DeSantis, Crist influence brings politics into Indian River County District 2 School Board race

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The politicization of nonpartisan school board races across Florida has reached the District 2 School Board runoff race here, with each candidate endorsed by the opposing gubernatorial candidate.

Incumbent Jacqueline Rosario was one of 30 candidates in school board races endorsed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in  the Aug. 23 primary election, where she won 47% of the vote. One of her three challengers, newcomer Cynthia Gibbs, received 26% of the vote while backed by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.

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Rosario and Gibbs are headed to a runoff Nov. 8 because none of the four District 2 candidates received at least 50% of the vote in the primary.

Although Gibbs and Rosario share similar backgrounds as seasoned educators, they’re approaching their campaigns differently: Gibbs says she wants her campaign to go forward in an apolitical fashion; Rosario is embracing her endorsement like a badge of honor.

“(DeSantis) has a very strong stance in terms of education… and it just so happens that I align with his education agenda,” Rosario said. “The fact that my opponent is endorsed by Crist doesn’t really affect me at all. It doesn’t make me nervous in any way. There’s no competition between Crist and Gov. DeSantis.”

Moreover, she added, her the race against Gibbs is a reflection of the Republican governor and his Democratic opponent, she added.

“Just as Charlie Crist and Gov. DeSantis are polar opposites, so (are) my opponent and myself,” Rosario said.

Asked about her endorsement by Crist, Gibbs reiterated that politics has distracted educators and parents from focusing on the students themselves.

“I wish that there were no politics related to schools right now,” Gibbs said. “My focus on this campaign is to be on a school board so that we can continue to make decisions about what is best for children with multiple topics at hand.”

One topic Rosario and Gibbs notably are divided on includes a controversy at the forefront of School Board discussions since the 2021-2022 school year: library books with sexually explicit or other topics opponents claimed were inappropriate for school children.

More than 150 books were challenged by conservative parental rights group Moms For Liberty last school year in Indian River schools, a piece of a larger nationwide effort by the organization.

The School Board voted in February — with Rosario casting the only no vote — to remove only five while approving a policy to allow parents to restrict their children from accessing certain books.

Rosario still maintains offering any form of access to sexually explicit books violates state law that prohibits pornography in K-12 schools.

“It is not the place of the school system, the public school system, to offer these books or to have them available," she said. "That’s not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to follow the law.”

For Gibbs, though, book challenges are a distraction from other issues, such as allocating more funding to Exceptional Student Education and extracurriculars, she said.

“There are so many other things we could be focused on right now,” Gibbs said.

But the topic has yet to fade from the attention of the school community, as a recent photo of a Storm Grove Middle School teacher’s closed classroom library went viral on Facebook. The parent who posted it blamed DeSantis and Moms For Liberty for the closed-off classroom library.

Moms for Liberty — which was founded in Indian River, Brevard and Sarasota counties during the height of pandemic controversy — has endorsed Rosario.

Lina Ruiz is TCPalm's watchdog reporter for Martin County. You can reach her at lina.ruiz@tcpalm.com, on Twitter @Lina_Ruiz48 or at 321-501-3845

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: DeSantis, Crist candidates in Indian River School Board runoff