DeSantis discusses 'teacher protections,' school board changes in visit to Jacksonville

Gov. Ron DeSantis touted more pay raises for teachers, a future “Teachers’ Bill of Rights” and potential changes to school union dues during a press conference in Jacksonville Monday morning.

Angling Florida as "the education state,” DeSantis defended recent controversial education policies and said he hoped the state would be rolling out new initiatives to protect teachers over the next several months.

“You talk about if the students have rights. We talk a lot about parents having rights, and that's very important, but teachers really need to have rights in terms of them managing classrooms and being able to do what they need to do,” DeSantis said.

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Florida has raised base teacher salaries over the past three years, bringing the average to roughly $47,500. DeSantis said he wanted to put an additional $200 million in funding to further raise pay.

Speaking from Duval Charter School at Baymeadows, DeSantis said teacher pay helped Florida partially avoid the national teacher shortage. The state's largest teacher's union, the Florida Education Association, reported there were 10,771 advertised vacancies in school districts, 6,006 for teachers and 4,765 for support staff, at the beginning of the school year.

DeSantis has pushed for increased teacher pay over the past few years, but he said Monday he also wanted to expand “teacher empowerment." This included allowing teachers to notify the state if they feel their rights are being violated – this included if the teacher felt the school board was going against state policy, such as the “Parental Rights in Education” law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” policy by critics. 

School board members most recently elected were less likely to push teachers to violate state law, DeSantis said – a majority of the candidates he endorsed for school board were elected in November. If school board members do not like state policies, however, they should not force teachers to violate them, he said.

“We’re a state and country in a society based on the rule of law, so if you don't like the policies that are enacted by the legislature signed by the governor, you have an election every two years where you can go and make your voice heard,” DeSantis said.

Currently, school board candidates political parties are not listed on Florida ballots. DeSantis said he wanted to make the elections partisan and for the candidates to identify themselves if they chose in order to promote transparency among voters, as well as limit elected candidates to eight year terms.

DeSantis said identification would help voters know the values and philosophies of their school board candidates – and whether they agreed with him.

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

Protecting teachers also extended to their administration of discipline among fighting students, he said, and that teachers should be given a “presumption that they acted appropriately.” In an emailed outline, the proposal would implement a "stand your ground classroom safety policy to protect teachers who are often judged unfairly for maintaining order and safety in their classrooms."

DeSantis did not provide further detail as to when any legislation would be introduced or specifics on how policies would be implemented.

Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Duval County School Board member Charlotte Joyce and Florida Educator of the Year Melissa Matz joined DeSantis in praising the initiatives.

Joyce, who was elected in a contentious election in August, said she felt school unions were doing teachers a disservice by advocating for mask and vaccine mandates during the coronavirus-19 pandemic.

She echoed DeSantis’ critique of unions, as they both said the unions kept teachers from additional pay raises in order to focus on political agendas.

DeSantis, in turn, said he wanted to change how union dues were deducted from teachers’ paychecks and have more transparency about the amount extracted, as well as keep union literature from being handed out at schools and prohibit union work while clocked in for an individual's job at a school.

Under the policy, DeSantis would also prohibit union officials from being paid more than the highest earning union member. Notably, DeSantis also would also require at least 60% of eligible employees to be union represented instead of the current 50%.

DeSantis has continuously clashed with education unions over pandemic policy, and various unions, including FEA, endorsed Charlie Crist in last November's election for governor.

DeSantis condemns AP African American studies course

The press conference came just days after the Florida Board of Education rejected a high school pilot course for an African American studies advanced placement course.

More:Florida education officials: African American Studies AP course 'lacks educational value'

The state wrote a letter to the College Board, saying the class "lacked educational value" and was contrary to Florida law, but did not specify which law. The College Board website described the class as interdisciplinary and discussed "literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, and science—to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans. "

When asked about the course on Monday, DeSantis said Florida already teaches African American history and that the course was “indoctrination.” DeSantis said one of the course components on intersectionality, including talking about “queer theory” and abolishing prisons, pushed an agenda onto students.

“That’s what our standards for Black history are, it’s just history, just cut and dry history,” DeSantis said. “You learn all the basics. You learn about the great figures, and, you know, I view it as American history. I don’t view it as separate history.”

Civil rights groups have condemned the state's rejection and organized a rally in Tallahassee to take place during the first week of February. The NAACP released a statement Friday saying DeSantis’ dismissal of the course was “not only a dereliction of his duty to ensure equitable education for all Floridians, but shows clear disdain for the lives and experiences that form part of our national history.”

USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau reporter John Kennedy contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: DeSantis talks teacher pay, school board changes in Jacksonville speech