James Call
Four school board members from across the state have organized as an alternative to the Florida School Board Association. The Florida Coalition of School Board Members is disgruntled by the FSBA support for a lawsuit against a tax credit scholarship program by the Florida Education Association.
The state has sought dismissal of the cased, arguing the FEA lacks legal standing to challenge the private school voucher program started during the Bush administration and supported and defended by the Republican-controlled state Capitol.
In a conference call with reporters, members of the new group said in addition to defending the voucher program currently serving about 69,000 low to middle income students they are also focused in fostering a more cooperative working relationship with Tallahassee.
“We feel the FSBA has kind of lost touch,” said Erika Donalds, a member of the Collier County School Board. “It’s become very clear that the school boards are really losing influence in Tallahassee.”
The founding members of the FCSBM in addition to Donalds include Shawn Frost of Indian River County, Bridget Ziegler of Sarasota County and Jeff Bergosh of Sarasota County.
Frost was elected last year, defeating the president of the FSBA, Karen Disney-Brombach.
Bergosh will lead the new group. On his blog, the Escambia School Board member contends the two biggest issues destroying public education as apathy about confronting issues and the “disingenuous, hypocritical, insidious educrat mantra that proclaims education reform is bad — and all schools can be fixed if everybody will just get on the same page and howl for more taxpayer money.”
Bergosh expects to grow the group to about 40 or 50 school board members. He said coalition members may remain part of the FSBA.
