With boosting teacher pay on ballot, Miami-Dade teachers union president takes back seat

In 2018, United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernandez-Mats played a pivotal role in getting a referendum passed to boost teacher pay and school safety — standing alongside former Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at news conferences, knocking on doors and spearheading fundraising.

But ahead of November’s midterm elections, where the school district is asking Miami-Dade voters again to increase their property taxes for teacher pay and safety, Hernandez-Mats is seemingly absent from referendum-related events. The referendum is on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Instead, she’s campaigning across the state with Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, as his running mate. Crist and Hernandez-Mats are running against Gov. Ron DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez on the Republican ticket.

As candidate for lieutenant governor, Hernandez-Mats said the decision to take a “behind-the-scenes” approach to campaigning for the referendum was to avoid mixing messaging.

“It wouldn’t be the right look,” Hernandez-Mats told the Herald. The referendum, she argued, is a nonpartisan issue, and she wanted to avoid “partisan politics [becoming] mixed up with something that’s good for educators in Miami-Dade schools.”

For others, though, the move underscores a juggling act of two roles — one in politics, the other, education — that are difficult to separate.

READ MORE: Miami-Dade school district asking people to pay more for teacher pay — or ‘bleak’ future

Keeping roles separate

From the moment Crist announced her as his running mate in August, following his Aug. 23 primary win against Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner, Hernandez-Mats has emphasized her background as an educator.

The official announcement came at a middle school — Hialeah Middle Community School — where she began her teaching career and where she was later named the school’s Teacher of the Year. From the stage and in front of reporters after the event, Hernández-Mats emphasized her experience in the classroom. Schools, she said at the time, are a “microcosm of the community.”

She’s also turned to social media to campaign for state office — again turning to her educator background. On Tik Tok, she’s launched a series called “Chalkboard Talk,” where she explains one topic in a classroom setting, writing on a chalkboard and using the hashtag, “#SchoolingDeSantis.”

Nevertheless, Hernandez-Mats has avoided referencing the referendum to reinforce her message that being an educator is among the experiences she brings to the lieutenant governor position — something Antonio White, United Teachers of Dade first vice president, said was a deliberate choice.

“It’s not by accident that these two campaigns have been kept apart,” White told the Herald. “Running for office is one thing, but a local referendum to maintain local control is something totally different. We wanted to make sure we could keep those two separate, as much as we could.”

READ MORE: Hernández-Mats rises from middle school teacher to candidate for lieutenant governor

The referendum isn’t about the union, he argued; it’s about providing resources to teachers. The moment the campaign becomes about the union, “the politics seep in,” he said.

For Ben Wilcox, co-founder and research director of Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization that promotes integrity in government and exposes public corruption, the referendum is inherently political because it’s going before the voters.

Still, he believes Hernandez-Mats could have “effectively separated herself” from the lieutenant governor campaign on the issue of the referendum.

Union head’s absence questioned

The attempt to silo Hernandez-Mats’ two roles is a “very difficult line to walk,” argued Enid Weisman, the Aventura mayor.

“When you’re representing an organization as large as United Teachers of Dade and campaigning for the second-highest position for the state, it becomes cloudy,” said Weisman, a former Miami-Dade County teacher, principal and school district official.

Hernandez-Mats’ absence from the referendum campaign trail could also give voters reason to question why the teachers union president is ostensibly elsewhere before “one of the most important referendums” in Miami-Dade County, Weisman said. District officials have warned of financial turmoil and a “bleak” future if the referendum fails.

READ MORE: Miami-Dade school district asking people to pay more for teacher pay — or ‘bleak’ future

“People don’t know what behind-the-scenes means. People only know what they can see,” Weisman noted.

John Burkowski Jr., a social studies teacher at the Academy for Advanced Academics, a dual-enrollment Miami-Dade school program housed at Florida International University, agrees with Weisman’s assessment. Though he acknowledges the “political sense” to disassociate the referendum with the gubernatorial race, the issue, he argued, comes back to transparency and her allegiances.

“It’s generally assumed the president of the union would be working alongside the district and the superintendent to raise awareness” about the upcoming vote, he said. “The referendum is an all-hands-on deck [effort]. Then here’s the president, not front and center.”

READ MORE: Florida Democrats choose Crist to challenge and beat DeSantis. Can he?

For her part, Hernandez-Mats, who’s responsible for fundraising efforts, said the union already has spent more than $500,000; in 2018, that was around the cap, union officials said. Union officials have sent mailers, appeared at events and sent texts to remind voters about upcoming deadlines and town halls.

Moreover, Hernandez-Mats said she was working on the 2022 referendum “long before I knew I would be the lieutenant governor candidate.” (In February, ahead of union leadership elections, Hernandez-Mats penned an op-ed in the Herald stating union leadership had already begun meeting with district staff and board members about the referendum, which is an extension of the 2018 one.)

White, too, pushed back on critiques about the decision to separate Hernandez-Mats from the referendum campaign and any possible frustrations among members. The union has amassed as many volunteers to campaign this year as it did in 2018, he said, which would be a “better indication if they thought they were being overlooked.”

Missing voices

This year’s referendum — and the campaign to support it — is different from the one in 2018.

The last referendum came months after the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in Broward County that left 17 students and faculty members dead. Hiring more school safety officers was part of the appeal to voters.

The 2018 measure also came before the coronavirus pandemic that closed schools and sparked a parents’ rights movement that has led to a growing distrust of school boards by some parents. (In August, voters elected two new Miami-Dade School Board members, one of whom has criticized the referendum’s proposed property tax hike, despite being a teacher.)

READ MORE: Will the 2 DeSantis-backed Miami school board members be independent? Some are asking

This year’s vote also comes after the departure of Carvalho, the former superintendent who, some would argue, was crucial in securing the 2018 vote. According to White, Carvalho was able to capture people’s attention and “was able to pull in a lot of money that we (raised) last time.”

Weisman shared similar remarks, saying Hernandez-Mats’ absence may have been less obvious if Carvalho was still superintendent because he was constantly promoting the measure. (Superintendent Jose Dotres has been leading town hall meetings across the district to raise awareness about the referendum.)

Hernandez-Mats is a “fierce fighter,” she said. “Her voice is obviously missing.”