As a retail executive who enjoyed a wildly successful career with some of the world’s most-recognized apparel companies before retiring in December 2015, David Dyer has sat in some tough board rooms.
But the nastiness the island resident has encountered in his first political campaign – for the District 5 seat on the county’s School Board, in what the Florida constitution says should be a nonpartisan race – caught him off-guard.
“It’s not at all what I expected,” Dyer said, referring to the low-brow antics, bogus accusations, meritless attacks and overall dishonesty he has witnessed since filing to run in February.
“I was warned that this was going to be hardball politics, but until you actually get into it, you don’t understand to what extent or the intensity of the negativity that’s there,” he added.
“I’ve always believed you run on who you are and what you’re for, more than what you’re against.
“That’s not what I’m seeing.”
What Dyer is seeing is take-no-prisoners partisanship, even though he’s as much a Republican as anyone on the ballot – and that includes his opponent, Kevin McDonald, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed in April to fill an unexpected vacancy the board.
It was, in every way, a purely political decision by DeSantis, whose vetting process continues to be questioned after his controversial December appointment of St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson, who is currently under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for alleged election law violations.
In our case, it was obvious the governor embraced the wishes of the Moms For Liberty, a fiercely partisan group that pushes his hard-right education agenda while pretending to advocate for parental rights.
The appointment of McDonald gave the Moms, here in their birthplace, control of the School Board for the first time. But their undeserved, 3-2 majority is fragile, and they know it will make national news if the county’s voters reject their candidates in the Aug. 20 primary.
The Moms need McDonald to fend off Dyer’s challenge – or see political newcomer Rob MacCallum unseat the beloved and respected Peggy Jones in the District 3 race – to reign over our school district for at least the next two years.
To that end, the group’s local chapter has endorsed both McDonald and MacCallum. As of Sunday, though, the latter had not posted the announcement of the Moms’ endorsement on his Facebook campaign page, which was curious.
More than curious, however, was MacCallum’s decision to post on the page Sunday a statement on the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, using the deadly incident to promote his campaign.
The shooting makes it clear, the post states, “that a change is necessary at all levels of our country,” adding, “There is growing concern about the future of our schools and our nation’s trajectory. Today is an excellent opportunity to reflect and strategize to ensure a victory and bring about the change we need at the local level.”
To even consider linking the terror and tragedy at the Trump rally Saturday in Pennsylvania to his rookie run for a School Board seat here was as shameful as it was pathetic. But, given the anything-goes political times we’re in, it wasn’t surprising.
We’ve seen worse.
We’ve seen public education politicized beyond campaigns for school board seats – especially the past three years, even in our small-town community, where it wasn’t too long ago that we would put aside such divisions because we cared more about what was best for our children than which tribe we belonged to.
We’ve seen an alarming surge in partisan rhetoric being spewed from the dais, as culture-war battles have dominated our School Board meetings, where the tone has become increasingly hostile.
We’ve even seen our teachers attacked by a Moms-backed board member who harbors delusions that there’s some sort of radical-left conspiracy to indoctrinate students and turn them away from their parents, their religion and their country, so they can be recruited for a Marxist rebellion.
“The level of partisanship has probably surprised me the most – because it’s not positive partisanship, it’s gotcha partisanship,” Dyer said. “That’s a much different environment than I’ve ever worked in.”
Apparently, the people with whom he worked during his years as president and CEO of Tommy Hilfiger, Lands’ End and Chico’s FAS weren’t nearly as small-minded, petty or intolerant.
Even in these polarizing times, Dyer said, it’s important that board members – including those who sit at the dais without having received a single vote – strive for civility, camaraderie and, when necessary, compromise.
Neither twice-elected Jackie Rosario nor the appointed McDonald, however, has dared challenge or chastise Gene Posca when their Moms-majority teammate, who ran unopposed in 2022, has launched nonsensical-but-venomous rants attacking teachers, administrators, other board members and even a Vero Beach City Council member.
McDonald, who served on the board of a Christian classical school in New York, has been especially conspicuous in his silence, since he publicly professes to be a proponent of civility and courtesy.
“That’s one of the reasons I decided to run,” Dyer said. “It’s evident, by what has happened since the governor’s appointment, that somebody needed to stand up and not let someone go unopposed with an agenda that is about something other than what’s best for the kids.
“It’s one thing to listen to legitimate concerns, particularly from parents, and react to them,” he added. “But to have a political agenda, where you’re trying to impose your values on everyone else? That’s a bit over the top.”
Dyer said he has been troubled by the discussions that have dominated the board’s last two meetings, where almost the entirety of those yack-fests was devoted to “procedural matters and cultural issues that have already been litigated in our state.”
Cultural issues, however, are what’s most important to the members of the board’s iron-fisted majority and the politically driven Moms group that pulls their strings.
“Stop wasting your breath and stop the political grandstanding,” Dyer said. “Let’s talk about education and the kids.”
That’s probably not going to happen, though, especially as the primary nears and the Moms and their board majority can use these culture-war issues to distort the truth and mislead voters with false claims.
The Moms’ local chapter even has one of its operatives masquerading as an online journalist in a feeble attempt to spin the news and shape public opinion in the group’s favor.
Then there’s the recently distributed and blatantly biased survey – which claims to have been sent to random Republican voters – that contains an obvious falsehood designed to enhance McDonald’s position and paint Jones in a negative light.
To be sure: Dyer is not trying to buy the election; Jones never voted to support boys playing on girls sports teams; and both are running because they’re immensely qualified, truly care about kids and are committed to improving the quality of public education in our community.
Running almost as a ticket, both staunchly support teachers.
Dyer, in fact, began his professional life as a teacher and strongly advocates for literacy, having served on a Florida Council of 100 education committee and, locally, as vice chairman of The Learning Alliance.
He understands the challenge of running against DeSantis’ appointee, who was handed his board seat when the governor, ignoring the will of county voters, refused to allow Brian Barefoot to rescind his mistaken resignation last winter.
“Many people respect him as governor and what he’s done, so, obviously, it’s an obstacle I’ll have to overcome,” Dyer said. “Hopefully, people know what’s happened at the last few School Board meetings and can see what this new majority means.
“There’s a clear choice,” he added. “You either like the way it’s going and you want this school district to be known for what it is now, or you want it to be known as a place where kids have great academic achievement and are successful in life.
“It’s up to the voters.”
Dyer, who believes his extensive business background would be valuable to the board, said he doesn’t want the paycheck or benefits that come with the job. At age 74, he doesn’t need to win a school board race to raise his stature or pad his legacy. He’s running solely and selflessly to serve our community.
And if the election goes the wrong way?
“Personally, I’m worried,” Dyer said. “Having a great public-school system is vital to any community, and we have an all-star superintendent who is leading us in the right direction.
But we’ve got to keep politics out of it.
“Education is not red or blue,” he added. “It’s red, white and blue. It’s who we are. It’s the way we, as a country, have progressed. It’s your way to a better life.”
That’s why we can’t let the Moms and their puppets on the dais turn our school district into a culture-war battlefield. That’s why we can’t let them keep control of our School Board.
If they win, our kids lose.
