A Texas man has been federally charged after allegedly harassing and making death threats against a Boston doctor who treats members of the transgender community, including trans youth.
Matthew Jordan Lindner, 38, of Comfort, Texas, was arrested Friday and charged with one count of transmitting interstate threats, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office. Lindner appeared in the Western District of Texas Friday afternoon and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
Prosecutors say that in August, inaccurate information about procedures at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) for the transgender community was spreading online. According to the charging documents, on Aug. 31, Lindner called the Boston-based National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center and left a threatening voicemail targeting one of the center’s affiliated doctors.
According to its website, the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center provides “educational programs, resources and consultation to health care organizations with the goal of optimizing quality, cost-effective health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and all sexual and gender minority (LGBTQIA+) people.” The education center is part of Fenway Health and the Fenway Institute, which are among the world’s largest health centers focused on LGBTQIA+ communities.
Investigators say the targeted doctor cares for gender-nonconforming children and transgender patients.
In Linder’s expletive-packed voicemail, officials say he allegedly threatened, “You’re all gonna burn. There’s a group of people on their way to handle [the doctor]. You signed your own warrant, [doctor].”
Prosecutors also say Linder accused the doctor of “castrating our children” and said, “You’ve woken up enough people. And upset enough of us. And you signed your own ticket.”
If convicted, Lindner faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
“Death threats instill fear and terror in their targeted audiences,” U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said in a news release. “The conduct alleged here is not protected free speech. The words used here do not amount to someone simply expressing their discontent or engaging in a heated debate. Mr. Lindner’s alleged conduct — a death threat — is based on falsehoods and amounts to an act of workplace violence. The victim, a doctor caring for gender nonconforming and transgendered patients, should be able to engage in this meaningful and necessary work without fear of physical harm or death.”
In August, Rollins announced the creation of the “End Hate Now” hotline (1-83-END-H8-NOW or 1-833-634-8669) for reporting hate-based incidents or potential criminal activity. Callers can report incidents of hate, hate crimes, or individuals believed to be supporting acts of hate-based violent extremism. Callers can remain anonymous.
This is what the right wing media is pushing constantly and what the religious right people are hearing. They believe it, they refuse to look at any other media or ideas that don’t agree with the worst possible thing that can be said about the LGBTQI+. The parents watching / reading this right wing media then share it with their kids. The parents go to school board meetings and scream their hate, the right wing board members attack gay and trans kids making their school years horrible and scary. The right wing parents tell their kids to tell them if any teacher says anything positive about gays or stop their kids from spewing hate and bigotry. The right wing kids attack the gay and trans kids, if the teachers stops them the kids report that to their parents or if the teacher puts a same sex family picture up the kids report that to the parents that sue claiming their right wing family rights to persecute and oppress are being denied. My heart hurts over this situation. Hugs
Laura Ingraham: Trans People Are “Deeply Anti-Human”
“Crusaders for climate change, abortion, euthanasia, gender fluidity, they all lead — eventually, their thinking — to the devaluing of human life.
“At its core, being anti-human means being anti- truth because it involves the questioning or denying of objective facts, including those at the very heart of our existence.
“The cult of gender deviancy collapses into meaningless slogans and blather. None of it makes any sense, but it’s deeply anti-human.” – Laura Ingraham, last night.
Like those trans people at Dartmouth in the 1980s who took photos of students going into gay students’ alliance meetings and then outed them in the college magazine, leading one of them to attempt suicide. Oh wait, that was you, you fucking nazi sow.
Right wing dehumanizes queer people by enacting laws to ban books and discussion about their history. Also right wing: the left dehumanizes everything!
…being anti-human means being anti- truth because it involves the questioning or denying of objective facts…
Fascinating, considering that perspective is coming from people who flatly refuse to even attempt to understand the science and objective facts which explain, clearly, that gender is not binary and lots of variations of gender and sex appear naturally and always have.
Seriously is anyone surprised at this news. This is what the don’t say gay and the anti-trans rhetoric are all about. The guy who wrote and pushed the don’t say gay bill said the reason he wrote it was he couldn’t stand that gay kids were coming out in school and accepted by the other students. He wanted them targeted and bullied to stop other kids from coming out. He said that! It is the goal. Oh and yes he claims he is a deeply religious Christian. It is the Russia model of removing the LGBTQI+ from society / the public. These red states have now removed any anti-bullying programs or campaigns based on it would violate parents’ rights according to these laws to teach their children that being gay of trans is an abomination to their god and so they need to be beaten / removed to make god happy. Think of it, kids who get told that gays are molesting kids they are going to beat up and pick on gay kids and right now teachers cannot stop it in places in Florida. This is the end result the maga religious right thugs love, the right to force others to live as they demand, do what they demand, they are the US Christian Taliban. Hugs
There has been a marked increase in parents demanding limits to LGBTQ+ students’ rights that may have spilled over to bullying in schools.
