School boards send subtle messages with new leadership picks
Tampa Bay Times | By Jeffrey S. Solochek | November 26, 2024
School boards across Florida convened on Tuesday with one key goal in mind: Choosing their leadership for the coming year.
The meetings gave board members the opportunity to send messages to their communities following some contentious, often partisan elections.
Some sought to soothe the rancor that marked the past few months.
“There is more that unites us than divides us,” newly selected Miami-Dade board chairperson Mari Tere Rojas told her politically split board.
Others let the criticism continue to flow. The Duval County board, for example, bickered over values and opinions almost from the get-go.
Tampa Bay area districts saw a move toward collaboration, after a little political flexing by the winning side.
Both the Hillsborough and Pinellas boards chose as their chairpersons women who handily beat back challenges from far-right candidates supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Moms for Liberty. Laura Hine will lead the Pinellas board for a second consecutive year, while Jessica Vaughn became Hillsborough’s chairperson. Both votes were unanimous.
Vaughn also asked pastor Andy Oliver, who leads a progressive-left St. Petersburg church, to swear her into office as a reelected member.
After those votes came some conciliation.
Pinellas board member Stephanie Meyer, who has been affiliated with Moms for Liberty, abandoned her bid to become vice chairperson and instead nominated the board’s most reliably liberal member, Caprice Edmond, to the post.
And Vaughn talked about the need to work together.
“I know that the past few years have been hard and sometimes divisive,” she said. “The truth is, we really are stronger together, and our children, our families and our employees deserve the best.”
Sending messages is one of the main things a board chairperson can do.
“The chair has the ability to set the tone for how we conduct business,” Hine said, noting the position includes representing the board at various events.
Otherwise, the role is primarily one of running meetings, said former Pinellas board member Carol Cook, who leads chairperson training for the Florida School Boards Association.
Newly named Pasco County chairperson Cynthia Armstrong took that notion to heart, telling her colleagues her goal was to streamline the board’s rules for maximum efficiency in tackling the business at hand.
The superintendent, not the chairperson, sets the board agenda, Cook said, adding the chairperson has no special authority. She called the position one of “perceived prestige.”
“You have not been given a crown,” Cook said. “You have been given a responsibility, and you still have one vote just like everyone else.”
