Moms for Liberty member in Clay County picked 'to bring our message to all 50 states'

A woman who sued over Duval County schools’ pandemic masking policies is taking a national organizing role in the conservative education activist group Moms for Liberty.

“My goal is to bring our message to all 50 states,” Clay County resident Tia Bess said after being tapped recently to be the two-year-old group’s national director of outreach.

The role will make Bess a key figure in work to expand the organization, which boasts about 275 chapters and is advocating for parental “bill of rights” measures in 13 states. The group's political clout was reinforced last year, when Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared at a national Moms for Liberty summit in Tampa and separately endorsed a number of School Board candidates backed by the group.

Bess, who lived in Jacksonville until a couple of years ago and was homeless during parts of her early years, said she wants her role to include outreach in areas like “the ZIP codes I grew up in,” mentioning Northwest Jacksonville’s 32208, 32209 and 32254 ZIP codes as examples.

She said parents in those areas often feel isolated from school decisionmakers but still want a voice.

“I want these parents to know that they have rights in the schools,” said Bess, 38, adding that many residents face challenges engaging with schools because of time demands of their jobs. “They work two and three jobs just to make ends meet. … That doesn’t mean that they care any less about their kids,” she said.

The disconnect from schools’ leadership is all too familiar, she said.

“Three years ago, before COVID, the shutdown, I didn’t know anything about a School Board meeting. I would honestly rather have had a root canal than listen to one of those,” she said.

That changed for Bess as she and other parents shared frustrations over school system policies written to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

Worries about her autistic son’s instruction at Greenland Pines Elementary were compounded by concerns over mask-wearing requirements the Duval County School Board adopted in August 2021 after a long meeting where Bess spoke and found a supportive crowd.

Bess argued the mask requirements would exacerbate her son’s hearing and speech limitations and in September 2021 her family was among 10 households who sued, saying the requirements violated constitutional rights.

The lawsuit, originally filed in Circuit Court in Jacksonville, quickly moved to federal court and is still pending there.

It argued Bess’s son, who was not named, was harmed by a policy that “was not based on science or reason, but instead some combination of the political leanings, emotions, irrational fears and psychological anxieties of its superintendent and School Board members.”

Bess said she moved to Clay County after being told schools there handle special education in a different way that has let her son, now in second grade, earn good grades and score high on an IQ test.

“My son can read and he’s thriving,” said Bess, who declined to say which school he attends to avoid focusing harmful attention on him.

Bess has been a Moms for Liberty volunteer since 2021.

In an email announcing her selection for the outreach job, group co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said she “embodies what it means to be a joyful warrior for the future of our children. She has a passion for advocating for freedom and liberty and we are excited to add her to the growing team. There is no doubt that moms across the country will feel the same flame ignite in their hearts after talking with Tia and hearing her own story.”

Exactly what the new job will look like isn’t clear, but Bess pointed to the group’s rapid growth and said there was more work to be done.

“We have 115,000 active members,” she said. “They’re boots on the ground that are concerned about what’s happened in their schools and they want to make changes.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Moms for Liberty picks Clay County woman to grow organization nationally