A parent of six kids, a teacher of 10 years and a current prosecutor for the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office is putting her name forth for a school board seat.
Life hasn’t slowed down for Alexandria Suarez since her run for state representative last year. This past week, the Key Largo resident and prosecutor who works in Marathon secured a guilty verdict in a driving under the influence case. Next month, she’ll be getting married to her fiance of eight years.
Add to that a run for school board, and Suarez said she’s excited for an opportunity to bring her experience and knowledge to the community, if elected.
Suarez recently filed for the school board’s District 5 seat, which is currently held by Sue Woltanski and will be up for election in November 2022. Suarez’s education resume includes teaching at-risk students and working with special-needs students. She’s also spent a number of years teaching middle schoolers in the Miami-Dade School District.
Suarez said she was part of a committee that evaluated magnet schools, which specialize in an area study or teaching method. She was also a lead facilitator of the Socratic learning curriculum in middle school, which focused on critical thinking among students.
“I have this background that just fits perfectly,” she said. “I have all this vast experience in education, and with everything going on around us, our students are under a lot of pressure.
“Being a member of the community and wanting to give back, in what capacity am I able to do it well? Education is the right fit,” she continued. “It’s in my wheelhouse.”
A unique community and learning opportunities for students not seen in other school districts were among the factors that enticed Suarez to run for school board. But she acknowledges the many challenges faced by school boards, especially when members continue to navigate through an ongoing pandemic.
Overall, Suarez said she can bring the knowledge and perspective from the sides of a parent and a teacher.
“A lot of times, it’s very easy for people to point the finger at teachers. At the end of the day, you need to let them do their job. You need to let them do what they do best, which is teach,” she said. “There’s no better way than another teacher on the school board to be able to support them.”
She also said there should be no polarity and adversity with “private versus public” within the school district. Each school has an opportunity to offer programs and curriculum that parents want their kids to be in, Suarez said.
Suarez said she’s committed to the issues facing parents and students in the community. Discussions continue over mask mandates and vaccinations, and Suarez anticipates those issues continuing if she’s elected. Suarez served on a pediatric and pulmonary team while teaching.
“The school board has the authority to do certain things and doesn’t have authority to do other things. We need to make sure we’re not only staying in our lane as a school board, but we’re also not marginalizing anyone whether it’s parents or students. We’re all in this together,” she said.
Asked what approach she’d take when it comes to masks, Suarez said it’s a personal decision with many factors considered. She said the parents are in the best position to understand what’s right and what works for their own children.
“You don’t know what child has to visit http://armodexperiment.com an allergist, has asthma or has some other type of issue that won’t fit into ‘to mask or not to mask.’ We should be there to support the safety of our children, but at the same time not be so blind sided to marginalize our parents and the stakeholders in that child’s life who are in the best position to say what they need and don’t need,” she said.
Suarez also touched on the ongoing problems of retaining teachers in a county with a high cost of living. She said the school board’s done a good job in coming up with ways to create housing that’s affordable for teachers and staff. With slight bumps in salaries, Suarez said more is needed to retain people who are hired.
“It would be a great way to have our own community not leave us after everything’s invested in them. Ideally, it would be great to have our own students who want to come back to the community and want to teach or run for school board,” she said. “And when you do have to recruit from the outside, they are able to stay here.”
