Moms For Liberty releases new campaign tool-kit as counter-groups work to stop growth

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - A parent group that started in Brevard County is now working to elect Moms For Liberty members in school board races across the country.  

The organization just released a new campaign toolkit to help their candidates win, while others are fighting to stop the organization from securing more seats.  

At the height of the pandemic, public comment from parents took school board meetings by storm. 

Oftentimes, people speaking out were fighting mask mandates and pushing back on books they said didn’t belong on school shelves. 

"We the parents are taking back school boards across the country," said Tiffany Justice, who’s a Moms For Liberty co-founder. She says with hundreds of chapters in nearly every state and a new campaign toolkit, they’re looking to influence numerous school board races. 

"We want to see that we flip those school boards to conservative school boards who are not going to violate our rights and freedoms as parents," the co-founder added. 

Moms For Liberty says they endorsed candidates in over 500 school board races across the country last year and succeeded in hundreds of races.  In Brevard County, two first-time candidates, Gene Trent and Megan Wright, won the group’s endorsement and also won their seats on this school board in the most recent election. 

Not everyone sees the group’s goals as good. 

READ: Brevard School board weighing settlement in mask case of child with special needs

"I call them a hate-filled group because they are targeting populations across the country," said Liz Mikitarian who’s a former Brevard Public Schools teacher and parent of a child who recently graduated from the district. 

She says the new campaign tools are behind something bigger which she believes is the takedown of public education as a whole.

"To provide that level of campaigning into your local, little small school board races is to change the narrative and make it about whatever their mission is," she added. 

When Moms For Liberty started growing at the height of the pandemic, Mikitarian says what she started seeing at local school board meetings was concerning. 

"I was called a groomer, and that’s what kind of pushed me over to the edge," the former kindergarten teacher said. 

She then started her own group, STOP Moms For Liberty, which also began on the Space Coast and has more than 11,000 online members across the country whom Mikitarian calls relentless defenders. 

As school boards continue to become battlefields, local elections are intensifying to decide who's shaping schools and setting the policies.

"You help to preserve liberty and freedom in America," Justice added about Moms For Liberty’s goals. 

"Although they seem to have taken over the flag and patriotism and all of that – have they? Not really," concluded Mikitarian.