Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican candidate for president, stopped in Peterborough Friday afternoon to meet with parents invited to a roundtable at the Lionheart Classical Academy charter school. Traffic and delays on the trail brought the candidate to Peterborough about 90 minutes after he was scheduled to arrive, but Lionheart parents and local officials greeted DeSantis when he arrived.

DeSantis spoke to parents, members of the Lionheart board and school administrators for about 40 minutes. The press was not allowed to attend the roundtable.

“What I’m hearing is that people in New Hampshire are very concerned about education,” DeSantis said after meeting with parents. “We just heard a lot about education and how important it is for parents to have a choice in education for their children. We need high-quality education from K-12. We also need universities that are about pursuing truth and academic rigor, not the indoctrination stuff that we’ve seen with some of these universities – all the ridiculous protests and the stuff with these university presidents. I think places like the one we’re in right now, this classical academy, is really about education in its pure form, without having the agenda put on it. Ultimately, I think kids do better when education is more focused on the basics.”

Lionheart has collaborated on curriculum with Hillsdale College in Michigan. The college’s mission statement states that it “values the merit of each unique individual, rather than succumbing to the dehumanizing, discriminatory trend of so-called ‘social justice’ and ‘multicultural diversity,’ which judges individuals not as individuals, but as members of a group and which pits one group against other competing groups in divisive power struggles.”

In Florida, as DeSantis has worked to make changes to the state’s education system, including appointing six conservative members to the New College of Florida board, it has been reported that state Education Commissioner Manny Diaz stated the intent was to change the school to a “Hillsdale of the south.”

Anne Marie Banfield, an education policy analyst and parental-rights advocate from Bedford, said she had come to see DeSantis because she was concerned about the quality of public schools and parents’ ability to choose educational options for their children.

“They have just destroyed math education. It needs to go back to basics. Other countries are beating the heck out of us in math and science and education in general,” she said.

After leaving Lionheart, the DeSantis campaign headed for Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple.