TAMPA, Fla. — The Hillsborough County School Board is standing together against County Referendum 1, which would make the school superintendent an elected position.
Nadia Combs, vice chair of the Hillsborough County School Board, introduced a resolution opposing the referendum. The resolution was approved at the board’s meeting Tuesday.
“We have to keep politics out of schools,” Combs said.
Combs also raised concerns about how an elected superintendent could balance running the district with campaigning for office.
“How can someone run the largest district and be running a campaign also?” she said. “We know about PAC money — and so anybody can donate to a PAC and we would never know.”
Combs said she worries voters could elect someone who does not have the proper qualifications to lead the district and who could serve a four-year term.
“Imagine if you had someone who was completely incompetent — who is an elected official — who has no experience in education,” Combs said. “But is partisan — and all of a sudden they are running the seventh largest district in the nation.”
If voters approve the referendum in November, Hillsborough County would join 39 other school districts across Florida where the superintendent is an elected position.
State Representative Michael Owen introduced the bill behind the referendum. Owen said the idea has been discussed in Hillsborough County for years and would give residents more say in who leads their children’s education.
“I was a county commissioner in Hillsborough County and I promise you that this was a common drum that was beat for many years — that people would love the opportunity to have more say in who the CEO of their child’s education is,” Owen said.
Owen said making the superintendent an elected position would be more in line with the rest of the state’s school boards.
“Who do you think should be accountable — should it be four members of a board or should it be the parents of Hillsborough County?” Owen said. “The thing about it is that it’s not up to me. At the end of the day, this is a referendum that’s gonna go on a ballot.”
Despite the school board’s unanimous opposition to the referendum, the decision will now be in the hands of Hillsborough County voters.