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Florida Senate Confirms Coral Springs Republican to State Board of Education Seat

{Dan Foganholi}

The Florida Senate on Tuesday confirmed the appointment of Coral Springs resident Daniel Foganholi to the state Board of Education.

Senators narrowly approved Foganholi, a Republican appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a 20-17 vote. Ten Democratic members, along with seven Republicans, voted against his confirmation.

“I am honored to have been confirmed by the Florida Senate today,” Foganholi wrote in an X post Tuesday night. “Thank you, @GovRonDeSantis, for your vote of confidence and for being an example of a leader who never backs down. I’m committed to continuing the fight to push Florida forward in education.”

State Sen. Tina Polsky, who represents Parkland, had spoken against Foganholi’s appointment in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, claiming he’d inaccurately described the Feb. 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to suit his arguments for open-carry on campuses.

But Foganholi, a former Broward County School Board member and current member of the MSD Public Safety Commission member, nonetheless secured the necessary majority of votes.

In his X post, Foganholi appeared to blame the seven Republican “no” votes on his vocal support for open-carry laws on campuses following the deadly shooting at Florida State University on April 17, as well as after the 2018 Stoneman Douglas attack.

“While I’m disappointed in the ‘Republicans’ who voted against me for defending our God-given right to self-defense and the Second Amendment, I will never stop standing up for what I believe in,” he wrote.

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Foganholi was appointed by DeSantis to the state Board of Education in Aug. 2024, following his defeat in a race to retain a Broward County School Board seat.

Appointed to the Broward School Board by DeSantis in April 2022, he finished third in a three-way school board race won by attorney Maura McCarthy Bulman.

The son of Brazilian immigrants and a first-generation American, Foganholi originally filled the school board seat vacated by now-State Senator Rosalind Osgood. After finishing Osgood’s term, DeSantis appointed Foganholi to a different school board seat.

The Florida Board of Education sets statewide education policies and is considered a higher appointment than a county school board seat.

Polsky, in her speech on the Senate floor, said Broward County residents “did not trust Mr. Foganholi to represent them and he should not be rewarded for his failure to win the confidence of his community with a higher appointment to the State Board of Education.”

She also mentioned that Foganholi, who serves as director of legislative affairs for the New Generations Children’s Ministry, had once been a rapper who rapped about risqué subjects, as reported by the Miami New Times.

“This is not the influence we need on our State Board of Education,” Polsky said.

She also suggested Foganholi either did not understand what happened during the mass shootings he’d opined on, or had purposely misrepresented the tragedies to score political points.

“The students of Florida, of Parkland, and now of Florida State continue to come to us, asking us to listen and prioritize their safety,” Polsky said. “How do we justify them appointing someone with such a poor understanding of safety on the Board of Education?”

The Senate Tuesday also confirmed each of DeSantis’ other 188 government appointees across the state.

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Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.