Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier made a campaign stop in Sarasota on Friday and repeated his call for a local teacher to be fired, but also said he's not involved in the details of the investigation he demanded last week.
Uthmeier is a former campaign manager for Governor Ron DeSantis’s failed presidential primary bid. He is running for election as the state's top legal officer, a post he was appointed to by DeSantis last year.
At the end of a press conference to announce legal action over the alleged misuse of hurricane relief money by construction companies, a reporter asked Uthmeier about the latest on a Pine View teacher he accused of “bullying” a conservative student.
“We do not need harassing teachers. I do not think that teacher should be able to keep teaching, but there's a process for that. The Department of Education, they will do their own investigation. I'm not involved in the nitty-gritty of that and cannot comment on it,” he said.
READ MORE: District HR documents show teacher's side of story
The history teacher, Liz Ballard, has been re-assigned to the district office for now. Documents from the district show she emailed a male middle school student after a series of outbursts and said she would not tolerate “misogyny” in class.
On Sunday, a petition began circulating in her support among parents of students at Pine View, which spans elementary to high school. It is the top ranked high school in Florida, and 13th nationwide, according to US News and World Report.
Sarasota school board member Tom Edwards said culture wars are affecting people’s lives. He said the Pine View probe is one of three such investigations in Sarasota County that are being “weaponized,” and he wants teachers to know they have his support.
“The AG stepping into this conversation, in my opinion, is to create more chaos around public education so that they can promote voucher programs to private schools and charter schools for profit,” Edwards said.
“To take teachers' names and drag them through the mud and through the court of public opinion while investigations are still being done is ruthless and completely unnecessary.”
Edwards is one of five school board members in Sarasota, and as a moderate, he has been in the minority on the conservative-leaning board for the past six years.
Two new candidates were elected in November, with a third seat going to a runoff in November to replace Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who is not running again. The new school board will have at least four members who are Democrats or have no party affiliation.
Edwards said he has been “getting calls from teachers, particularly at Pine View, where the students who are part of the family that brought the attorney general into this conversation are high-fiving their fellow students, their friends, and saying that they have the teacher on the run.”
“It's creating a chilling effect for the other teachers who aren't even involved, but they're just stunned by the fact that this kind of behavior is rampant in the number one school in the state of Florida,” Edwards added.
“What I want to be able to say to every teacher out there that I will always have your back,” he said.
Edwards said he has seen the Sarasota’s school district’s draft letter in response to the attorney general, which is expected to be delivered by Thursday, the deadline set by Uthmeier is his social media post earlier this month.
“The attorney general has kind of said in his comments on this that he's not necessarily involved, and frankly, he shouldn't be. No teacher here in these investigations actually broke the law,” said Edwards.
“The school district is following all the necessary procedures and doing everything by the book, including getting the state involved and authorities involved where appropriate. So, I want to be able to say to the community that we have this in hand.”
Uthmeier’s opponent in the attorney general’s race, Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez, said in a statement the attorney general should explain himself.
“Our Attorney General should defend home rule and local control. The Attorney General needs to explain why he is inserting himself while the school district pursues discipline and the Department of Education pursues their investigation,” said a statement from Rodriguez’s office.
“We are tired of all the Tallahassee politics that get played out locally.”
Uthmeier is also at the center of the Hope Florida scandal. A grand jury found that the DeSantis administration diverted $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, a project championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis.
From there, nearly all of the $10 million was diverted to political action committees set up by the governor and Uthmeier.
