Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida today signed CS/HB 1467 into law, striking yet another big blow against the left.
That measure will not only put term restrictions on school board members, but it will also subject most of the material in school libraries and classrooms to government inspection, which the authors hope will keep pornography and books with radical social messages out of schools.
The bill states that district school board members are elected for four-year terms at the general election in November, except that a person may not run for reelection to the office of school board member if, by the end of his or her current term, he or she will have served, or would have served, in that office for 12 consecutive years. A term of office that began before November 8, 2022 will not be considered toward the time restriction established by this section.
Those already in office may serve for more than four years, but it will be considerably more difficult for leftists on school boards to maintain control by serving for long periods of time starting in 2022.
Later in the bill, it is stated that not only are school boards responsible for overseeing what books and instructional materials are used in schools and kept in their libraries, but that there must also be dispute resolution mechanisms in place if parents are unhappy with the materials being used, that pornographic materials of any kind are unsuitable for children, and that use of those materials described as unsuitable by the statute or other laws should be prohibited.
In an outstanding press conference, DeSantis primarily emphasized the term limits aspect of the measure and how it will benefit Florida’s educational system.
Subsequently, he defended parents’ rights to be active in their children’s education and to have some control as to what is learned.
Regardless of the results of the Virginia gubernatorial election, DeSantis’ advocacy of a parent’s right to have a role in their children’s education should be interesting and widespread in Florida’s next gubernatorial election.
