DeSantis takes aim at teacher unions as school district faces cuts
As the Lee County School District faces a budget crisis and employees face the likelihood of layoffs due to an expected $92 million operating deficit identified by the administration, Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped by Fort Myers High School and unleashed a verbal attack on teacher unions.
DeSantis, who stood in front of a podium in front of a crowd largely made up of local Republican faithful, was joined by School District of Lee County Dr. Denise Carlin, the school board chair, state legislators and the state education commissioner in denouncing teacher unions. The event on Friday, which was also in front of a handful of students, culminated in the governor signing legislation in the school’s gymnasium that would institute new regulations on teacher unions and allow school districts to incentivize the placement of teachers in low-performing schools without having to go through collective bargaining.
For school employees facing the loss of their jobs, there was no talk from the governor of bringing any help to the district’s fiscal situation nor was there any discussion of helping reopen the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, which has been shuttered since Hurricane Milton.
While DeSantis denounced teachers unions from Florida to Chicago and California, he offered no discussion or questions in front of the crowd about how to handle the impending staff cuts at the Lee County School District. Administrators have said they are facing a projected operating deficit of more than $92 million and have moved more than $47 million out of its capital fund (which is set aside for construction and building projects).
Instead, DeSantis criticized national teacher unions for “partisan political activism” and said the new legislation he signed to allow school districts to provide pay incentives to teachers, would block unions locally and statewide from being able to collectively bargain the amount of the incentives.
The teacher’s union in Lee County had sought to collectively bargain incentives for teachers who agree to transfer to teach in low-performing schools.
DeSantis said teacher unions “don’t represent the values of teachers or their interests.”
School board chair Armor Persons told the gathering “union leadership is not putting students first.”
State Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka said she was “flabbergasted” at how teacher unions opposed the state legislature’s incentive legislation.
While celebrating the new legislation regarding teacher unions, Carlin said “For too long however, our hands have been tied by rigid, one size fits all labor contracts that failed to recognize the realities of our most vulnerable students or to recognize the dedication of our outstanding teacher who choose to serve them.”
Later in the day, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas appeared alongside Carlin for a public statement regarding the fiscal crisis. He said he backed Carlin’s approach to cost-cutting.
“Superintendent Carlin has my full support,” he said. “It’s easy for critics to play Monday morning quarterback.”
Carlin, a Republican, won election to her post in 2024 after Lee County voters decided by referendum to convert the school district’s superintendent from a post appointed by the school board to an elected position determined by Lee County voters through a partisan election.
Kamoutsas said Carlin and the school board set a precedent by working to provide incentives to high-performing teachers and attacked the teacher’s union for opposing it.
He also denounced students at Lee County schools who walked out of class in February to protest immigration policies and lauded Carling for suspending them.
“Schools exist for learning. They are not arenas for disruption or political activism,” Kamoutsas said.
He also credited Carlin for “streamlining district leadership and reducing administrative overhead.” He called the approach by Carlin responsible in order to “protect taxpayer dollars.”
Carlin highlighted the cutting of $15.9 million from the district office since she took office last year, and said a further reduction of positions would occur.
An exact number of layoffs has not yet been determined.
Carlin is expected to make a presentation to the school board on May 12 detailing further specifics on the cuts.
“I was not elected to do things the way they have always been done,” Carlin said.
On Friday, Carlin said the cause of the operating deficit was a mixture of a loss of students and what she called “wasteful spending.”
Carlin said “legacy spending” caused a $35 million gap in funding.
“We are shifting resources out of administrative and support structures that do not directly impact student outcomes,” Carlin said, adding there will be a consolidation of positions “where appropriate.”
Carlin did not delve into specifics.
The district’s administration has cited a loss of students as one of several reasons the district is facing an operating deficit. The district’s communications office was unable to confirm how many students have left the district in the last year following requests made by the Fort Myers Beach Observer on Friday.
School board chair Armor Persons said he believed the district lost more than 2,000 students or more, not counting how many students have moved into the district.
Persons said he believed a significant amount of the population loss has been due to the loss of Hispanic families reacting to immigration policies. Students have also left the district for private and charter schools in the area.
Despite the population loss, the school district has moved forward with the construction of a new high school in Alva, which the school district borrowed $144 million to build despite widespread opposition in the community to the new school. The new school is intended to accommodate population growth in Lehigh Acres. Residents in Alva have expressed concern for the impact the school will have on local infrastructure and roads. The district broke ground on the new school in March.
There are no plans to stop the construction of the school in Alva despite the student population loss. School Board Vice Chair Bill Ribble noted that there are currently plans for thousands of homes to be constructed in the county, and said the population growth in Lehigh Acres necessitated the new school in Alva.
In Florida, education funding from the state and federal government follows students meaning if parents choose to homeschool or a private school for their child, the district no longer receives those government funds. The school district still receives the vast majority of tax dollars either way in order to support a budget of $2.9 billion. The district’s budget has been steadily growing in recent years, up $1 billion since the 2020-21 school year. The district’s budget has gone up half a billion since it was $2.4 billion in the 2022-23 school year.
As speaker after speaker denounced teacher unions and the local teachers union on Friday for having challenged the effort by the school district to incentivize teachers to teach in low-performing schools, Teachers Association of Lee County President Kevin Daly reacted by saying “they are not fans” of teacher unions. He said teachers are not big earners in the county. Daly reacted to the governor’s comments as he went to work on his second job as an Uber driver. Daly said the issue the union had with the school district’s plan was that there was no attempt to bargain the amount of the incentives.
Daly said the union went to arbitration to challenge the district’s attempt to arbitrarily set the amount of the incentives, without bargaining.
“We pushed back a little and said it seems like a lot of money and who is getting it? It’s salary, so for us we believe it is bargainable. We engaged in the collective bargaining process and I guess they didn’t like it. They didn’t like it and declared an educational emergency and unilaterally enacted it. It’s not like we were against it, we just were doing what we believed we are allowed to do which is talk about it and bargain it, and make sure there are rules in place,” Daly said.
The union appealed the ruling which was in the district’s favor.
“We think their interpretation of the law is a novel one,” Daly said.
“Union leadership opposed us at every single turn and they continue to do so,” Carlin said. “They have prioritized contract restrictions and collective bargaining technicalities over the immediate needs of our struggling students and our teachers who deserve to be compensated for their work.”
The other state bill on regulating teacher unions would, among other stipulations, require a majority of teachers in the union to vote on recertifying the union and in elections for union leaders.
DeSantis, who is term-limited and is in the last year of his final term, has been reported to be under consideration for a post in the administration of President Donald Trump next year after his term ends. DeSantis repeatedly spoke about teacher union issues in California and nationally, at one point calling American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten the “Hakeem Jeffries of teacher union” leaders. He accused teacher unions of being active politically, and criticized teacher unions for having opposed his effort to open up schools earlier than unions wanted during the early months of covid.
DeSantis touted the state legislature’s passing of legislation six years ago that raised the base salary for teachers in a majority of the school districts in the state to more than $47,000 after the state had languished near the bottom nationally of the pay scale for teachers. DeSantis also touted legislation the state legislature previously passed which allows teachers to decide whether they want to pay dues out of their salary to their union.
Daly, who taught 21 years in the classroom as a special education teacher and for the last eight years has led the school district’s union, commented on the economic status of teachers in the county by noting his Uber job.
“Like a lot of teachers, I have a second job,” Daly said.
Fort Myers Beach Observer Editor Nathan Mayberg can be reached at NMayberg@breezenewspapers.com