It’s time to tell Ron DeSantis to remove Bridget Ziegler from the Sarasota County School Board.
Support Our Schools is leading a campaign to get thousands of emails, letters, and telephone calls to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to tell him to remove Bridget Ziegler from the Sarasota School Board.
While Ms. Ziegler’s position on the school board may be local, the issue is national! Ms. Ziegler is a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, helped craft and championed the Don’t Say Gay bill, and pushed for curriculum censorship and book banning. She was on national media outlets like Fox vilifying the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized students and while a vice-president of the far-right Leadership Institute, she trained school board candidates and members nationally. We hope people from all over Florida and the nation will join us in this campaign.
Studies have shown that only individual emails/letters are effective; otherwise, they are completely ignored. Keep your message simple. Tell them who you are and why you think Bridget Ziegler should be removed from the Sarasota school board. If you live outside of Sarasota, tell the governor how the policies Ziegler pushed harmed children and teachers in your community. If you personally have been affected, your own story is the most powerful type of email.
If you need some talking points, you can find some suggestions below, but please just use these to get some ideas and please put it into your own words. We want your message to be heard and counted!
Contact Information for Gov. DeSantis:
Email address:
(This is an online form for you to fill out.)
Phone Number: (850) 717-9337
Address:
Office of Governor Ron DeSantis
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Talking Points
Our Message to Gov. DeSantis: Remove Bridget Ziegler from the Sarasota School Board
Here are some talking points that you might want to include (using one or two as examples) in your message to Gov. DeSantis.
Bridget Ziegler:
Has shifted the focus away from quality public education onto culture war issues, including:
Claiming teachers are groomers
Accusing teachers of indoctrinating students, teaching CRT and making kids feel guiltY
Saying many books and curricula are inappropriate and should be banned
Pushing for children to use bathrooms of the sex assigned at birth with complete disregard to their chosen gender identity
Banning the use of any name except for those given at birthHas mocked parents and students in the LGBTQ+ community by wearing an offensive T-shirt reading “Real Women Aren’t Men” which violates dress codes students are expected to follow.
Has displayed stunning hypocrisy by engaging with her husband, Christian Ziegler, in “sexcapades” despite this couple having denigrated and targeted the entire LGBTQ+ community.
Has promoted school privatization schemes, including school vouchers, with the aim of defunding and destroying public education.
Is sending her own children to a private school modeled after the Hillsdale College Barney Initiative while serving on a public-school board.
Had co-founded Moms for Liberty, an anti-government extremist group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has inflicted chaos, pain, bigotry, and homophobia throughout the nation.
Had, until she recently resigned during the current scandal, served as a vice president of the far-right Leadership Institute where she trained hundreds of school board candidates and members in Moms for Liberty tactics.
Was key in the 2021 passage of the Florida parental rights legislation and the 2022 passage of the Florida bill dubbed “Don’s Say Gay” that prohibited the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Has promoted policies causing teachers to feel untrusted and fearful, resulting in severe teacher shortages as staff flees from Florida school systems.
Has, along with her husband, both enriched themselves through high-paying jobs directly or indirectly related to the government while at the same time bashing the government, making themselves the ultimate grifters, including Christian’s alleged demand of $2 million as a “buy-out” from his position as chair of the Florida Republican Party.
Has made Sarasota and Florida the laughingstock of not only in the United States, but throughout the world as national and international media report on her and her husband’s antics.
The other four members of the Sarasota County School Board, including three conservative members, have taken the unprecedented step of voting 4-1 to pass a resolution asking that Bridget voluntarily resign. Support Our Schools believes that if Bridget Ziegler remains on the Sarasota County School Board the children of Sarasota schools will suffer because the focus will continue to be on Bridget, not the education of Sarasota children.