With Florida's primary elections taking place Tuesday, Broward County voters will weigh in for the first time on two school board seats whose current members were appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The seats of school board members Daniel Foganholi, who represents District 1, and Torey Alston, who represents District 2, are two of the five school board member seats up for grabs on Tuesday. Each was appointed in 2022. The school board is composed of nine members.
On the latest episode of the South Florida Roundup, WLRN’s Tim Padgett spoke with WLRN’s Broward County reporter Carlton Gillespie on what makes this race so pivotal for the county's school board, which oversees the sixth-largest school system in the nation.
The election results will determine the board’s political party majority, which will be critical as cultural issues have divided the board in recent years.
“That culture war issue that has dominated education talk in the state for what seems like years now is absolutely on the ballot,” Gillespie said. “There could be five [board members] who support these kinds of culture-war initiatives or five who oppose it. We could get a clean sweep either way that would end up as the majority on the school board.”
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Alston got appointed in 2022 after four board members got suspended, while Foganholi became a member in the same year replacing Rod Velez after facing challenges over his eligibility despite being elected. Both candidates have serious challengers in the election, Gillespie said.
Maura McCarthy Bulman, one of Foganholi’s opponents, has out fundraised him at a rate of 6:1. Additionally, Fanganholi is currently residing in Coral Springs, which is outside of the district that he represents. Unlike him, Bulman has lived in District 1 for 20 years. The law allows school board candidates to live outside the district, so long as they move into the district following their election. Members appointed by the governor were exempt from the requirement due to the shorter term.
Democrat Debra Hixon, whose husband Christopher Hixon died in the Parkland school shooting in 2018, ran for office in 2020 in part due to safety concerns in the school district. She is hoping to get re-elected for another term representing District 9. Tom Vasquez, a Republican and former marine, is running against her.
“He is very much a believer in that kind of ‘we can fix this at a student-by-student level’ rather than an overarching reform like Hixon,” Gillespie said.
You can listen to the full conversation above or wherever you get your podcasts by searching: The South Florida Roundup.
