TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn't on the ballot Tuesday — but his education agenda is.
DeSantis is once again throwing his weight behind county school board candidates across the state. Though the seats are officially nonpartisan, the Republican governor has endorsed 23 school board candidates on the ballot Tuesday in 14 Florida counties — and he's targeted 14 incumbent board members he wants to see voted out.
One board that conservatives are hoping to win a majority on is in Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Historically known as one of the state’s largest swing counties, Pinellas has been moving to the right in recent years. In a pattern playing out across the state, conservative activists there have equated certain teaching materials with pornography and labeled educators as “groomers.”
Much of the political debate in the races has focused on “parental rights” at a time when both parties are fighting to win over the contested voting bloc of suburban women. The modern parental rights movement grew out of opposition to pandemic precautions in schools and is now animated by complaints about classroom instruction on gender identity and systemic racism.
Florida's new school board members will take office as traditional public schools are facing dramatic declines in student enrollment, with districts large and small wrestling with whether to close schools and what to do with their real estate holdings once the campuses are shuttered. School districts are often among the largest employers and landowners in their communities.
Three challengers in Pinellas have won the endorsement of DeSantis and the local chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.
If elected, candidates Stacy Geier, Danielle Marolf and Erika Picard would join two current members who are endorsed by Moms for Liberty, constituting a majority on the nine-seat board.
“He knows who the true conservative is in my race,” Marolf said after winning DeSantis' endorsement. “My values are actually to protect children.”
But some in Pinellas say parents' rights activists have gone too far, like school board candidate Katie Blaxberg, a registered Republican who's found herself on the opposing side of Moms for Liberty. Blaxberg is running against Geier for an open seat on the board.
Activists aligned with Moms for Liberty have disparaged Blaxberg online and posted information about her children and her home. The chapter president did not respond to phone and email messages from The Associated Press.
“The misinformation that has been spread by this group of people and the intent to ... place mistrust in our teachers,” Blaxberg said, “people are tired of it.”
Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FILE - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the Parental Rights in Education bill at Classical Preparatory school on March 28, 2022, in Shady Hills, Fla. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)
DeSantis-backed school board candidates face off in Florida
DeSantis-backed school board candidates face off in Florida
NEW YORK (AP) — Suki Waterhouse discovered the Sparklemuffin spider during a late-night scroll.
“He’s wildly colored. He’s cute,” she said. Best of all: He dances. “I felt somewhat akin to him.”
The spider became a foil and a mascot for Waterhouse's sophomore album, “Memoir of a Sparklemuffin,” out Friday.
The release follows the British singer-songwriter's 2022 debut “I Can't Let Go" and her time playing keyboardist Karen Sirko in “Daisy Jones and the Six,” the Amazon Prime series based on Taylor Jenkins Reid's bestselling novel about a 1970s rock band. The record's 18 songs cover heartache and the search for a “Big Love,” but also the 32-year-old's time in the industry, which she entered as a teen, modeling first. The project wrapped just days before the birth of her daughter, now six months old, with partner Robert Pattinson.
After celebrating the release with stops at the Michael Kors fashion show and the MTV Video Music Awards, Waterhouse talked with The Associated Press about making the album while pregnant and how playing Sirko motivated her to fully embrace her music career.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
WATERHOUSE: I think the physical limitations were something that shaped the album, in a really good way. It was sort of amazing to not be able to leave the house for a couple of months. I mean, I really got to focus in a way that I don’t know if sometimes you are able to when the world keeps moving.
I’m someone that loves working at home. All of my music that I've made pretty much has been made in home studios — big studios can freak me out a little bit. There’s something especially about being in Los Angeles, there’s just so many talented people around you, so you’re literally able to call up the best guitarist and he lives 15 minutes away. So it was very much that feeling of having awesome people just flow in and out of my house, with also a good deadline. It wasn't just the deadline of — finish the record. It was, we must finish the record. There will be a baby here if we don’t.
WATERHOUSE: It's funny, when I wrote that song, I kind of had that loop going around — (singing) “call me a model, an actress, whatever” — and it was something that I thought was kind of self-deprecating and funny. But I also felt like I would want to be in my car singing that. It's dramatic, it's glamorous.
I love consuming stories about people's lives written by them, I love reading a memoir, I love reading from someone's perspective what really went down, what really happened. That song, I guess, I was a little afraid after I wrote it — like, I've been trying to get away from being called this, from having these kind of labels — and then I think that was why I ended up writing it. There were a couple of months where I was like, “I'm not going to have this as a single. Let's sweep that one under the carpet.” And then it's always those ones actually, that eventually, you're like, “No, yeah, this is reclaiming those words.”
Especially with the video, I wanted to have just like a ton of fun and play into the stereotypes. I actually feel very empowered by the song. The video is like, really funny and I hope everyone watches it because it's just like a giggle. I really feel proud of that.
WATERHOUSE: Looking at the book, she was cool and calm and collected and she knew exactly what she wanted to do and she knew exactly who she was. She wanted to be on tour for the rest of her life. And you know, there was a reason why I was drawn to the part. I think whenever you step into a role, you do just absorb — that’s the job. There’s just so much to be gained from that experience.
Something about playing her gave me that nudge, that voice in my head that was like: “Right, now is that time that you need to go and make that album that you’ve been wanting to make for years and years and years, that you’ve been working towards. You’ve got the songs, they’re all there, go and make the album.” Also, playing a role where we were all in a band, hanging out in Sound City Studios everyday, I was kind embracing that life of a musician. I had this hole in my heart like, that’s what I want to be doing too.
WATERHOUSE: (Laughs) Yeah, I guess. She’s always there, she’s always there.
WATERHOUSE: I feel like it’s difficult not to. When I did Taylor (Swift)’s show the other day, I went straight into the studio afterward. You're so inspired watching that show, so I was like, “I want to make a stadium song.” I ended up making a slow ballad, but obviously it’s still super inspiring.
The first record I made, I had so many voices in my head — like, “Don't do anything too upbeat.” Those voices, a lot of those insecurities, are kind of gone now, in many ways.
When I wrote “My Fun,” that was the first kind of upbeat song that I’d done that still felt like it was true to my palette and my world and that I liked. And I was like, “OK, I can write an upbeat song and not be cringed out by it.” And that is so fun, to do an upbeat song on stage. So 1,000%, from this record, I can’t wait to be going on tour and have those different songs that are a little more upbeat.
WATERHOUSE: There’s nothing better than having a bunch of new songs that you love so much and you feel like you’re putting together a show that’s like a whole level up, that you couldn’t have even dreamed of a year ago, you know?
Suki Waterhouse poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
Suki Waterhouse poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
Suki Waterhouse poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
Suki Waterhouse poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
Suki Waterhouse poses for a portrait on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
