SARASOTA, Fla. — Two days before the primary election begins, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped in Sarasota and talked about education while showing support for several Tampa Bay area school board candidates.
"Floridians want our school system to be about educating kids, not indoctrinating kids," DeSantis said to a packed room inside the Sahib Shrine Event Center.
Candidates in the running vowed to support the governor's education agenda, if elected or re-elected to the school board. Crowds cheered DeSantis as he expressed the continued fight for parental rights in schools and combating the left's "woke ideologies."
DeSantis referenced the passage of the Parental Rights in Education law, known to critics as the "Don't Say Gay" law and the "Stop Woke Act", in his speeches.
"It is a common sense approach to education and we are going to get the foolishness out," Robyn Marinelli, a candidate for Sarasota School Board District 4, said.
Voters also applauded DeSantis when he discussed his fight to prevent mask and vaccine mandates from being imposed in schools and to keep them open when the COVID-19 pandemic first impacted the state.
A group of protesters stood outside the venue and accused the Florida governor of censoring material and history to students. They called DeSantis' education policies "hateful."
"They're turning our schools into political battlegrounds and our children into political pawns," Angela Wynn, Support Our Schools co-founder, said. "We send our kids to public schools to learn what society needs them to learn, not what parents want them to learn."
DeSantis won't face an opponent in the race for Florida governor until November, but Tuesday's primary races could indicate how much support he gets with education as one of his leading appeals to Floridians.
The Florida primary election is on Aug. 23. The primary election is held to nominate party candidates to be voted for in the general election (on Nov. 8) to fill a national, state, county or district office. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders.
To learn more about the Florida primary election, click here.