Nearly half of the public high school principals who participated in a new nationally representative survey say they faced efforts from parents or the broader community to “challenge or limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights” during the 2021–2022 school year. The new study’s results suggest that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights has led to increased bullying of LGBTQ+ students in schools.
During the summer of 2022, the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside surveyed 682 public high school principals and found that culture war issues have their jobs increasingly difficult.
As NPR reports, policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ students’ rights were among the topics that 69 percent of those surveyed said led to “substantial political conflict” with parents or members of their communities.
Researchers found that principals in narrowly divided purple districts were almost twice as likely as those in more conservative or liberal areas to say they faced multiple efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights.
A similar 2018 survey found that 15 percent of principals indicated multiple attacks on LGBTQ students. That percentage rose to 24 percent across all schools in the 2022 survey, with the number more than tripling in purple districts.
The 2022 survey also indicated that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights paralleled an increase in students harassing LGBTQ classmates.
“It’s quite disheartening to work so hard and care for all our students when so many people are being hateful and threatening,” said one California principal, who reported an incident in which a parent screamed an anti-gay slur at a school counselor over the phone.
Other issues that caused significant conflict, according to 69 percent of the principals surveyed, include teaching issues around race and racism, social-emotional learning, and student access to books in school libraries. They also reported that rampant misinformation is making it harder to teach many subjects, particularly current events and media literacy.
Despite their grim findings, John Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA who helped lead the survey, and collaborator Joseph Kahne, a professor of education at UC Riverside, said that many principals believe that a majority of parents do not support the conflicts raging in public schools.
Rogers told NPR that principals believe that most parents stay silent, however, “because they’re too busy or overwhelmed or are afraid that if they become engaged, they’re going to face danger.”
“If the vast majority of folks are quiet, then folks who have very strong opinions or who are willing to engage in very contentious politics will have an outsized influence,” Kahne said. “If all parents and community members speak up, and if they have reasoned and focused conversations, that dialogue will be good for schools.”
The schools use to be the place to combat prejudice, bigotry, and hate. But now the teachers are told they cannot support the attacked kids, they cannot affirm anything positive about gay or trans kids. Meanwhile this is what the right wing parents are hearing all day on right wing media and the kids are being told. Wonder why a right wing kid would think trans kids are trying to attack them in the bathrooms? Wonder why right wing kids think all gays are child molesters?
A giant WTF! Seriously what the religious right thinks is going on in schools is so Qanon over the top it is hard to take them seriously, except they are managing to use their fantasies to wipe the LGBTQI+ out of the schools and society. Kids / students need sexual education that not only covers the body parts, but also healthy ways to take care of those parts, ways to avoid pregnancy and STDs which includes proper use of condoms, and also the social aspects of sexuality such as how to date, porn is unrealistic, consent, and more. Yes that includes what happens when aroused to the sexual areas. It also includes teaching the concept of no shaming for those who have different kinks. That doesn’t mean giving full on demonstrations. What the hell do these school board members think is happening, the kids getting a porn hub four day pass? Dogs that love gravy these religious right are so repressed it is scary. Any kid with a phone and an interest in these kinks already understand how it works, they just need to know how to be safe, what is dangerous, and to understand boundaries. The teachers seem to think it is just a way to outrage the public to erase any mention or acceptance of gays, trans, and the rest of the LGBTQI+. Hugs
School board meetings have become the theater of the absurd.
A Virginia school board has been at the center of the nationwide controversy over including LGBTQ students in the curriculum. Now, the debate – and the school board’s response – has become theater of the absurd.
After Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) rode the frenzy to ban books, fire teachers, and muzzle students all the way to the top and muscled through new laws, the board has come up with a policy that covers “sexually explicit content.”
While religious right activists and politicians have made outrageous claims about students identifying as cats and using litter boxes, the school board took it a step further – in the dog direction. They expressly forbade educators from teaching students how to eat poop.
The new policy also forbids teaching about sadomasochism, bestiality, or pee play. Because while educators are worried about ensuring educational access for LGBTQ students, that’s what the religious right thinks they are being taught in schools.
Loudoun’s policy defines sexually explicit content as “descriptions, pictures, photographs, drawings, films or other visual representations” of “sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity … sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse … coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism.”
So no learning about latex or leather either.
Loudoun will publish “a current list of instructional materials with sexually explicit content intended to be used in classroom instruction, by grade and subject on the LCPS public website.”
