Hillsborough County Schools

Stacy Hahn Helped Bring Tallahassee’s Culture War Into Hillsborough Schools

October 15, 2026 B. John 204 Views 0 Comments Stacy Hahn, Hillsborough County Schools, LGBTQ Students, Parental Rights, Freedom to Read, book bans, education culture wars, Ron DeSantis

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Stacy Hahn was not just caught up in Florida’s education culture war. She chose a side again and again. She stood with Gov. Ron DeSantis as he called book bans a “hoax,” voted to remove books even when review committees recommended keeping them, and was the only one to vote against a School Board proclamation for Pride Month.

Her record also shows the problem with the phrase “parental rights.” Parents could already limit what their own children checked out. Hahn supported something else: letting some parents decide what all families’ children could read. It seems parental rights only matter until a parent disagrees with Stacy Hahn.

This is personal for me. When I was growing up gay, I had no books to help me understand my feelings or to show me I was not alone. Somewhere in Hillsborough County, a child needs that same reassurance now. Censorship does not feel any softer to children just because it comes from someone with a doctorate and a pleasant smile.

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The Books They Don’t Want Our Children to Read

October 9, 2026October 9, 2026 B. John 294 Views 0 Comments Florida Book Bans, Parental Rights, Freedom to Read, Moms For Liberty, Bridget Ziegler, Brittany Lyssy, Hillsborough County Schools, Banned Books Week

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This entry is in the series Florida Legislature

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Growing up, I didn’t have books that helped me understand who I was. People rarely talked openly about being gay,

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Birds of a Feather

October 7, 2026 B. John 238 Views 0 Comments Danny Alvarez, Michael Owen, School Vouchers, Hillsborough County Schools, Ken Gay, LGBTQ Students

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

This entry is in the series Education

Ken Gay’s latest supporter graphic features Republican state representatives Danny Alvarez, Traci Koster and Michael Owen. Once you look at their education records, the endorsements require very little explanation. Alvarez and Koster backed Florida’s expansion of private-school scholarships and HB 1069, with its restrictions on sexual-orientation and gender-identity instruction and pronoun use. Owen has supported similar school-choice policies and legislation expanding religious expression in public schools.

The consequences of those LGBTQ-related policies are harder to shrug off as another Tallahassee culture-war hobby. Trevor Project research found that LGBTQ+ students attending schools with even one anti-LGBTQ+ policy reported higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicide attempts. Its 2023 research also found lower suicide-attempt rates among students with affirming school supports, including teachers who respected transgender and nonbinary students’ pronouns. Apparently, treating children with dignity has measurable benefits. Who knew?

So “birds of a feather” seems an apt description of the policy overlap. The same group supporting Gay has repeatedly backed moving education dollars toward private alternatives while supporting restrictions that fall particularly hard on LGBTQ+ students. The question behind the endorsements is worth examining: what does that agenda mean inside a public-school system charged with educating every child who walks through its doors?

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Brittany Lyssy’s School-Board Training Network Deserves a Closer Look

September 21, 2026 B. John 427 Views 0 Comments Brittany Lyssy, Leadership Institute, Hillsdale College, school board politics, Hillsborough County Schools, Moms For Liberty, Bridget Ziegler

This entry is in the series Education

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

Brittany Lyssy cites her work with the Leadership Institute’s School Board Leaders Program as part of her education-policy experience. A closer look at that program shows a national conservative network built around recruiting, training, and supporting school-board candidates, with direct connections to Moms for Liberty and to policy resources from Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation.

One connection deserves particular attention. Bridget Ziegler, an early figure in Moms for Liberty, served in leadership of the same Leadership Institute school-board program where Lyssy worked on communications, policy analysis, ethics, and governance. Public records do not show that Lyssy belonged to Moms for Liberty or adopted every position promoted within that network, but the institutional ties are clear enough to warrant scrutiny.

The larger question is what parts of that philosophy Lyssy would bring to Hillsborough. The full article follows the connections among the Leadership Institute, Moms for Liberty, Hillsdale, Ziegler, and Lyssy’s own policy background, then asks what voters should examine before deciding how much those ties matter.