Florida’s largest school district – Miami-Dade – has attracted scant interest from candidates for its Aug. 18 school board election, guaranteeing reelection for three of the four incumbents whose terms are up.
While Florida’s other big-city school districts, including neighboring Broward County, or Tampa’s Hillsborough County, have robust fields of candidates, only one of Miami-Dade’s four incumbent school board members faces a challenger – despite the system facing headwinds like sharply declining student enrollment and a high-profile search for a new superintendent.
Candidate qualifying ended Friday.
“It’s a real tough job,” said Antonio “Tony” White, president of the United Teachers of Dade teachers’ union.
“It’s not as attractive as it once was,” White added.
White noted that Miami-Dade’s school board members earn a modest salary of about $54,000 – the same as a first-year teacher.
They are also consistently caught in the crosshairs of Florida’s political battles. Gov. Ron DeSantis has aggressively worked to influence local school board races, and several of Miami-Dade’s board members were either endorsed by, or directly appointed by, the governor.
One of those DeSantis-backed members, conservative educator Monica Colucci, drew a late-hour challenger Thursday afternoon. That challenger, Samuel “Sam” Joseph, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Three of the four incumbents have raised more than $100,000 in campaign funds – which itself serves as a potential deterrent to challengers. Colucci has raised $132,695.
As the candidate qualifying deadline approached, none of the four incumbent school board members facing reelection responded to interview requests from The Florida Trib, which were relayed through a district spokesperson.
An open seat on the school board has attracted the most interest, with six candidates signed up to run.
Looking past the election, Miami-Dade’s school board faces a host of challenges.
In Tallahassee, K-12 education is a pet issue for the Republican supermajority in the Legislature. Lawmakers have enthusiastically supported “school choice” alternatives such as charter schools or private school vouchers, while steadily chipping away at the power of traditional school districts.
More close to home, Miami-Dade’s school board members, faced with shrinking enrollment, are charged with the difficult task of managing aging school properties, and in some cases implementing school closures at under-enrolled schools.
In recent years, some of Miami-Dade’s under-enrolled school facilities have been subsequently leased to charter schools, or private schools.
White, the teachers’ union president, said the Trump administration’s immigration policies have further pushed down Miami-Dade’s total student enrollment, which translates to a loss of dollars.
“There are not a lot of people who actually want to come into this environment, public schools, right now,” White said.
Michael Vasquez is an investigative reporter at The Florida Trib. He can be reached at michael.vasquez@floridatrib.org.
