Two political newcomers are taking on incumbent Eric Robinson and longtime administrator and former candidate Karen Rose.
With money, name recognition and momentum, two candidates in the races for two seats on the Sarasota County School Board hold decided advantages heading into this summer’s primary election.
Incumbent Eric Robinson, who is seeking to hold his District 3 seat, and former school administrator Karen Rose, running for an open District 2 seat, both have roughly 12 times the money in campaign funding than their respective opponents.
They both carry the endorsement of the district’s teachers union, and both names are familiar to voters, with Robinson a fixture in state and local politics for years and Rose a longtime administrator who lost narrowly to current board member Shirley Brown in 2018.
But underdog challengers Tom Edwards and David Graham are hoping for an upset.
Edwards, a former businessman from New York running against Robinson, and Graham, a computer specialist for the district challenging Rose, are political unknowns in Sarasota.
Neither has run for public office before, but they are both counting on their outsider status and passion for protecting traditional public schools to appeal to voters and overcome their political disadvantages.
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State politics
Both Edwards and Graham said they are driven by a desire to fight back against laws that have expanded school choice and diverted funds from traditional public schools to private schools and charters.
Local school board members have had minimal sway over how state lawmakers vote, with School Board members annually outraged by Tallahassee’s edicts, to little avail.
Despite that, state education policy has increasingly taken center stage in local board elections, and in Sarasota, the volume is turned up even louder on the issue because many of those policies were enacted by politicians that Robinson helped get elected.
Robinson’s accounting firm in Venice has managed campaign funds for a bevy of Republican politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis during his tenure in Congress. Robinson’s mastery of using Political Action Committees to move money around the state for clients has earned him the reputation as Florida’s top money man for Republicans seeking office.
Edwards said Robinson’s connections in Tallahassee undermine his ability to represent Sarasota’s interest in preserving local control over the district and that the board needed someone who will “be an advocate and fight like hell” against policies that hurt traditional public schools.
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“If (Robinson) and his anointed candidate (Rose) get on the board, they are going to lay over and play dead,” Edwards said.
Edwards, who represented the interests of beverage store owners among New York state lawmakers in Albany before moving to Sarasota, said he would use his position on the board to rally like-minded officials against pro-school choice policies.
“To me, it’s not only being at the School Board, it’s being part of the decision-making process in Tallahassee,” Edwards said.
Robinson said Edwards was running for the wrong office.
“He needs to run for state representative then,” Robinson said. “When it’s an issue that doesn’t involve that school district, you are not going to be successful in that.”
Robinson said, despite his clients’ success in enacting pro-school choice legislation, the assumption that he is pro-charter and pro-privatization does not align with his voting record on the board.
“Nobody on the Sarasota School Board has held charter schools more accountable than Eric Robinson,” he said.
Robinson has voted against providing capital funding for charters, rejected charter applications and voted against sharing money with a religious school.
Robinson said the real divide on the Sarasota School Board, which often results in 3-2 votes with Robinson and fellow board member Bridget Ziegler in the minority, has nothing to do with charters or privatization; it’s all about the role of a board member.
Robinson said he and Ziegler believe more in holding a superintendent accountable, while current board members Jane Goodwin, Shirley Brown and Caroline Zucker have held a different view.
“We think we should hold a superintendent accountable and look at things with a level of skepticism,” Robinson said. “They fundamentally don’t believe that. They believe they are to be the cheerleaders of the superintendent.”
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Like Edwards, Graham says his opponent is too cozy with politicians who have pushed school choice policies.
If Robinson and Rose both win, they would likely tilt the board to a new 3-2 split, with Robinson and Rose aligning on many issues with Ziegler.
A Robinson, Rose and Ziegler majority would be a dramatic shift after years of Ziegler and Robinson being outvoted by Goodwin, Brown and Zucker.
Graham said he fears that if a majority of the School Board appears sympathetic to the school choice movement, it could lead to more charters approved, more families using vouchers, and eventually charter schools and voucher-accepting private schools will peel away the district’s highest-performing students.
“The public school district will be left with the most challenged children and it will be a specialty of taking care of those children at the detriment of everyone else,” Graham said.
Rose said the notion that she is a “privatizer” is a political label at odds with her career in public education.
“I am not what someone says I am; I am what I have done the overwhelming majority of my life,” Rose said. “I have been dedicated to traditional public schools every year of my career.”
Rose said she supports school choice, but she does not want it to be to the detriment of traditional public schools. She said that, as a board member, she would push for expanded transportation options for students who want to opt out of their designated school zone school and more transparency from the district as to what options parents have.
“If you want to save public schools, you take steps that you are empowered to have the influence over,” she said.
Rose said in-demand schools like Sarasota Middle School or Laurel Nokomis can accept only a fraction of students seeking a transfer, and students must provide their own transportation. For families who want out of a struggling Title I school or want special services for their child not available in their home school, that doesn’t cut it, she said.
“People want options, particularly if we aren’t meeting their needs,” Rose said, adding that expanded choice offers a lifeline for some families. “I don’t feel comfortable at all with all the (state) legislative (decisions), but I would like to see that supported in a manner that isn’t threatening to what I love and what I’ve dedicated my life to.”
Fundraising
Robinson and Rose have both contributed heavily to their own campaigns and both hold commanding fundraising leads over their opponents so far.
Both candidates are wealthy – Robinson’s net worth according to his campaign financial disclosure form is $5.2 million, and Rose’s $4.2 million.
At the end of May, Robinson had $101,200 in his campaign fund, with $75,000 coming from his own pocket. Rose had $73,412, with $40,372 coming from herself.
Edwards (net worth: $488,300) had raised $8,860, and Graham (net worth: $28,440) had raised $5,725, with Edwards contributing $2,500 to his own campaign and Graham contributing a $100 loan.
With COVID-19 restrictions making it tougher to campaign in person, candidates will be increasingly relying on advertising, social media, mailers and signs — all costly campaign tools.
Sarasota School Board elections became dramatically more expensive over the past decade, and Edwards said he was shocked when he saw how much money Robinson was spending on the campaign.
“I’m wondering why one would want to spend $100,000 of their own money,” he said. “I want to ask the community the same question. I am dumbfounded.”
He said he would not be trying to match that amount but would spend the next months leading up to the August election getting his name out into the community.
“I am having to self-fund because it is hard to raise money during COVID-19,“ Robinson said. “I am willing to put my time, talent and treasure on the line to help my community.”
Graham said his grassroots campaign is an effort to let the nondonor class have more of a say.
“The regular person — they don’t get a voice because these other people have donated so much money to these politicians, so of course they are going to have a loud voice,” Graham said.
Rose said her campaign, which has the most individual contributions of any of the candidates, represents a cross-section of the community.
More than politics and cash
While partisan politics and follow-the-money efforts give voters a glimpse into what drives a board member’s thinking, elected board members face an array of decisions that can’t be simply dictated by a party platform or campaign donor’s desire.
This year the School Board dealt with a sexual harassment scandal among top administrators, an ongoing lawsuit alleging district staff intentionally mislabeled students as cognitively disabled, and board members are in the process of hiring a new superintendent.
All four candidates say they want to be consensus builders, restoring community trust in a board that has been recently defined by drama.
Sarasota residents will have their chance to decide who is best fit to meet that goal this summer. Voters head to the polls on Aug. 18.
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Sarasota School Board races pit known entities vs. newcomers - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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