💙ACTION ALERT: OPPOSE HB 1467 K-12 Education BEFORE MONDAY!

Jan 29, 20223 min read

All,

HB 1467 (Garrison, Fine) K-12 Education will be heard in its final House committee on Monday, Jan. 31, 2022. This is another Republican effort to devalue and destroy our public school system and we need you to OPPOSE it TODAY.

This bill has two major components: it eliminates school board salaries and will allow book banning. Here are some talking points:

Current annual school board salaries are based on county population and are in the range of $20K-$45K. Nobody is getting rich off the income.
While a school board salary is a modest source of income, it may be a necessary source of income for that school board member’s family. Without it, that member may not be able to afford serving the public in this manner.
Elimination of school board salaries means that the composition of school boards will be wealthier, whiter, and much more likely to support school privatization interests.
Florida school board districts tend to be much larger than other states and members must adhere to a complex multitude of statutory requirements.
We are already seeing loss of quality school board members who are resigning or failing to campaign again for their seats due to the terrible toll that state COVID policies have had on their districts and the display of vitriolic behavior by some members of the public at meetings.
The bill contains new requirements for review of library materials and requires school districts to have procedures to regularly ban books based on complaints of the public, which includes those who are not parents and those who live outside of the school district.
It is not surprising that anti-LGBTQ speakers who provided testimony at the prior committee hearing support this bill. They specifically voiced their opposition to library materials that would be beneficial to LGBTQ children.

The bill sponsor states he wants to “take the politics out of school boards and prioritize parental engagement,” but the bill only serves to fan the fuel of division among Floridians. Contact the committee members below on the House Appropriations Committee and tell them you want them to VOTE NO on HB 1467 (Garrison, Fine) K-12 Education. This is your last chance before the bill goes to the House floor for debate. Their emails are grouped for easy cut/paste below and offered in various formats -

Finally, this is one of many anti-democracy bills that needs to be highlighted in op-eds, letters-to-the-editor, social media posts, etc. Please use your Action Alert responses to legislators as a foundation for spreading the truth widely!

The public is generally not aware of how their freedoms are being stripped away in Tallahassee.