MIAMI — Lucia Báez-Geller isn’t afraid to make her opinion known.

In her four years on the Miami-Dade School Board, she has sparred with her colleagues over whether to celebrate LGBTQ History Month, whether to explore the idea of having volunteer religious chaplains in schools and whether it made sense to offer classical education curriculum in Miami-Dade schools.

It’s all helped her garner a reputation as arguably the most progressive member of the school board. Now, she’s hoping to draw on her experience on the board in a bid to flip Florida’s 27th congressional district — a densely populated and highly diverse slice of coastal South Florida that runs from Downtown Miami and Key Biscayne to Kendall and Cutler Bay.

Winning the congressional seat currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is likely to be a heavy lift for Báez-Geller. She has raised only a small fraction of the money that her opponent has, and has so far received little financial support from national Democratic groups wary of investing too heavily in Florida given the state’s increasingly rightward tilt.

Báez-Geller also lacks the widespread name recognition of her opponent, a Cuban-American former television journalist who’s well known among South Florida’s Hispanic communities and has already won in the district twice before. Republicans are eager to write Báez-Geller off as a leftwing extremist, who they say would bring the same kind of “woke” agenda she has pushed on the school board to Washington.

But the former high school English teacher, often a lone dissenting vote on controversial culture-war issues before the school board, told the Miami Herald her time in local office has prepared her to serve in Congress. The daughter of a Cuban immigrant who fled communism, she also says her personal experiences — including an abortion to terminate a non-viable pregnancy — have connected her with the voters of one of the country’s most diverse districts at a time when personal freedoms are under attack.

“Of course, protecting our freedoms is important because here in Miami, so many of us fled oppressive governments. And what we’re seeing here is a rollback of our freedoms. We have to make sure to fight against these things,” said Báez-Geller.

A school board in transition

Throughout her time on the school board, Báez-Geller has defended traditional public education — speaking up against state-funded private school vouchers and the amount of public funds being shared with charter schools. She told the Herald that Republicans are “propping up charter schools and private schools in order to benefit their friends and family.”

Though her seat is officially non-partisan, Báez-Geller joined a school board that increasingly voted along party lines, with her term beginning in November of 2020, during the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. Báez-Geller says, at the beginning, the board was “all on the same page,” but soon after became more polarized as Florida’s governor began to become more active on issues of public and private education.

The board began implementing the kinds of policies pushed by the conservative state Legislature, which included banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and limiting what schools can teach about racism and U.S. history.

“The Republicans need to find any way to disassemble public education, even if it’s based on lies and stoking fear in parents of things that are not actually happening at their schools,” she said.

In 2021, she introduced an item to celebrate LGBTQ History Month — a symbolic measure — and it passed. But in 2022, the Proud Boys and others showed up to fight against celebrating the month at a meeting that lasted 13 hours. While some supported the proposal, critics who spoke during a public comment period complained that recognizing the month encourages the “sexualization of children” and amounted to liberal indoctrination of students. The board voted down her item that year — and again in 2023 and 2024.

Báez-Geller said celebrating LGBTQ History Month was important because it would make students feel safe and accepted.

“Students work best and they feel best when they feel they are safe,” she said. “It’s absolutely important we recognize the diverse makeup of our community so everyone feels they belong.”

Báez-Geller has often been the lone “no” vote on the school board. She opposed the idea of having volunteer religious chaplains in schools and stood against a proposal to explore adopting Classical Education curriculum in some schools. Both items ended up passing. Alongside her liberal-leaning colleagues on the board, she also voted in favor of adopting a sexual education textbook which was initially rejected because of the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill.

“I’ve been protecting public education from attacks by the right-wing Legislature,” said Báez-Geller.

Báez-Geller said she’s proud of the work she has done on the school board — from creating food pantries for students, working to create more awareness around homelessness and helping students access services. She has also implemented a pilot study for restorative justice, a system of conflict resolution.

As a mid-career teacher, Báez-Geller knew what it was like to only make around $250 more than first-year teachers, so she advocated for an increase in teacher pay.

Although all board members did not agree on policy, she maintained strong relationships with her colleagues.

One day, while she was pregnant with her daughter — who’s now 2-years-old — and attending a school board meeting, her face started to turn red.

Her colleague Mari Tere Rojas, chairwoman of the board, said to Báez-Geller: “You don’t look well, are you okay?” and insisted she go to a doctor.

In the end, she needed medical attention.

“We are very close even though we might not always agree on every point, and we can respectfully agree to disagree,” said Rojas, who tends to vote in alignment with her more conservative colleagues.

Báez-Geller’s policies

Báez-Geller says she is running for Congress to tackle the systemic issues she saw her students were facing, such as the lack of access to adequate healthcare, housing instability and mental health struggles.

She said she will fight to ensure middle-class Americans can thrive. She talked about negotiating lower drug prices, passing legislation to support small businesses, reducing the cost of homeowners’ insurance and closing loopholes she says allow “billionaires to get away without paying their fair share of taxes.”

She said she wants to expand the childcare tax credit, create jobs and hold companies accountable for over-charging consumers. She also said she hopes to address climate change. “Look at the heat waves, hurricanes and the weather patterns over the last few years,” she said.

“We need to protect our oceans, our water supply and ensure that our community is a healthy place to live,” she said.

Restoring women’s access to abortion is also a priority for Báez-Geller, who last spring had a surgical abortion for a non-viable pregnancy.

“As the daughter of a Cuban immigrant who fled communism for democracy, I firmly believe that the fight to have control over our bodies and our healthcare decisions is a fight about protecting our freedoms,” she wrote in an Op-Ed for the Herald.

‘She’s always led with a teacher’s heart’

Rojas, the board chairwoman, said that Báez-Geller’s background as a teacher has been an asset to everyone on the school board for the past four years. Her former students say they also appreciated their time in her class, which became a safe space for students to learn and discuss challenges they were facing.

“All they need is one advocate, one safe space,” she said.

It was Báez-Geller’s friends and colleagues who encouraged her to run for school board — blowing up her phone as she shopped at Costco the day the news got out that longtime board member Martin Karp wouldn’t seek reelection — and her former students who helped her win. (Karp is now running to regain his old seat against former state Rep. Joe Geller.)

One of the people that encouraged her to run was Fedrick Ingram, who got to know Báez-Geller through her involvement with United Teachers of Dade, the teachers union.

Ingram is now the secretary-treasurer for the American Federation of Teachers, the powerful national union of educators.

“She has always led with a teacher’s heart, she was always optimistic and thinking about the brighter days ahead,” said Ingram.

He said she was never afraid to speak up, always put students first and was very active at meetings and rallies. When the teachers’ union would host a rally outside the school board building, she would be there right there with them, holding a sign, said Ingram.

As soon as Báez-Geller decided to run, her students at Miami Beach Senior High mobilized to support her campaign. Many put up signs along the roads in Miami Beach, posted on social media and knocked on doors.

Lucy Didonna, a former student, says she would spend her weekend mornings going door to door encouraging people to vote for Báez-Geller. Didonna is the first person in her family to graduate from college and says that during a period of her life where she was discouraged, believing that she would be unable to afford college, Báez-Geller encouraged her to apply for scholarships and financial aid.

Didonna is now a graduate of American University and now a legal assistant at a law firm.

“Her words and her being present in my life is one of the reasons I got to the place where I’m at,” Didonna said.

If elected, Báez-Geller said she will continue to represent her students, but now on a much larger stage.

“I have stood out as a voice standing up for people and this culture war politics — it’s at all levels of government. And so I’m going to be well equipped and ready to navigate this on day one in Washington,” she said.

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