One would think that would be an incredibly short list, but the policy “is a guise of using parental notification to erase LGBTQ students,” middle school teacher Andrea Weiskopf told the Washington Post. “This is allowing individual parents to individualize a curriculum for their own worldview.”
Death threats against teachers and school board members over fears of pro-trans policies and “critical race theory” in schools compelled U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to ask the FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices to meet with federal and local law enforcement to “discuss strategies for addressing…the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
In response, Youngkin, then running for Virginia governor, claimed that “the FBI is trying to silence parents” and centered his campaign around parents who wish to shut down progressive policies in public schools.
Members of the board received death threats from conservatives before the recent election.
“It is too bad that your Mama is an ugly communist whore,” read one letter addressed to the child of school board member Brenda Sheridan. “If she doesn’t quit or resign before the end of the year, we will kill her, but first, we will kill you!”
The letter came after rightwing media reported a story where they claimed that a girl was sexually assaulted by a boy in a Loudoun County school restroom. They claimed that it was a result of the district’s policy on transgender students, even though the policy hadn’t even been passed at the time of the sexual assault and the assailant was a cisgender boy.
What the dogs that love gravy is going on in Florida. This Sheriff is saying kids are not being beaten enough and don’t fear adults hitting them enough these days. Last week I posted of the 80 year old elected to the school board that wanted more spankings / corporal punishment used on disabled kids. Is this the return to spare the rod spoil the child Christian way of teaching? Notice the school board went hard right in the last election. But notice the district has not written the policy yet and this new strict discipline was announced by law enforcement from a jail, not from the school system. Why does it take an emergency meeting to draft new policy? Does the school to prison pipeline need more slaves? Is the school about to be overrun with liberal students demanding their rights? Hugs
With Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey at his side, school board Chairman Matt Susin announced plans for a new school disciplinary policy outside the Brevard County Jail Monday. (Brevard County Sheriff’s Office)
Days after the Brevard County School Board ousted the superintendent, plans are underway for a new school disciplinary policy in Brevard Public Schools.
Flanked by Sheriff Wayne Ivey and State Attorney Phil Archer, School Board Chairman Matt Susin went on camera Monday in front of the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes to announce plans to impose the “most prolific school discipline policy this district has ever had,” Local 10 News partner WKMG in Orlando reports.
“It’s a new day,” Ivey repeatedly said throughout the announcement.
Susin did not say what this policy would include. He said he was calling an emergency meeting for next week to draft the policy with input from Archer’s office, Ivey, and the teachers and school staff unions.
Members of the media were not invited to ask questions about what the district plans to do.
The current student code of conduct was approved by the Brevard County School Board, including Susin himself, in February 2022.
Ivey said the new disciplinary policy was necessary because teachers and administration were handcuffed by the current student code of conduct from dealing with students.
“They know nothing is going to happen to them,” Ivey said. “They know they’re not going to be given after-school detention, they’re not going to be suspended, they’re not going to be expelled, or like in the old days, they’re not going to have the cheeks of their a– torn off for not doing right in class.”
Ivey said the school discipline situation is so bad that the district is losing teachers.
A representative from the union for school bus drivers and other school employees said staff members were being hurt by students.
“The instructional assistants that are in the classrooms are choked, they’re bitten, they’re scratched. It’s an everyday occurrence,” said Delores Varney with IUPAD Local 1010. “And they’re so discouraged because nothing is ever done with the students, or at least it appears there is nothing being done. If it is, it’s taking way too long to remove these bad students from the classrooms.”
According to the most recently released student discipline data from the Florida Department of Education, Brevard Public Schools reported few student expulsions in the 2020-2021 school year — fewer than 10. However, there were 2,518 in-school suspensions, 4,457 out-of-school suspensions, 435 students placed in an alternative educational setting and 139 students who were physically restrained.
News 6 in Orlando has asked why members of the media were not invited to the announcement Monday. We are also asking the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office why it spearheaded the announcement rather than the school board, and held it at the jail.
This is the latest major change since voters approved new school board members in August and November. Within weeks, the school board entered separation negotiations with Superintendent Mark Mullins, who had been an employee with Brevard Public Schools for nearly 30 years, saying the district needed new leadership.
Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey held press conference with new right-wing school board chair to call for more severe discipline of students, saying they need to fear “like in the old days” that they’re going to “have the cheeks of their ass torn off for not doing right in class.” pic.twitter.com/ld3ToG34mT
The Florida sheriff also says this new severe discipline policy will somehow make Brevard schools safer from active shooters, intruders and “clowns“ who disrupt classrooms. He also blames the shooting in Parkland on not having severe enough punishment protocols. #flapolpic.twitter.com/dJUAE1nCpS
No media questions were allowed at the press conference held outside a Florida jail. The school board chair says he'll call "an emergency meeting" next week to draft the new discipline policy with input from the sheriff, teachers and school staff unions. https://t.co/jQhAbrGRnj
I’m sure that beating kids is not the reason that school shootings are less common in Canada or Australia or other places where mass shootings are rare.
This is a case where ad hoc conclusions are manufactured to fit a political agenda, not based on science.
They truly believe prayer and beatings are needed to reduce gun violence because it has increased from the last 50 years or so, when guns were less available and then they blame the rise of libruhl politics, especially gay rights and feminism for the rise of incels andof unstable families.
The drive for Christain nationalism in Florida is in full drive mode. Stuff relating to Christians is allowed, Jewish and Black holidays are not allowed. To justifying denying the presentation of what Hanukkah is the superintendent said that they would have to teach Kwanza and Diwali.” This is added to the anything positive about the LGBTQI+ is banned but right wing fascism is good for teaching. Hugs
A spokesperson for the district said officials a ‘trying to be careful’ in light of the new Parents’ Bill of Rights.
Pasco County Schools says it has reversed its decision to deny a mother’s request to give a Hanukkah presentation to her son’s fifth grade class after reporters contacted the district for an explanation.
A district spokesperson said the mother would have to first meet with school staff to set up guidelines, but that the presentation has been otherwise approved.
Rachel Long has visited each of her children’s classes yearly to explain Hanukkah — the Jewish “Festival of Lights” that takes place around the same time as Christmas and similarly involves gift giving — since her eldest son was in preschool. He’s now in 10th grade.
Her short presentation includes no mention of God or religion, Long said. Instead, it consists of her reading from a book explaining Hanukkah (also written as “Chanukah”), sharing traditional food, displaying a menorah, and giving toy tops (dreidels) to each child for an in-class game.
Not counting the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the schools Long’s children attended welcomed her into the classroom every year without issue. That was until last week when she reached out to her youngest child’s fifth-grade teacher at his elementary school in New Port Richey to ask when she could come in this year.
Initially, the teacher seemed open to the idea. She told Long she would confer with school higher-ups “to determine what day and time would be best.”
A few days later, however, the teacher said that after speaking with school staff and district administrators, they recommended she deny Long’s request, citing Florida’s relatively new Parents’ Bill of Rights.
“As per discussions with the team and Admin, the new Parent Bill of Rights (sic) obligates us to follow the 5th Grade Standards as written,” the teacher said by text. “At this time, a Chanukah presentation is not in our standards.”
Long asked: “Then, I assume, no Christmas activities will be done?”
The teacher did not immediately reply.
Screenshots of the text exchange between parent Rachel Long and her son’s fifth grade teacher. Image via Rachel Long.
The Parents’ Bill of Rights, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on June 30, 2021, provides that parents can object to — and opt their child out of — instructional materials based on their beliefs about morality, sex and religion.
The only mention of holidays and cultural traditions in the Pasco School curriculum guide for fifth grade says students will read stories from “different cultures” and encourages parents to discuss the meaning of various holidays with their children.
CPALMS, the Florida Department of Education’s official source for education standards, includes approved lessons on holidays in world language, history, and civics classes and hundreds of allowances for multicultural education.
Long contacted the school’s principal and got a similar answer. The principal, she said, claimed to have spoken with an Assistant Superintendent from the district. The Assistant Superintendent assigned to the school is Kimberly Poe, according to Pasco Schools Director of Employee Relations Kathy Scalise.
Long said the principal told her: “Due to the Parent Bill of Rights (sic), the school could not celebrate any holidays.”
Apparently, that doesn’t apply to Christmas, Long contended, noting Christmas-themed décor throughout a “holiday shop” in the school and a host of related activities.
“(The) kids are watching the musical, ‘Elf Jr.,’ during school, the school is completely decorated for Christmas, and there is a ‘Santa night’ planned,” Long told Florida Politics. “(The principal) explained these things by saying they are holiday-themed, not Christmas, and parents are able to opt their students out. Teachers are allowed to have Christmas trees in their rooms but are not allowed to do Elf on The Shelf.
“If students can participate in all these activities or be opted out, I suggested that students could be opted out of my Chanukah presentation.”
The elementary school’s “holiday shop” has no shortage of Christmas-themed decorations. Image via Rachel Long.
Long stressed that she isn’t trying to push her religion on anyone.
