It is something that hasn't been done in Lee County since the 1970s. But now that early voting has begun, voters are tasked with electing a superintendent of schools.
Florida and Alabama are the only states in the U.S. that allow for superintendents to be elected should that be the will of the people. And it was the will of the people two years ago when 62% of voters said yes, bring politics back into this position.
The coveted spot used to be the result of extensive national searches and multiple interviews by selection committees and elected school board members. That’s the way it’s settled in major cities in Florida. Lee County now is the largest public school district in the state that’s allowing voters to select the superintendent of public schools.
Supporters, which included the entire local Legislative delegation that put the measure on the ballot, reasoned parents should be in charge of such weighty decisions and not what they called bureaucrats.
Critics, including a school board member, former superintendents and even a college president argued against the ballot measure saying it opened the door to politicians with little regard for educational and administrative backgrounds.
One of those running for the seat is a veteran educator and administrator, the other is a lawyer who has gone head-to-head with the very school system he’d like to run.
They are Denise Carlin and Victor Arias.
Carlin retired last year after a 32-year career at the Lee County School District. Her tenure began as a teacher and ended as chief of staff for communications for the district.
Carlin says she figured she'd stay involved with the school district in retirement, though, from the sidelines after hearing that two politicians were considering making a run for the superintendent's seat. This, she said, could be an opportunity for her to stress the needs of the teachers and students, to give guidance to the politicians.
When neither politician officially stepped forward, Carlin says many turned to her saying she should run for the seat. She’s running on the Republican ticket, though in the General Election, voters are not bound to pick either a Democratic or Republican ballot.
Carlin favors the new system of selecting a superintendent and she’s far from shy in expressing her political views. In fact, her website actually highlights the word conservative in multiple places.
“People need to be transparent about who they are, “she says. “I don't think we need to hide behind the nonpartisan label.”
Carlin's opponent feels very strongly against politicizing the position of superintendent.
“Politics should not be in the schools,” said Victor Arias, who's running as a Democrat. “I don't agree with it at all and unlike my opponent who's using this
conservative word. I'm not liberal, I'm not progressive and I'm not conservative. I'm here for all the kids, and I mean all.”
It’s not lost on Arias that he’s only on the ballot because voters decided they wanted to pick the superintendent and not an assortment of people and school board members only seeking out applicants high up in the public-education chain.
Arias has been a lawyer for more than 30 years. He’s spent seven years as a staff attorney to superintendents in Lee and St. Lucie counties.
As a private lawyer, he says he's gone up against the district at least 20 times in the past 20 years representing students and employees mostly in discipline cases. To date, he says he's never lost a case against the district.
Arias children have always attended the Lee County public school system. From this, as well as his work as an attorney, he says he's keenly aware and troubled by issues within the school district.
“I'm a service-oriented person. So I'm here to help,” he says. “I've been representing clients for 33 years and I believe I have more than enough experience because I have been inside, I have been outside. And I've been in private practice … litigating a lot of cases against the school district to correct actions.”
Both Arius and Carlin say they are deeply concerned about employee morale, student achievement and employee pay.
Lee County's starting salary for new teachers is $50,000. In Collier it’s $57,000. Even Charlotte County, which had always traditionally paid less than Lee, starts its teachers at a higher pay.
“We're going to need to dig in. And prioritize our budgets so that we can become competitive because here's the reality, we have teachers that are we're going to lose to those counties. And I don't blame them,” Carlin says.
Carlin spent 18 years either as a teacher or an administrator at various schools before making her way to the district office: “Our children are amazing. But we have a lot of challenges. Right now we're down about 200 teachers, and that's a big problem. You know, for years I wanted us to work on the shortage, but everyone kept saying, “Oh, it's a national teacher shortage, don't worry about it. You know, everybody's dealing with it. You know, we'll just limp by.’ Well, that's not OK. We have to work on that.”
Arias believes it's not just pay that’s driving many out of the district. He said he believes teachers and other employees feel like they don't have the support of the district. And he thinks he's just the person to change that.
“There's a lack of leadership and we need to change that. We just can't continue to do the same things over and over again with the same people and expect to change. That's the definition of insanity,” he says. “So we have to, we need a change in leadership, and I pray to God every day that I may be that person to help re-right the ship. So that the trajectory would be positive instead of continuing to decline.”