When I think of public schools, I think about parents, teachers, staff, administrators and the community all working together to make Florida’s schools stronger, safer and better at every turn. I don’t think I am alone in this opinion, nor do I think that focusing on our children should ever be a second priority. After all, 90 percent of Florida’s children attend Florida’s public schools.

School is the place where childhood happens. It’s a place where children are cared for, loved and supported by dedicated teachers and staff who work tirelessly to ensure that every child gets the education they deserve and need, regardless of race, background, ZIP code or ability. But certain politicians are attacking our schools.

Two decades of low pay and punitive policies have driven teachers and staff to leave the profession they love. It has gotten so bad that the 2022-23 school year will start with a rotating cast of substitute teachers for hundreds of thousands of students. On top of the teacher shortage, more than 5,000 vacancies existed at the end of the year among support staff such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians and paraprofessionals.

When schools don’t have enough teachers, or when students arrive late to school because there are not enough bus drivers, our children are not getting the education they deserve and need. As a parent, I witnessed this shortage firsthand when my daughter went without a science teacher from the third week of January until the end of the school year, after her teacher resigned mid-year and the district could not find another science teacher.

Given this monumental challenge, how has Gov. Ron DeSantis responded? He has chosen to sow even further chaos and is asking school board candidates to blindly pledge their loyalty to him instead of to the families and communities they are elected to represent. After three years of disrupted learning, our students need us to come together now more than ever before. Instead, DeSantis uses issues of race and gender to divide communities and to distract us from his failure to fully fund our schools. Florida’s educators remain among the lowest paid in the nation. As a result, far too many students attend schools without a librarian, nurse or any mental health professional.

When I talk with parents and educators, I am reminded over and over how much they care about their local school communities. So I know they are too savvy to fall for the division offered by DeSantis and the school board candidates aligned with him. Yes, children must learn reading, writing, math, science and history. But they also deserve to have art, music and other courses where they will not just learn, but thrive. When parents, educators and community members join to elect school board candidates who are laser-focused on meeting the needs of the children and parents in their communities, then Florida’s students will have the schools they deserve.

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Andrew Spar is president of the Florida Education Association, representing more than 150,000 preK-12 teachers and education staff professionals, higher education faculty and graduate assistants, students preparing to become teachers, and retired education employees.