary tale.
Indian River County (IRC) is on the Atlantic Coast just south of Brevard County and Cape Canaveral. With a population of approximately 160,000, its school district serves just over 17,000 students in grades PreK-12. It is a Red county, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2:1. The last Democratic Presidential candidate to win a majority there was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. In the recent past, former school board members include Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, and Shawn Frost, founder of the now-defunct Florida Coalition of School Board Members. The three founders of Moms for Liberty, Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, were all members of Frost’s Florida Coalition of School Board Members.
The recent “troubles” in IRC started in February when sitting board member, Brian Barefoot and his wife decided to down-size and move to a nearby neighborhood. Believing the new home was outside of the district in which he served, he submitted a letter of resignation to the governor (in Florida, elected school board members must resign if they move out of their district). Barefoot had been elected, in a landslide, to Tiffany Justice’s previous seat. Reportedly, Barefoot’s entry into the 2020 race was what convinced incumbent Justice not to run. Despite being on Governor DeSantis’ “hitlist,” Barefoot had filed to run for re-election in 2024 over year ago.
Almost immediately after submitting his resignation, Barefoot realized he was mistaken. Due to redistricting after Barefoot’s 2020 election, his new home was, in fact, IN his district and there was, therefore, no statutory requirement for his resignation. He immediately tried to rescind his resignation but was unsuccessful and DeSantis, on April 2nd, appointed M4L-aligned Kevin McDonald to Barefoot’s seat.
Kevin McDonald is a retired business man who has resided in Indian River County for the last 10 years. He formerly served as Chairman, President, and Treasurer of The Geneva School of Manhattan, the only Preschool through Twelfth Grade private Classical Christian school in New York City. DeSantis is an acolyte of the Classical school movement, signing legislation designed to ease their expansion in Florida. Perhaps not coincidentally, Indian River district official are currently considering establishing a magnet school with a classical education curriculum. That question could come before the board next year.
McDonald has filed for “re-election” in this summer’s August 20 primary. He will run against David Dyer. Barefoot has withdrawn from the race.
McDonald joined fellow M4L/DeSantis aligned board members, Jackie Rosario and Gene Posca, flipping the IRC majority from rational to radical. McDonald’s first school board meeting was 4/22/24 and the new majority got right to work:
Quelling the “Marxist Rebellion”:
Board member Gene Posca accused teachers of being unpatriotic and failing to set the proper pro-America examples for students. He questioning whether they “can be trusted alone with our children.”
Posca said the students who participated in the recent protests on college campuses across America – an action he called “liberal communists really making the bridge into terrorism” – were not converted by radical left-wing professors. Rather, he claimed, “It started in our grade schools.”
“I don’t know if you can find a more important issue, really, to the survival and longevity of the United States of America and the success of our children,” Posca said, referring to protecting children from “people who are ultimately trying to turn them away from their parents, turn them away from God and from their country” to recruit them for some Marxist rebellion.
https://veronews.com/2024/05/20/does-gene-posca-have-no-sense-of-decency/
Posca requested that the board hire an outside analyst to investigate whether teachers and staff members were participating in the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by monitoring classrooms and reviewing video footage from security cameras placed on school grounds.
Rosario raised the possibility of installing patriotic programs and complained that too few students were standing for the Pledge at the start of their school days
When Vice Chair Peggy Jones, an experienced and well respected board member, refused to support Posca’s push for the pledge probe, he accused her of protecting “liberal Marxists” and standing with teachers, rather than protecting children.
Removing School Board Representative from court-ordered work group
The trio voted to remove Peggy Jones from the court-ordered joint work group, which, along with local NAACP leaders, continues to address the issues cited in a 1967 federal desegregation order that still haunts the district, and replace her with M4L-alligned Rosario, who campaigned for the removal of the board’s racial equity policy after the passage of DeSantis’ “Stop Woke Act.”
Replacing Board Chair and Vice Chair Mid-year
Posca suggested amending policy to allow the board to remove its leaders if the majority believes they “no longer represent the board’s interest or carry out their duty appropriately.” According to state statute, school board chairs are elected in November and serve year long terms.
1001.371 Organization of district school board.—In November of each year, the district school board shall organize by electing a chair. If a vacancy should occur in the position of chair, the district school board shall proceed to elect a chair at the next ensuing regular or special meeting.
Posca made it clear that, now that he is in the majority, he doesn’t want to wait until November:
“It would make sense (the board) would have the power to remove them,” Posca said. “The board majority should have a procedural power to replace these positions.”” “Board Chair Teri Barenborg and Vice Chair Peggy Jones were chosen for those leadership positions in November by the full board. But the board majority has changed since then.”
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/education/indian-river-county-schools/2024/05/21/irc-school-board-discusses-changing-policy-to-allow-it-to-remove-chair/73768232007/
McNulty sums up the mayhem created by the DeSantis appointment:
“It doesn’t seem to matter that this majority was created last month, when Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an entirely political and shamefully petty move, chose to reject now-former board member Brian Barefoot’s efforts to rescind his erroneously submitted resignation in February and replace him with McDonald.
Nor does it matter, apparently, that this manufactured majority represents only a small minority of the parents in the district.
This is now the Moms’ show, and the headliner of its tumultuous debut episode was Posca, who wasted no time in setting the hostile, take-no-prisoners tone we’ll apparently be forced to endure for as long as this hard-to-watch series runs.
There was no reason, however, to put a damper on a successful opening night, when the Moms and their board majority publicly flexed their muscles, then gathered in the parking lot to congratulate themselves.
This is their time, and we knew it was coming.
You don’t like it?
Your time is in August.”
https://veronews.com/2024/05/06/divisive-moms-agenda-a-blight-on-school-board/
This is a cautionary tale. In November 2022, when DeSantis/M4L endorsed candidates flipped several school boards across Florida, mayhem ensued. The only cure, as McNulty suggests, is to vote better. Find and support pro-public school candidates.
And don’t forget to VOTE.
For more of the story, read all of McNulty’s pieces:
- Gene Posca: ‘I am not aligned with anybody’
- School board hopeful faces ‘optics’ problem
- Barefoot leaving School Board as a result of move
- Public school teachers endure shabby treatment from Tallahassee
- DeSantis, ‘Moms’ give county voters the shaft
- Divisive ‘Moms’ agenda a blight on School Board
- Does Gene Posca have no sense of decency?