Broward’s District 6 school board race is a battle for the county’s affluent western suburbs: Davie, Weston, Sunrise. 

Historically speaking, Broward’s District 6 schools have been some of its biggest success stories. High student test scores. Championship-winning sports teams. The sort of neighborhood schools that attract families to move to the neighborhood.

But in a telling sign of this more-uncertain time for Florida public schools, the District 6 race this year has focused on Broward’s dwindling student enrollment, the painful task of school closures, and whether Broward’s district – still A-rated by the state – can somehow chart a path to its former glory. 

That yet-to-be-discovered path, if it is found, will be uphill. 

“It’s a mix of unfortunate events that have led us here,” said candidate Roberto Fernandez, III, a former Social Studies teacher.  “And now we have to make decisions that are going to be difficult.”

In a single year, from 2024-25 to 2025-26, Broward lost nearly five percent of its student enrollment – dropping from 198,362 to 188,002.

In the last 10 years, the district has lost more than 40,000 students. 

For decades, Florida’s GOP-led state Legislature has encouraged parents to choose alternatives to traditional public schools, such as charter schools and private schools, and those efforts have now bore fruit. 

As a result, Florida’s traditional public school districts are shrinking fast. In May, Broward’s school board voted to cut 1,000 jobs to help close a $90 million budget deficit.  

The second Trump administration may have also hastened the enrollment decline of South Florida’s school districts by aggressively targeting undocumented families for deportation. 

Fernandez, the school board candidate, signed up to run early last year, after he said the Broward school board discussed undocumented students in a way he felt was “disrespectful and insensitive.”

Fernandez heard those comments by happenstance, as he was attending a board meeting for an unrelated item, regarding student mental health. Fernandez encouraged a 5th-grader to speak, but she was worried about her father, who is undocumented. 

The girl’s mother had died, and the district’s mental health services had helped her, Fernandez said. With Fernandez’s support, the girl spoke publicly about her experience. 

“She was scared about her father, and his status,” Fernandez said.

Since Fernandez’s early entrance into the race, the District 6 incumbent has changed: Brenda Fam resigned from her seat, and was replaced by a Gov. Ron DeSantis appointee: Adam Cervera. 

While Fam, a Republican, was a warrior in conservative “culture” wars, Cervera has carved out a different sort of niche: a Republican maverick who boasts about working with everyone, supports increased pay for Broward’s teachers, but also enjoys calling out wasteful spending items in the district’s $5 billion budget.

“In a relatively short period of time, I have established a very clear record,” Cervera said at a recent online candidate’s forum. “I show up, I listen, I ask the difficult questions, and I put students and parents first.”

In heavily-Democratic Broward County, the GOP governor’s school board appointees have repeatedly been rejected by voters. Cervera is attempting to buck that trend, and his campaign received a boost by garnering the sought-after endorsement of the Broward Teachers Union.

The union rarely backs Republican candidates. 

Cervera also has the luxury of being the most well-funded candidate in the race – thanks, in large part, to $300,000 in loans he made to himself, according to campaign finance reports.  

Cervera at first agreed to an interview request with The Florida Trib. 

Shortly before the scheduled interview, Cervera texted: “Pls text your questions in advance so we can be sure to be on the same page.” 

A Florida Trib reporter responded that the questions would not be provided in advance. Cervera did not respond to another attempt to schedule an interview, nor did he respond to two specific written questions, asking Cervera where he lives, and what schools his children attend, that were sent via text.

Cervera was a longtime Miami-Dade County resident prior to DeSantis appointing him to the board. In an interview with The Miami Herald, Cervera said he now lives in Weston, and his children attend Catholic school.   

One of Cervera’s challengers, Makai Henry, called the incumbent’s well-funded campaign “an attempt to almost buy this election.”

“Look, if we’re being honest about his record, he spent most of his adult life as a Miami lawyer,” said Henry, a substitute teacher who, at 20 years old, is the youngest candidate in the race. 

Henry said he is running because he believes the district is in a moment of “crisis,” in part due to the DeSantis administration’s strong support of private school vouchers. 

Henry called vouchers a “mechanism to transfer public dollars into the hands of private corporations. It is a scheme to take taxpayer money and then send it to private corporations. And the problem that I have with that is that it deprives our public schools of the funding that they need to keep sustainable and high-quality public education.” 

Cervera was not the only District 6 candidate to request written questions in advance. 

“I am so sorry but I have a conflict that came up for this afternoon,” texted candidate Jessie Bastos, after canceling a scheduled interview with The Florida Trib. “Can you please email your questions and I’ll get responses back asap?”

Bastos, informed that The Florida Trib would not provide questions in advance, did not seek to reschedule her interview. 

At the recent candidates’ forum, Bastos stressed that her professional background working in sales would be an important addition to the school board. Bastos is currently a sales executive for Samsung, and she previously held a similar position with T-Mobile. 

“We need to do a much better job of sales and marketing,” Bastos said. “This is something that I’ve spent the last 22 years of my professional career doing, making organizations profitable.” 

She added: “We have phenomenal programs that are the best-kept secret in Broward County, and they should not be a secret.” 

Bastos, like Cervera, has invested heavily in her own campaign, and loaned herself $40,100, according to campaign finance reports.  

Lester Wilks, Jr., another District 6 candidate, credits the “Weston PTA moms” with inspiring him to run. Wilks operates an after-care program in nine Broward elementary schools, and one middle school, and he said his regular interactions with students and families have given him a “boots on the ground” perspective regarding where the district needs to improve. 

For one, Wilks said, Broward must do a better job of attracting and retaining top-tier employees. 

“I think we need to get away from hiring our friends, and promoting our people that we like,” he said. 

The district also needs to be much more responsive to parent concerns, Wilks said. Dealing with the school system can feel “almost like the DMV, where it’s unhappy,” he said. 

Broward’s parents, Wilks said, “are our customers, but they’re not treating them like our customers.” 

Michael Vasquez is an investigative reporter at The Florida Trib. He can be reached at michael.vasquez@floridatrib.org.