All around the Delaware Valley, people are gearing up to run for school boards and other local offices.
February 18 is the first day candidates can start circulating their nominating petitions. While the county political parties and the League of Women Voters offer guidance, the conservative group Moms for Liberty is focusing on helping elect school board candidates who believe in parental rights.
In 2024, Moms for Liberty endorsed 113 candidates nd 69 candidates won, a 61 percent win rate. In 2023 (the last year school board elections were held in Pennsylvania), 51 percent of Moms for Liberty endorsed candidates won in the commonwealth. In 2022, their first year, they endorsed nearly 500 candidates, and 275 of them won, said the group’s co-founder, Tina Descovich, a former Broward County School Board member.
Recruiting school board members is “one of the principal things that Moms for Liberty does,” said Descovich. Her co-founder, Tiffany Justice, had also been a school board member.
“We were just moms, and we ran to make a difference in our community. So we encourage all people, all parents to do that. And we help provide tools because when we ran for school board there was absolutely nothing. You could barely even Google what a school board member does, much less how to run a campaign.”
And political consultants don’t help “because there’s not any money in it.”
“And so we work hard to provide tools and resources for free to our members,” said Descovich. “Everything from spreadsheets on how to calculate how many people you need to (talk to) win, and how many doors you should knock and how much money you should raise. Because those tools just aren’t there for candidates for school board.”
She noted that Moms for Liberty is easy to join online. There are local chapters in the Delaware Valley, as well.
“Our chapters endorse locally,” she said. “They act as screeners.”
“We give them instructions on how to interview candidates and how to hold a candidate forum,” said Descovich. For the forums they should invite all candidates of every party, she said. The chapter meets and votes on who to endorse, she said. “And they submit their endorsements to us so we can help promote.”
“Our number one issue is to defend parental rights,” said Descovich.
Asked about parents’ wishes for more control of their children’s education, she said, “That’s why Moms for Liberty exists. And why we’ve been successful.”
“We work at the local level to help them,” she said.
Moms for Liberty only endorses school board candidates.
Eyebrows were raised when Planned Parenthood announced it is getting involved in local school board elections, races far afield from state spending on healthcare or laws regulating abortion. Veteran GOP political commentator and former candidate Guy Ciarrocchi sees a difference between the two organizations.
“Moms for Liberty has every right to talk about candidates for school board and the issues facing our children—and communities. Moreover, unlike the teachers unions or even Planned Parenthood, Moms4Liberty doesn’t make money off of taxpayer-funded school district budgets—or put their interests before our children.”
Moms for Liberty has been a frequent target of teachers unions and left-of-center political activists.
“The Biden administration weaponized (the FBI) against parents during his tenure,” Descovich said. “Parents were the number one target. And we had the Department of Justice come after us with the ‘threat tag.’” The FBI investigated some of their members around the country who spoke out at school board meetings, she said.
“The Biden administration worked with the NEA (National Education Association) to target us and recently it came out the NEA was paying media outlets to write good stories about them and bad stories about their ‘enemies,'” said Descovich.
They filed right-to-know requests, as did the Heritage Foundation sued and discovered the DOJ was calling Moms for Liberty “the enemy,” and “targeting parents from the beginning to the end,” she said. “We are thankful a new administration that realizes that parents should be he leaders in their children’s education will be taking office soon. It’s been a rough few years.”
