District 5 Sarasota School Board race preview: Nora Cietek vs. Tim Enos

For much of their lives, both Nora Cietek and Tim Enos have been tied to education. But their connections have been very different.

Cietek has been a teacher and administrator, while Enos has been in law enforcement, including a stint as head of the Sarasota County School district's new police agency.

Both are vying to replace Jane Goodwin as the District 5 representative on the School Board. Goodwin decided not to run for re-election after three terms.

The District 5 race is one of three School Board contests on the Aug. 23 ballot. At least two newcomers will be elected, including either Enos or Cietek. In District 4, Robyn Marinelli faces Lauren Kurnov to the race replace longtime board member Shirley Brown, who decided not to run again. In District 1, incumbent Bridget Ziegler is seeking re-election against Dawnyelle Singleton.

School board races in Florida are officially nonpartisan, but both local political parties and high profile public officials, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Congressman Charlie Crist, who is seeking to unseat DeSantis, are weighing in, as education has become a flashpoint in battles over cultural issues. Cietek has been endorsed by the local Democratic Party and Enos by the local Republican Party, and both have raised comparatively large sums in campaign contributions.

In 2010, the District 5 candidates raised about $24,000 in contributions combined. But as of the July 29 filing deadline, the candidates this year reported collecting a combined $150,762.42.

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Nora Cietek

Cietek, 60, who moved to the area three years ago from Schenectady, New York, has worked as a special education teacher, as well as both a principal and assistant principal.

She has a master's degree in educational psychology from the University at Albany, and she has been endorsed by the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association.

With experience in special education, Cietek said she brings an outside-the-box mentality in her approach to the School Board.

"Every teacher and every child every day can accomplish their goals with the necessary tools and support," she said. "I can advocate for all children, especially the 8,000 ESE (exceptional student education) students in our district."

Cietek said she's running for the board to pay it forward to the next generation. She said she sees the School Board as the last stop for her, and has no political ambitions beyond it.

If she were to break her campaign down to three points, she said it would be her "can do" attitude and rare insight into how children learn, working to refresh the district's approach to student mental health, and strengthening the parent-teacher relationship.

Students achieve best when the parents and teachers work together, and partisan politics stay out of the picture, Cietek said, adding the focus needs to be on students.

With the district's reading scores continuing a downward trend, she said she wants to expand voluntary pre-kindergarten programs and work with instructors to evaluate curriculum effectiveness.

"We need to come up with solutions, and what can we do with who we have and the resources we have," Cietek said. "We just need to be smarter about how we're using them."

Tim Enos

The former chief of the Sarasota County Schools Police Department, Enos, 56 is an executive director on the Florida Association of School Resource Officers and testified before the state Legislature on best school safety practices after the Parkland shooting.

A graduate of Florida State University with a bachelor's in finance, Enos said he's uniquely qualified to serve on the School Board. For 22 of his 32 years of law enforcement experience, he's worked with the school district directly, he said. During his time with the district's police force, he said he's been in every school in the county and experienced their classrooms first-hand.

One of the reasons Enos said he decided to run for School Board is his opposition to some of the board's policy decisions. He cited a recent change to public comment policy at board meetings as an action the current board has taken that he would seek to undo if he wins.

"The public should be able to have their full time allotment in order to be able to address the board, because you cannot make any changes unless you hear concerns and the concerns are from both sides," said Enos, who is one of several local school board candidates endorsed by DeSantis.

Enos said he also favored a complete board policy review, including revisiting how the district aims to close the achievement gap, he said.

The achievement gap refers to the difference in test scores between white and minority students. Historically, Sarasota Schools have had a larger gap than the state as a whole.

A graduate of Sarasota County public schools, Enos said one of his top priorities is to continue the district's excellence in school safety. Niche.com ranked Sarasota Schools as the safest in the state.

At a June 16 Tiger Bay candidate forum, Enos said the district employs all best practices with regard to school safety. Mental health remains a wild card, however, and following through with students in the classroom is a key to preventing incidents, he said.

On the issues

Critical race theory:  Critical race theory is a graduate-level academic framework that asserts racism is more than prejudice, but is also systemic in the U.S.'s laws and institutions.

Cietek: CRT is prohibited in Florida, and it doesn't exist in K-12 education, she said. She said she's concerned that too much focus is placed on issues like this rather than on students who aren’t reading at the appropriate grade level, or who are entering high school lacking in basic skills. She said the emphasis should be on the basics of teaching students history, all of it, in its imperfect, factual form.

Enos: As the Legislature has passed HB 7, and the governor signed it, Enos said he will follow it, as he would all laws. Children are taught to follow the laws of this country from a young age and people don’t get to determine what they follow and don't follow, he said.

Parental Rights in Education Act: The Parental Rights in Education Act (HB 1557) dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by critics, is a seven-page law signed by DeSantis this year.  The law states, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Cietek: Parents have always had and always will have a voice and a say in their children’s education, she said. People can always do a better job of listening to one another. Issues like this have dominated conversations instead of focusing on taking care of kids and figuring out how we can work together to help our families, she said.

Enos: The best practices in instruction should be developmentally appropriate, he said. All parents need to be informed and take an active role in their child's education. The statistics show that the parents that are involved in the education of their children increase the level of success in education, he said.

Textbooks and library book content: There has been increased attention on curriculum content in textbooks and library books, as the Florida Department of Education rejected more than 50 math textbooks for allegedly including critical race theory. As of publication, there was an active lawsuit against the School Board over alleged obscene library books in district schools. Legal counsel for the district said it is likely to be thrown out.

Cietek: It’s never, ever a good idea to ban books. If we need to make it a parent’s ability to oversee what their child is reading, then that’s an easy solution to work toward, she said. Removing award-winning literature from libraries leads to opening doors for more omissions based on any criteria. It’s dangerous, she said.

Enos: The current policy is reviewed annually to align with legislative updates and the Sarasota County School District has a policy to contest books and materials, he said. All materials and resources are required to align with the grade level state standards or they need to be approved by school or district administration. If anytime that material is in doubt, it then needs to be approved by administration, he said.

How the district handled COVID-19: The School Board took several steps last year to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 to students, including a temporary mask mandate with an opt-out.

Cietek: The health and safety of all students should always be the number one priority, she said. Following the science and guidance of medical experts should be standard practice.

Enos: The district should have followed the state-required mask mandate with parental opt-out. The teachers and the staff were put under great stress during that period of time and are still feeling the effects. He said he's incredibly proud of Sarasota County Schools teachers, staff, students and families for growing and maintaining the A grade.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Elections 2022: Sarasota School Board District 5 Tim Enos, Nora Cietek