Photos: Karen Rose, Liz Barker.

Angry public comments have become a feature of Sarasota County School Board meetings. Both incumbent School Board member Karen Rose and challenger Liz Barker say the district’s focus should instead remain on the classroom. But they differ on why angry dissent overtook discourse.

Rose, a 12-year teacher and former principal and administrator, said her priority remains school success.

“I have been laser-focused on academic achievement,” she said. She pushed for evidence-based, research-driven methods to improve metrics, especially third-grade reading scores. After years of stagnation, she notes those scores rose district-wide by 7% this year. 

“In every area of grading in 2024, we grew in our grade,” she said of Sarasota’s schools. “We also moved from 82% of schools being graded with an A or B to, under new superintendent Terrance Connor, 95% being A- or B-rated schools. That is huge.”

Rose argues that validates her most individually controversial action, pursuingt the ouster of former Superintendent Brennan Asplen. Immediately following the 2022 election, which installed a super-majority conservative board, Rose successfully pushed Asplen out.

Barker, a mother of four school-aged children, said that immediately set off alarms and put her on the path to challenge Rose.

“It felt dishonest, and I know I’m not the only one who felt that way,” she said. “That’s why there was such an outcry of people who said ‘This isn’t what we want, why are you doing this?’ It was interesting then to watch school boards in the rest of the state and country have superintendents removed by Moms For Liberty-type groups. The removal of highly effective superintendents was not just isolated to Sarasota County’s board but was a phenomenon happening on a wider scale.”

On education polict, Rose srdently supports universal school choice, and notes Southside, Brookside and Sarasota middle schools all had waiting lists while she was a principal or assistant principal there. “Competition makes you better,” she said. Barker, in contrast, said the board must address funding losses that hurt the operations at local schools. She considers support for Florida voucher expansion “actively supporting a political agenda that does not support public schools.”

After two years where streams of School Board meeting attendees spoke out against pandemic policies, board meetings instead attracted angry progressive activists. Rose feels especially upset at Equality Florida and the local Democratic LGBTQ caucus for organizing rallies outside of meetings. Often, speakers during public comment endorse Barker after decrying board actions, though Barker said she never expected or encouraged that.

Rose has also become a fixture at Republican functions, where she often denounces an “extreme gender ideology” she believes activists want in classrooms. She spoke at a GOP candidates rally at Robarts Arena weeks ago, where she told event-goers any Equality Florida-endorsed candidate, including her opponent, advocates for gender surgery on children and boys playing on girls’ sports teams. She supported a School Board resolution by the board saying the district will fight a Title IX interpretation by President Biden’s administration requiring discrimination protections to transgender students. 

“Speaking individually for myself, I was letting them know where we stand,” Rose told SRQ. “We are going to be with Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody, taking directives from the Florida Department of Education.”

Barker dismissed allegations she wants boys in girls’ restrooms or on girls’ sports teams. But she also rejected that parental rights means only respecting the opinions of one group. Schools should work with parents who strongly feel a child with a different gender identity needs access to certain facilities and activities.

“I don’t believe that one group of children — and we are talking about children here — is inherently dangerous to another group of children simply because they exist,” she said. 

Rose and Barker face each other in an Aug. 20 nonpartisan election open to all voters countywide.

Photos: Karen Rose, Liz Barker.