Photo: Getty Images North America
Florida's primary elections are six weeks from Tuesday, with early voting starting in four weeks. Among the local elections are four Palm Beach County School Board races, with three incumbents running for re-election.
They include 12-year Board Member Karen Brill in District 3. We asked her to grade the school board's efforts during the pandemic.
"Although I would give us an A, I will say that there are things that I would do differently in retrospect. There was no playbook when COVID hit."
First, she says should wouldn't close the schools right away like what happened at the beginning.
The school board voted to keep masks mandatory for students even after the governor signed an executive order that parents must be given the option.
"I think it went on personally too long. If you go back and watch our meetings from June of last year. At the end of the school year, I was the only board member who wanted to make masks optional at that point."
Brill has three challengers, including Connor Frontera, who owns a tutoring business. He says he noticed his students' education shortfalls and claims those came from the classroom.
"And then I started to see that they're not being taught the skills they need to succeed in school and even beyond school...career, life success. Things like that."
That's why Frontera says he decided to run for the school board.
He also speaks out about the controversy over Critical Race Theory in the classroom.
"(The) Palm Beach County School Board will tell you CRT is not in schools. I'm going to tell you as a tutor I've seen it in all my students' curriculums. So, if they're saying it's not they're completely lying to you."
Here's Brill's answer as to whether students are being taught the tenets of CRT.
"Critical Race Theory is not taught in the K-12 system. We have to follow the state curriculum. Is it possible that sometimes we would have a teacher that's doing something that's not aligned to the curriculum? Absolutely, and I tell parents if you know that, if you find that, you need to tell us. You need to tell me."
But Frontera says even the youngest students in local public schools are learning the wrong messages.
"They're teaching the kids to hate their classmates, to hate their neighbors, to hate their country. This is the greatest country in the world, okay. We should be teaching our kids that the American dream is real and they can have it. They just have to work hard."
He talks about the importance of either replacing the school police department with the Sheriff's Office or conducting a full overhaul, saying schools are not as safe as they should be.
Candidate Bailey Lashells is also known as "Fiona's mom," after her daughter appeared on Fox News with Governor DeSantis, telling the story about how she was repeatedly sent home from school for refusing to wear a mask.
"The governor's executive order stated that parents ultimately had the right to choose, however our school board here in Palm Beach County and newly appointed superintendent decided that they would go against Governor DeSantis and state that all the kids had to wear masks at school. As a parent, I didn't agree with that."
Fiona was suspended a total of 38 days, but is moving on to 3rd grade next month.
As mentioned earlier in this story, Brill says that in hindsight, she would've done things differently and even now questions the effectiveness of masks.
"So many adults who have had the booster, have had the vaccine, have worn a mask can still get COVID. So were they effective? My guess is no."
Lashells questions her sincerity.
"I would think that anybody that's up for reelection and has seen the backlash that Karen has would say that they would do things differently. I believe that Karen's had 12 years to do things differently."
Critical Race Theory has been an issue brought up by the other candidates we've heard from and it's the same for candidate Kristen Stevenson.
"Our kids have really become a target for social ideaology and agenda and I just really want to keep the focus on academics in the classroom. I'm also noticing an increase of technology to the point of being dangerous. It's more becoming the teacher instead of a useful supplement."
She was a teacher in New York and says she has the experience in the classroom that would come in handy on the school board.
Stevenson wants to be an advocate for teachers who she says are not making enough to live.
"There really does need to be an overhaul of our budget because really the money is there. There's room for incentives. There's room for salary increase and when I have gone through piece-by-piece of our budget, we really are wasting a good amount of funds."
The school district's budget is $4.1 billion.
Kristen has two children in our local public schools.
Voters will cast a ballot on the School Board race in the District where they live. The other districts that are having elections in August are 4, 6 and 7.
Click Here for a full list of the candidates in all races.