Candidate: Leslie Russell

Leslie Russell is a 59 year old mother of two and is a resident of The Villages who decided to enter the race for School Board District 1 at almost the very last moment, which is why she refers to herself as the "dark horse" candidate. Leslie co-owns a 200 acre corn/cotton agricultural farm in Wharton County Texas that has been in her family for over 100 years. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas in 1985. Leslie also attended the University of San Diego in California for her paralegal certificate where she also attended one year of law school. Leslie was formerly a licensed real estate appraiser in San Diego and has previously held real estate licenses in Texas, California and Florida. Most recently, Leslie was a volunteer canvasser for Defend Florida which focused on voter integrity issues.

Initially, Leslie entered the school board race for two main reasons. Firstly, she was appalled that Sumter County school children were either mandated or pressured to wear masks. Leslie took the time, effort and expense to educate herself about the Covid pandemic by attending several Covid medical conferences/events where she learned that masking children is unecessary, ineffective, and incredibly harmful for children. Secondly, Leslie was also extremely opposed to the tyrannical agreement that the Sumter County School Board entered into which mandated that teachers take the experimental Covid "vaccines" in order to access certain medical benefits such as sick leave. Where there is risk there must always be choice. Mandating participation as a medical subject for a new experimental vaccine without full legal disclosure of the possible vaccine side effects is illegal and immoral.  Additionally, one cannot give legal consent if there is ANY kind of pressure applied, including financial pressure. This includes financial pressure such as granting or limiting things such as medical benefits. Mandating participation in medical experiments violates the Nuremberg Code as well as several othe National and International laws and treaties. Please do your own research on this issue and then ask your current school board member about why they allowed the "Memorandum of Agreement Between The Sumter County School Board And The Sumter County Essential Support Personnel" dated 9/30/21 signed by Hannah M. Foster, Chief Negotiator For The Sumter County School Board and Valerie Smith, Executive Director For The Sumter County Essential Support Personnel. Did the School Board vote to allow this "agreement"?  Did the Sumter County School abdicate their job responsibilities to unelected persons or entities? Was it legal to do this? This tyrannical financial carrot/stick incentive to coerce teachers into taking part in a massive fear induced medical experiment was completely unacceptable. Using fear to mask children was also  immoral.

Leslie is against the sexualization of children at ANY grade level and she supports the educational policies of Governor Ron DeSantis; however, she believes that Governor Ron DeSantis' K-3 anti grooming bill did not go far enough. Leslie believes it should be extended to every grade level. Leslie is against the use of the new insane pronouns that are currently being promoted. Leslie is absolutely against discussing or encouraging minor children in any way that they can transition into the opposite sex. School textbooks and library books must be critically reviewd for inappropriate subject matter. The sexualization of our school children must be stopped immediately. 

Leslie opposes all Cultural Marxism programming including, but not limited to,  Crital Race Theory, Social Emotional Learning and Diversity Inclusion Equity.

Leslie Russell supports increasing teacher pay to attract and keep the best and brightest teachers. Florida is woefully behind the teacher pay rate of other states. This must be corrected immediately. Leslie supports curriculum transparency, parental involvement and getting back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Let's look at what is working in charter schools across the nation and implement what works well  into our own public schools. Leslie especially supports modernizing Florida schools to include technical trade curriculums as options for students who want to train for immediate careers after high school graduation.