Candidates for Duval County School Board are not allowed to campaign as members of a political party.
But that doesn’t keep them from embracing politicized labels.
On Wednesday at Beaver Street’s Jacksonville Farmer’s Market, Greg Tison was getting ready for lunch. He’s the general manager of the market and he’s also running for school board in Mandarin’s District 7.
The board and the appointed superintendent are nonpartisan positions — candidates don’t have Rs or Ds next to their names — But Tison said that doesn’t keep voters from asking.
“I can’t tell you the number of doors I’ve knocked on or people I’ve run into through this campaign in the last few months who have said, well what political party are you a member of?” he said.
It’s not against the rules to answer that question, but it can’t be on candidates’ signs or ads.
A couple months ago, Tison’s campaign printed an ad that read “Vote in the Republican Primary,” but said that was an oversight.
“That was actually a misprint that was too late to catch and get corrected,” he said.
But the rest of the ad wasn’t a mistake, including the phrase “conservative leadership.”
“Why not have it?” he said. “As far as being transparent, it’s who I am. Why would I tell anybody anything else different?”
And he isn’t alone. Another District 7 candidate, Lori Hershey, has the phrase “Common Sense Conservative” across the top of her website. And outgoing District 7 board member Jason Fischer was elected with the endorsement of former Republican Florida Governor Jeb Bush according to the Florida Times-Union.
But school board consultant Cathy Mincberg said school boards work better together without the labels, it’s why she’s a fan of nonpartisan school boards.
“I think it’s a bad thing that school boards get pegged as being right or left,” she said.
Mincberg was on the Houston School Board for 14 years then became the district’s chief operating officer, and later became the COO for Portland (Oregon) Public Schools. Today she helps boards and superintendents work together, including Duval’s as the CEO at the Center for Reform of School Systems.
“So many issues that you face on a 40- or 50-item agenda every two weeks have nothing to do with party politics,” she said. “And you now get painted as being one way or the other, or the community thinks you’re going to do one thing or the other or a political party thinks they have a call on you because you’ve identified yourself.”
But Tison said he wants to be clear although he’s conservative, he isn’t running as a Republican. He wouldn’t be allowed to anyway.
“You know, I’m my own man,” he said. “I’m not beholden to anybody.”
Tison has raised the most money among the six candidates in his race. Many of his donors are other business leaders, and a few thousand has come from KIPP charter school board chair Gary Chartrand and his companies. Some of Tison's opponents raised concerns about it a recent candidate forum.
But Tison said, if elected, his conservative leadership won’t translate to an agenda. He said he wants to use his leadership and business skills to represent all of his possible constituents, even those who chose not to vote for him.
“To bring everybody together to work, to use common sense approaches to getting things done,” he said,”
But even on nonpartisan boards, education issues become politicized. And that’s more pronounced in Nassau County, where the superintendent is elected.
Janet Adkins has a television ad against her opponent Kathy Burns. Both are running as Republicans in the partisan superintendent race.
The narrator in the ad said “She defended Obama’s liberal Common Core agenda, calling the whole idea great, and Kathy Burns’s weak position on Obama’s progressive transgender bathroom mandate is dangerous for our children.”
Mincberg said candidates should have to explain where they stand on issues instead of defaulting to what a national democratic or republican agenda might point toward.
“I think there clearly is a move across the country to force us all into these party labels,” she said.
And she said such politicization is counterproductive because newly elected district leaders could start off with preconceived ideas about each other, which might result in unhealthy policy making.
Editor's note: Gary Chartrand is the chair of the WJCT Foundation.
Photo: “Lockers at School” used under Creative Commons.
Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride
