Florida mom slams school after she says son was given ‘dictator’ award, asserts district targets conservatives

A Florida mom is calling out the “toxic environment” of a major public school district after a teacher allegedly nominated her son for a “most likely to become a dictator” award. 

“What motivated me to go to the state Department of Education is that I’ve had numerous run-ins with this school district,” Florida mom Crystal Marull told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday about her experience with Alachua County Public Schools in north central Florida.

During Wednesday’s State Board of Education meeting, Marull called out Alachua County Public Schools and highlighted personal examples where she said that her children have been treated unfairly. 

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“My son, six years old, was prohibited from sitting next to his friend on the school bus because a parent objected to my perspectives on book challenges,” Marull said during the meeting, speaking of an incident that happened in the fall of 2023. 

In May 2023, Marull said her older son was also targeted for his beliefs. 

“My older son’s history teacher allowed students to label him a Naziphile simply for his interest in history and participation in ROTC,” she added. “She later nominated my son as the ‘most likely to become a dictator’ and had his classmates vote on it. And try to force him to the front of the class to receive the certificate, which he rightly refused, all because of his conservative values and our perspectives.” 

Marull said her older son didn’t take the incident too seriously. 

“His feelings were hurt, he found it very inappropriate,” Marull said. “But you know, he’s a typical teenage boy. He’s going to try to laugh it off and not show if it really does hurt him more deeply or not. He kind of let it roll. I was far more concerned because I believe it spoke to a larger problem within that classroom. It spoke to the problem that it appeared that this teacher was not equipped to be teaching history as she didn’t seem to appreciate history.” 

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Gainesville High School history teacher Lauren Watts, who was placed on leave last week, allegedly gave Marull’s older son the “most likely to become a dictator” award and allegedly would allow other students to call him a “Naziphile.” 

Marull told Fox News Digital that she raised the events her children had experienced at the Wednesday hearing because she was “trying to point to a pattern of abusive behaviors of the school district toward conservative families.”

The Florida mom, who is the coordinator for the online Spanish program at the University of Florida, has been critical of sexually explicit books in the school system. 

She alleged that “one of the texts that had been found in the library graphically depicted a teenage boy sexually violating a younger boy.”  

Other parents in Alachua County Public Schools have also been critical of the district. 

Florida parent Jeremy Clepper told Fox News Digital in a statement that Sarah Rockwell, chair of Alachua County Public Schools, “needs to resign because of her comment ‘good, one less MAGA in the world,’ saying she wants all MAGAs dead,” referring to Hulk Hogan’s death last month.

Marull said she did try to reach out to the school board about the incidents with her children, but they were not responsive. 

“I had complained to the teacher, to the principal and to the school board and no one from the principal or the school board ever followed up on the issue,” she said. “So it did happen two years ago, that was in May of ’23. And the reason I brought it up at the meeting is I was trying to point to a pattern of abusive behaviors of the school district towards conservative families.” 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Alachua County Public Schools said, “The district is investigating the incident shared by Dr. Marull during the August 20 State Board of Education meeting.”

The district added that “The employee involved has been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is underway. In the meantime, any information about the incident is confidential under Florida Statute 231.291.”