Come Tuesday, Aug. 23, Hillsborough County is experiencing some major leadership changes. School Board elections will be underway, however, for RHS students, the most relevant districts are Districts 2 and 6 (Robinson is located in District 2 and District 6 is a countywide district that affects each school).

On Monday, Aug. 15, some candidates for Districts 2 and 6 spoke at a PTA and PTSA-hosted public forum and the Gandy Civic Center. Candidates present were: Roshaun Gendrett (District 6 candidate), Alysha Legge (District 6 candidate), Karen Perez (District 6 incumbent) and Damaris Allen (District 2 candidate). District 2 incumbent Stacy Hahn was invited but was unable to attend. 

All four candidates present all have some sort of experience with education coming into the race. 

“I am the only one in this race in District 6, that has any educational experience, my opponent, Karen Perez, has zero educational experience,” long-time educator Gendrett said. 

Aside from Gendrett, none of the other candidates were actually involved in paid positions as teachers or members of the school staff. Gendrett’s opponent, Legge, has no prior experience aside from being a mother to four children. 

“…2020 was an eye opener for me. I was not involved beforehand. I really wasn’t. I gave my full trust that my children that were sent to school were able to just learn on their own because I didn’t have that example growing up,” Legge said. “But now that I have had this wide awakening, I feel like many parents have over the last three years.”

The incumbent, Karen Perez, has her experience as a board member to help her continue to navigate the politics of the school board. However, before becoming a board member, Perez was a Counselor specializing in trauma and domestic violence.

For District 2, Allen, similar to Perez, is a very involved parent in the school district since her children started their primary school education. Additionally, she has been involved at the political level (speaking about bills) for many years. 

One of the largest topics affecting students in this race is teacher control over what happens in the classroom. 

Perez, Allen and Gendrett seemed to have similar thoughts on what should happen in regards to this issue.

“I think that teachers definitely need more autonomy and for example, there are certain students that work well with scripted some students work well with with a different type of curriculum to our teachers need to have the freedom to be able to have the latitude to be able to teach,” Gendrett said.

Additionally, Perez brought up the additional point that teachers are being disparaged for teaching in ways that would best benefit the students. 

“The other conversation is the fact that we’re not allowing teachers to teach and we’re vilifying them in classrooms,” Perez said. “So, you know, teachers rather just go do something else than vilified.”

On the other hand, Legge took a slightly different approach to the question. 

“I believe that teachers should have greater control over how they teach [not] what they are supposed to teach,” Legge said. “The materials that our teachers are given to teach come down from the Florida Department of Education. There are no ifs, and, or buts about that you have to teach what they tell you to teach.”

Recently, Gov. Ron Desantis signed a bill into law that allows veterans who haven’t earned their bachelor’s degree by issuing them a temporary teaching certificate. This law has recently come under fire by teachers and as such is another very important issue in the upcoming race. 

Legge, a veteran herself, was a staunch supporter of the law saying that she believes it is “a solution…[however,] not a full-time solution.” Gendrett struck a similar tone when mentioning that this would help fill the empty classrooms caused by teacher shortages. 

Allen, however, used the question to bring up a larger, more systemic issue in the Florida Department of Education. 

“[With regards to the new law,] you don’t have to have a four-year degree. It’s only the second 60 hours of college credit. It doesn’t have to be in the area you’re teaching,” Allen said. “The other thing it’s important to know is that we have a huge backlog of teachers that are qualified teachers that are trying to be approved by the Florida Department of Education as we speak, that have been waiting for months and months.”

Another serious issue in the county is the closing of schools that have under-enrollment. With some schools being underfunded (due to low property taxes and other factors), children are shipped across town to other schools which lowers the enrollment in the local schools. On this issue, all candidates were against the issue of closing schools. 

“We need to make sure that we’re putting resources back into those schools and raising the bar a little bit and figuring out why they were so underutilized before we decided to close the school down,” Legge said. 

The final topic discussed by the candidates planned to increase per-student expenditures in the county. The candidates took this topic as an opportunity to take a stab at the current school board, and pass the blame. While no specific plans were actually revealed or anything that is really tangible, one message was clear: money is being spent unwisely. 

“…I think it’s important to recognize that and until we can recognize that our public education system is good for all of us…we’re going to see money, keep leaving the door,” Allen said.