DeSantis is reshaping Florida's public schools. Be afraid, very afraid.

Ron DeSantis is working to reshape public education in Florida by pushing all the far right hate buttons. He is not failing. With his Moms For Liberty allies, he engineered a takeover of several school boards, including where I live in Martin County.

The latest installment of the Martin County story started less than a year before the nonpartisan school board election scheduled for primary day on August 23. A “Mom” moved from Virginia to Martin County and decided to run for our school board. Her qualifications were a single semester of community college and 6 years of experience as an administrative assistant at a Christian daycare/pre-K center. The facility was also licensed to teach grades K-4 and enrolled about 40 students. In MFL world, this is more than adequate experience to be one of 5 people sitting on a school board that supervises the education of 15,000 students.

Both MFL candidates were members of the same megachurch. They got support from the church in the form of endorsements from the pulpit and help for parishioners in filling out their ballot. The church also featured the candidates on their podcast. When a listener on the podcast asked “don’t you think it’s a good idea to have a cross in every classroom?” the candidate’s response was “Praise the Lord!”

The governor endorsed the candidate and was featured standing with her in her campaign materials. PACs allied with the governor flooded mailboxes in the “nonpartisan” race with heavy-handed attacks on her opponent’s WOKE liberalism and the imminent threat of “indoctrination” in our schools. The governor’s candidate won comfortably against her far better qualified opponent. The second Moms candidate also won a closer race against a long-term incumbent, sealing the deal.

Florida schools are open again after the summer break and substantive change will likely have to wait until the next budget cycle. In the meantime, though, there are hints of what classrooms will look like under the “Stop WOKE Act” and “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. All classrooms are required to display a “safe place” notice. The old notices were ordered to be removed and replaced with a new version. It looks like some students are going to be safer than others.