Herald recommends: Marta Perez in School Board District 8, where voters should reject partisanship, stay the course | Editorial

As with every other non-partisan election in which the Editorial Board has made recommendations — judicial races and those for the County Commission — races for the Miami-Dade County School Board have been similarly sullied by partisan politics. Of course, classrooms has become huge battlefields for the governor and Republican Legislature’s assault on public education. The race for District 8 is a prime example.

District 8

Veteran Miami-Dade School Board member Marta Perez never thought her bid for reelection for the non-partisan District 8 seat she’s held for 24 years would become a bitter brawl for her political life.

Perez was first elected in 1998. She has been an outspoken, persistent believer in doing the right thing, even if she has irritated critics.

A conservative Republican, she said she was surprised to find herself in the crosshairs of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, who she says launched a concerted effort to get her off the board and replace her with a Nunez-backed candidate: Monica Colucci, a 26-year local elementary school teacher.

“I am being bullied by these people who are intimidating others not to work on my campaign or endorse me. It’s unbelievable,“ Perez told the Editorial Board.

In an emailed statement to the Editorial Board, Nuñez said: “Gov. DeSantis and I fully endorse Monica Colucci in this race. This is called democracy, not sabotage. It is time for new leadership on our School Board, and Monica’s platform of parental rights, school choice and no new taxes are what voters want for their children’s future,”

Perez says she has been bombarded with negative flyers and ads, she says, distorting her long record on the School Board. She said former campaign allies were told she was not the governor’s choice, so they abandoned her.

It’s all part of what seems to be a new tactic by conservative Republicans to take control of school boards across the country. Miami-Dade, the nation’s fourth-largest district, appears to be on the front lines.

This week, a lawyer for DeSantis demanded that a political committee backing Perez stop using the governor’s image alongside Perez’s on a political flyer because DeSantis has endorsed Colucci, who is running for public office for the first time. Indeed, the flyer is misleading.

The text, though, is right. It calls her a “solid conservative voice” — which she has been on the School Board, and without bringing rabid ideology to her decisions, for which we commend her.

In 2006, she was instrumental in banning from school libraries a children’s book that presented life in Castro’s Cuba favorably. “Vamos a Cuba” was removed from schools.

But last week, Perez joined a majority of board members in banning a sex-education book. Thursday, when the vote was re-taken and the measure reversed — which was the right thing to do — Perez vote remained “No,” a disappointing vote, we think, but consistent for her.

So what was Perez’s crime that placed her in the governor’s removal list?

Perez believes it was her vote at the tail-end of the 2021 school year to extend a mask mandate in Miami-Dade schools for two more weeks. The governor opposed mask mandates.

“We were just following the advice of medical experts,” Perez said. Unlike Perez, Colucci said she vehemently opposed the mask mandates in public schools. “I don’t approve of the government mandating behavior.”

Perez said the School Board, along with the leadership of then-Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, has ably guided the district through the pandemic, And last month, Miami-Dade was voted an A school district, something Perez points to with pride, and for which she takes some credit, deservedly so.

Perez’s opponent is a well-versed candidate who has also worked for Nuñez’s election campaign. “I want to improve education in Miami-Dade, “ Colucci said.

She says the pandemic caused many students to be left behind and she would address that first.

“I think that we need to implement more differentiated instruction to close the achievement gaps. We also have to use progress monitoring. We have to look at what gains are being made now. We have to close those pandemic gaps. And we have to start offering extra and after school tutoring, “ Colucci said.

But we are concerned that she comes with another agenda — the governor’s divisive and disruptive agenda, and we oppose such political interference on the school board.

Perez, whose district is largely Hispanic and Republican, is feeling a financial pinch in her campaign. She has raised about $320,000, and made a $100,000 is a loan to herself. Meanwhile, Colucci has collected $123,000, but also has a powerful Republican PAC supporting her.

Bottom line: Perez continues to effectively fill her role as a school board watchdog. On top of that, because of the apparent political shenanigans to remove her from the board, we find it difficult to recommend her challenger.

From her many years on the dais, it’s been clear that Perez’s main concerns are the education and safety of the district’s 340,000 students.

The Miami Herald recommends MARTA PEREZ for Miami-Dade School Board, District 8.

This story was originally published July 29, 2022 at 6:00 AM.