Barker sees it as Sarasota choosing students over extremism.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: August 21, 2024
Host: Throughout Florida, school board candidates endorsed by conservative group Moms for Liberty and Governor Ron DeSantis did not fare well in yesterday’s elections. In Sarasota County, one of the highest-profile school boards anywhere in the United States, the two non-conservative candidates won. We interviewed them this morning.
Liz Barker
Liz Barker: As a community, as Floridians, as Sarasotans, we said we don’t have to agree on everything, but what we do agree on is that political extremism … It’s not us. It’s not who we are. We are not a community built on hate and fear and division. We are a community who cares deeply about each other. We care about our schools, we care about our children, we care about our teachers, and we don’t have to agree on everything else to agree on that.
Johannes Werner: This is Liz Barker, the candidate who staged an upset win against incumbent Karen Rose by a three-percent margin, explaining why she might have prevailed. But her main message is this: Barker wants things to go back to listening, problem-solving and cooperation, rather than posturing.
LB: I’ve always said this: when folks say minority versus majority, I’ve always said I don’t view it that way. I just view it as five people who all have different areas of expertise and different lenses that they’re bringing to the table. And in my case, I’m bringing a lens that hasn’t been on our board in quite a long time, which is of a parent who has children attending our public schools. And I think that that is a valuable perspective.
And so I think that lends itself to working together. I think we’ll be able to get a lot of wonderful things done, regardless of our political affiliations or opinions about anything else. But if we’re able to focus on students and be student centered and data centered, then I think we will be able to work together just fine.
A lot of what we were seeing on both sides of the aisle were folks feeling like they weren’t being heard. And I hope that if nothing else, while we may not agree on everything, I hope that everyone feels heard by me, and that I will always make decisions in the best interest of students, and whether or not you like those decisions, you can at least rest assured that I made that decision because I truly believed it was in the best interest of students.
JW: Barker says she wants to focus on students’ mental health and Exceptional Student Education once she joins the board.
Meanwhile, incumbent Tom Edwards calls himself the “only moderate” on the Sarasota School Board. He is openly gay, and Governor Ron DeSantis called for his ouster, which turned him into one of the highest-profile school board members in the United States.
Edwards was up against two conservative candidates who probably took voters from each other. But he won on his own, avoiding a runoff by obtaining nearly 56% of the vote.
One of the secret weapons wielded by Barker and Edwards were young campaigners. The SEE Alliance, a youth organization started by recent high school graduate Zander Moricz, played a big role in texting and door knocking. Zander Moricz:
Zander Moricz: For the last 10 months, Sarasota students have organized this community to put students before politics. We’ve organized messaging campaigns, we’ve organized strategy sessions, events, and rallies. We’ve knocked on thousands of doors, we’ve called thousands of phones. We distributed a student designed door hanger. We stood outside of polling locations and spoke to voters. We worked for 10 months to help this community make choices away from party politics, and instead make choices based on what was actually best for the student population here in Sarasota, and the emotions right now are electric. Sarasota students have been ignored for 10 months, and still, throughout the 10 months, they fought, they organized, they worked to become heard, and people are listening, people are responding. And people yesterday did not vote in accordance with their party affiliation, they voted to put students before politics.
JW: Reporting for WSLR News in Sarasota, this has been Johannes Werner.
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