By DAVID L. SNELLING Special for South Florida Times

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Former Broward County School Board chairwoman Rosalind Osgood just gained a foothold in the Florida Senate.

Osgood, a Democrat, defeated Fort Lauderdale Republican Joseph Carter by a landslide, for Senate District 33 in a special election on March 8.

Osgood, 56, won early voting votes and mail-in ballots by 82.4 percent when the polls closed at 7 p.m., according to the Broward County Elections Department.

Carter, who was fired as a Broward County School teacher last year, received less than 18 percent.

The seat was left vacant last year when then-Sen. Perry Thurston, a Democrat, resigned to run for Congressional District 30 which was won by Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, also a Democrat.

Senate District 33 covers Broward County cities Margate, Pompano Beach, Tamarac, North Lauderdale, Sunrise, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, Oakland Park, Plantation and parts of Fort Lauderdale.

Osgood, who was endorsed by the Sun Sentinel and political action committee Quality Florida, raised a total of $108,191 for her campaign to Carter’s $7,538, according to the Florida Department of Division of Elections.

"I am grateful for the new leadership opportunity that the voters of Broward County has given me," Osgood told the South Florida Times after her victory. "I still dream of a multicultural, multiracial, interfaith nation that gives every person a life experience of freedom, justice and peace. We can no longer fail to see the connections between America’s racial history and present day inequalities."

Osgood said one of her goals is to give her constituents the opportunity to have the freedom to speak about racial injustice, especially in educational settings.

"Many policy makers lack the capacity to draw a distinction between invidious uses of races and benign uses of race," she said. "This country belongs to all of us and I’m a pro democracy."

After she was endorsed by Quality Florida, Osgood said she stands for prodemocracy, and everyone deserves to experience life, liberty and justice.

"It is never acceptable to utilize race, gender, sexual orientation or economic status to harm someone by taking away their right to vote, suppressing their voice and limiting their right to protest," she said.

Carter, 35, told the South Florida Times he ran a good campaign by focusing on the issues and given voters an option instead of one candidate running unopposed.

"I knew the demographics coming into the race and it was important to give voters another option," he said. "I think we accomplished that and made pretty good head waves."

Carter, a political newcomer, ran on a political platform which focused on education, creating more jobs and affordable health care for all Floridians.

For education, he said Broward County public schools have been underperforming for decades and parents grew frustrated seeing their children not getting quality education.

Carter, who taught public and private schools, said his platform pushed for more parents to choose where they want to send their kids, whether it’s public, private or charter schools where they would have a better chance at excelling in academics.

Or they can choose to homeschool. "Parents are tired of sending their children to school with the same results," he said." You have fifth graders reading on a third-grade level. Parents, especially single mothers, should have the freedom for them to choose what type of education they want for their kids."

Osgood and Carter were on opposite sides of the controversial COVID-19 mask mandate for Broward County public schools.

Osgood was vocal against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ mask mandate ban that cost the school district financially and may have cost Carter his teaching job for speaking out against the school district for not obeying the governor’s policy.

Osgood was chair of the board school when the group voted to impose mask mandates for students to stop the spread of the virus during its second surge of positive cases in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.

But school districts in Florida paid financial consequences for defying DeSantis’ mask mandate ban when the governor announced he was taking $200,000,000 earmarked from school districts that ignored his policy and will reallocate it to the schools that went along with it.

"The data proved we protected kids and teachers from the spread of the virus," Osgood said when she and Carter were guests on This Week with Michael Putney and Glenna Milberg. "The legislation targeted the administration and not the school board with withholding salaries. They had nothing to do with the decision, the school board made that decision. It was an outright attack on members who chose to protect and prioritize people in our district."

Carter, a third generation Fort Lauderdale native, told the South Florida Times he was fired from his teaching job in Broward in October 2021 and was never given a reason.

Some suggested he was terminated after he spoke out against Broward County school district’s mask mandate for students despite Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ ban on facial coverings.

He said he called the school board to find a reason but was never given one.

Carter said he wasn’t against the mask mandate but wanted parents to make the decision for their kids.

"I don’t know why I was terminated," he said. "But to be clear, I was never against the mask mandate, but I thought that decision should be left up to the parents. I thought it was an irresponsible political move to start an argument with the governor because when it comes to children’s health, we always gave that choice to the parents. I had the chicken pox when I was little, and my parents knew I couldn’t go to school. Now we are seeing that taken out of the hands of parents with the mask mandate."

Osgood a Broward County native, served on the school board since 2012 and resigned this month to run for the Senate.

Osgood defeated legal advocate Terri Ann Williams Edden in the Democratic Primary race in January.

She is the CEO of Mount Olive Development Corporation and was the first female ordained minister in the history of Mount Olive Baptist Church.

She is a graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School. She has earned both masters and doctoral degrees in Public Administration from Nova Southeastern University.

Osgood is a former adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University Huizenga School of Business, where she taught Leadership and Public Policy Evaluation in the Master of Public Administration Program.

Carter hasn’t ruled out running for political office again.

"I’ll wait and see," he said.