Lee County Voters to Decide Whether to Make School Superintendent Elected Position

FORT MYERS (FLV) – Lee County residents will vote on a referendum Nov. 8 to determine whether the school district superintendent should switch from being an appointed position to an elected position.

Currently, the superintendent for the School District of Lee County is appointed by the Lee County School Board. Lee County school board members are elected by voters. The Nov. 8 ballot measure would allow Lee County voters to determine who becomes the next superintendent instead of the school board determining who fills the position.

State Rep. Mike Giallombardo, R-Cape Coral, said the superintendent is very powerful and should be elected by the voters to better represent their values.

“We currently have board members that lean left. That is not a representation of our county and it’s because, largely, they are nonpartisan seats. Nobody sees it,” Giallombardo said.

There has been a “parental rights” movement across school districts in Florida, which Giallombardo said is the number one reason why the district’s superintendent should be elected. He believes during the pandemic parents realized the “woke” agenda in schools and noticed the authority school board members have after the mask requirement debate for students.

“Parental rights is the number one thing and I think that we’ve lost that,” he said. “Along the way, we have lost that. And school districts have used that as a way to push an agenda that does not necessarily line up with the constituents in the county.”

Giallombardo was asked whether it would still be beneficial to students if someone who who did not have experience in schools were elected as superintendent.

“We can find somebody that can actually represent the people and they don’t have to be an educator. People think, oh, we need an educator. You don’t need an educator,” he said. “You need somebody who’s going to understand how to manage in drive a large organization while representing your constituents.”

Madelon Stewart is the chair of PAC Quality Schools for the Future of Lee County which rallies against the referendum.

“We had an elected superintendent of schools that was voted out in 1974. Lee County has been growing exponentially since then and there is no reason to go back to something that people voted out in 74 because they realized then it was going to be no longer effective,” Stewart said.

Critics of the referendum believe it will turn the superintendent position into a political position where fundraising is involved.

“I believe that schools should be run by professionals, not by politicians,” she said. “The people who run schools need to be experienced not only in education but also in all kinds of ways having to do with budgets, and retaining staff, and recruiting people and curriculum, and all the things that go into making a wonderful school system.”

Stewart supports the current set up where the superintendent is accountable to school board members.

“With an elected superintendent, he will not be accountable to anybody but the voters. That is what being a politician is all about,” Stewart said. “So do we really want to put into a position of such power somebody who has no necessity to be accountable? To whom? The voters? That’s the most amorphous thing in the world.”

Out of the 67 school districts, the Florida Department of Education said 29 superintendents are appointed.

Repealing Resolution Providing for an Appointed, Rather than an Elected, Superintendent of Schools

Currently, by resolution of the Lee County School Board, the Superintendent of Schools for the Lee County School District is an appointed, rather than an elected, position. Shall Chapter 2022-233, Laws of Florida, which repeals the aforesaid resolution and provides that the Superintendent of Schools shall no longer be appointed by the Lee County School Board, but rather shall be elected in a partisan election by vote of qualified electors residing in Lee County for a term of 4 years, beginning with the 2024 general election, become effective?

Referendum

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law in May that allows Lee County voters to decide whether the position should be elected or remain an appointed position.

The Lee County school district’s website said the district educates more than 90,000 students in grades K-12. They have 96 traditional schools and 119 schools with Charters.