In the eight years since first joining the Sarasota County School Board, Bridget Ziegler developed a national profile. She has appeared regularly on Fox News, played a vocal role in the school choice movement and stood alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis as he signed his most high-profile education priorities. This weekend, she appeared on a panel with Sen. Rick Scott at the Moms For Liberty conference in Tampa with other high-profile conservatives to discuss education issues.

Now she stands for re-election to a third full term and hopes an energized parents’ rights movement paves the way to political success. “This is a moment here,” Ziegler said. “I believe it benefits our children when parents are engaged and involved. Our students absolutely win when we build partnerships with families. That is a recipe for academic success.”

First appointed to a School Board vacancy by then-Gov. Scott in 2014, Ziegler always served as a controversial figure. She’s served in a political minority on the board her entire tenure, and frequently clashed with some outgoing School Board members like Shirley Brown and Jane Goodwin. Notably, she’s supporting other candidates, Robyn Marinelli and Tim Enos, for open seats on the board and could find herself the leading figure in a new majority.

Meanwhile, she’s a fixture on cable news, where she has talked about hot-button issues like critical race theory and the handling of LGBTQ students in schools.

As a personal matter, her opponent Dawnyelle Singleton has questioned the fact Ziegler opted to enroll all of her own children in private schools instead of the district. Ziegler feels discussing family decisions falls out of bounds for the campaign. “I will never apologize for the decision we believe was best for our child and neither should any parent,” she said.

But she also said the board needs to hear the concerns of parents angry about certain agendas being pushed in schools.

“That’s the frustration— the continuing moving of policies focusing on promotion of gender ideology and different political agendas that clearly a diverse community doesn’t always agree on,” Ziegler said.

While Ziegler does stress the need to keep schools an environment where all students are safe from bullying, she supports a parental rights bill that says schools should leave instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation to parents and out of the classroom. She also voices concerns about books parents don’t want on library shelves that discuss such matters. Asked about whether taking those books off shelves, as another law passed this year could lead to, she stressed the need for schools to focus on core curriculum.

“The role of education as a public government body is to stay within their lanes,” she said. “Parents are more frustrated that education is going far outside those lines, and asking to do far more than what an educator is even capable of doing in a school day, and that further creates division.”

Ziegler also stressed a belief that policymakers, not teachers themselves, should be held accountable for this shift. Locally, she blames the School Board majority.

“We need to be teaching a curriculum based on fact and rooted in science and not agendas,” she said, “and there is clearly a different element that cares about feelings versus facts.”

The Sarasota School Board election will be held on Aug. 23. 

On the surface, the economy of the last two years has been extremely favorable to workers. After spiking to nearly 15% early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate today sits around 3.6%. Despite employers’ urgency to hire, labor force participation has been slower to recover, and the “Great Resignation” has workers quitting at historic rates in search of better jobs.

With these factors contributing to a tight labor market, workers have more choice of job opportunities, and more employers have been raising wages to hire and retain employees. As a result, nominal wages are growing faster than at any point in at least two decades.

But rising inflation over the course of 2021 and 2022 has taken a bite out of rising wages. Year-over-year inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, has hovered around or above 8% for much of 2022. Prices for essential expenses like food, shelter, and energy have skyrocketed due to supply challenges. With prices rising so quickly, workers are discovering that their increased pay does not go as far as they had hoped.

The effects of inflation on wages have also varied by geography. While all 50 states showed at least some increase in non-adjusted wages between 2020 and 2021, only 13 saw a real increase after adjusting for inflation. And among those, New Hampshire (5.2% inflation-adjusted increase) and Florida (2.8%) stand out as the only states whose workers experienced inflation-adjusted wage increases above 1% from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021.

The analysis found that average weekly wages in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area experienced a year-over-year increase of 8.5%. Out of all midsize U.S. metros, North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton saw the 6th largest wage increase during the study period. 

For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results, you can find the original report on Smartest Dollar's website.

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Online advance tickets and parking passes are now available for purchase for the 12th Annual Siesta Key Crystal Classic to be held November 11-14, 2022 on Siesta Beach. Volunteer and sponsorship opportunities are also available.

This four-day festival features twenty-four premier master sand sculptors competing for top prizes in solo and duo categories. Their masterpieces transform the always beautiful Siesta Beach into an amazing outdoor art gallery. And it’s more than just sand...the festival also features live music throughout the event along with a large variety of 80+ shopping and food and drink vendors. Free filtered water stations are provided by Sarasota County. Official Crystal Classic merchandise will also be available. Other activities include the popular three-day “Quick Sand” competition, sand sculpting lessons, an amateur sculpting competition and people’s choice voting.

The festival will be open 10 am to 5 pm daily with extended hours Saturday night until 9 pm with live music by Fleetwood Max, The Definitive Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band. A full live music lineup will be announced in October. Designated food and beverage trailers and the party tent will be open and the sculptures will be lit through a fabulous light display.

In 2021 the festival welcomed over 30,000 attendees and generated over $9 million in economic impact for our community. The Siesta Key Crystal Classic is presented in collaborative partnership between the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce and the Siesta Beach Festival, Inc. Our mission is to promote tourism, local businesses and the visual arts via the production of one of the most unique sculpture festivals held in the world on the #1 beach in the U.S. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Siesta Key Crystal Classic Scholarship Fund for Ringling College of Art + Design. 

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Hershorin Schiff Community Day School (CDS) recently appointed Tracey Bortz as its director of Early Childhood Education Center programs. Bortz had previously served as the director of early childhood education at the Gross Schechter Day School in Pepper Pike, Ohio. According to Dan Ceaser, CDS’s Head of School, Bortz was chosen as the result of a nationwide search that took place over a period of six months. “Our search committee sought a veteran leader who has a clear appreciation for diversity and the teaching of universal values to students of all faiths through Jewish values, traditions, and practice,” says Ceaser. “Our candidate also had to be able to cultivate relationships with teachers, students, and families to create a positive team spirit throughout the school. We had a long list of other requirements, including that they be a lifelong learner who consistently grows their own breadth of knowledge and skill sets while encouraging the same development for all Early Childhood Education Center staff. We’re thrilled to say we found all of these qualities and more in Ms. Bortz.” Tracey Bortz was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-one years ago, Bortz and her family emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio. She graduated from the Johannesburg College of Education in South Africa and then later received her master’s degree from Siegal College of Jewish Studies in Cleveland. Bortz enjoys travelling with her husband Barry to visit their children in New York, Chicago and Australia. 

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