“I am just trying to expose my child’s classmates to different traditions,” she said. Long said the principal agreed to raise the issue again with Poe before rendering a final decision Thursday but suggested that if the school allowed a presentation on Hanukkah, “they would have to teach Kwanza and Diwali.”
“I think that would be awesome,” Long said. “I told her that if it is me coming in that is an issue; I would be happy to send the materials in for the teacher to use. I explained to her that if I am not able to do my presentation or that the teacher doesn’t do it, I will raise hell if I see one Christmas paper come home or I see one Christmas tree in the school.”
Florida Politics contacted principal Poe, Pasco Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning, and Deputy Superintendent Ray Gadd. None responded by press time.
But the issue appeared to have been resolved by Wednesday afternoon. Pasco Schools Public Information Officer Stephen Hegarty told Florida Politics that Long could indeed do her Hanukkah presentation once she meets with the teacher and other relevant faculty.
Hegarty confirmed a local TV reporter had also learned of the issue and was seeking answers. He said the district was being cautious when it expressed reticence at Long’s request.
“The Parents’ Bill of Rights is new, and even though it does not affect a lot of things, it affects some things, and everybody wants to make sure they’re doing the right thing,” he said. “They’re trying to be careful.”
He added, “My understanding is the teacher sought clarification from her principal, her principal sought clarification, and that’s where we are right now, which is that she’s going to work through it, make sure it’s all done appropriately, and I expect she’s going to go into the classroom and make a fine presentation. My understanding is she’s done a great job in the past.”
When they talk about Christian nationalism, believe them.
It’s like being gay. MAGAts are worried that one exposure or mention ‘legitimizing’ it will proselytize their kid away from magic Jebus Even Christian bibles mention Judaism.I bet it’ll blow the kiddies’ minds if someone teaches them about atheism.
Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar speaks with CNN’s Bianna Golodryga about lawmakers passing a strict anti-LGBTQ law that would ban all Russians from promoting or “praising” homosexual relationships or publicly suggesting that they are “normal.”
This article is about the Covid mask controversy DeathSantis stirred up and pushed. He was trying hard to keep tourism up and working poor parents at their jobs by making sure their kids had a place to go while the parents worked. In places like Florida too many see school as a place to park their kids while they work, when the schools went to remote learning workers had to stay home. Rather than make large spaces available like wealthy areas did to have the kids go to and be spread out leaving the parents free to work, poor people had to have one parent stay home. DeathSantis felt the pain of the employers and business overlords and did everything he could to force schools to stay open with in person classroom learning with no Covid precautions. That would have cost the state money besides DeathSantis and the wealthy parents send their kids to private schools who do use the precautions so what do they care if your kids get sick, your elderly poor get sick and die. So this is the first nail in following science in Florida schools. What will die in Florida schools next? Biology? Chemistry? History most certainly, along with social studies. But enforced right wing Christian ideology will flourish. Hugs
New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week.
Conservative school board candidates are in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.| Lynne Sladky/AP Photo
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.
New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were spurred by how the superintendents carried out local policies like efforts to support the rights of parents, an issue inflamed by schools imposing student mask mandates last fall in defiance of DeSantis.
And while not tied to the 2022 election, the school board in Broward County earlier this month fired its superintendent through an effort led by five members appointed by DeSantis. All combined, school boards with ties to DeSantis pushed out three superintendents in November alone — and each of them served over districts that implemented student mask mandates.
“We had a wave in school districts that spit in parents’ faces,” said state Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay), who earlier this year sought to punish schools with mask mandates. “And now the people who did that are gone.”
In Brevard and Sarasota counties, embattled school leaders have faced immediate pressure from newly-installed board members and offered to leave voluntarily rather than risk a vote on their terminations.
The boards in both counties now have conservative majorities who sought a change in leadership immediately after the midterms. Although school boards are nonpartisan posts, lines between Democratic and Republican candidates were drawn in many counties through endorsements from each party as well as outside groups. The newly-elected board members in these cases support parental rights while opposing critical race theory and teaching gender orientation in schools.
DeSantis in particular used his clout to endorse more than two dozen school board candidates during the 2022 election cycle, a rare move for a Florida governor that came with $1,000 cash contributions from DeSantis and other GOP lawmakers. Most of the candidates DeSantis endorsed won their elections and are now transforming the make-up of school district leadership and will have huge influence over policies affecting hundreds of thousands of students in the state.
Both Sarasota and Brevard’s school boards put the superintendents on the chopping block the same day that new members endorsed by DeSantis and conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty were sworn into office.
Sarasota board members called Superintendent Brennan Asplen’s job into question at a meeting Tuesday night specially called to discuss his contract. After fielding about four hours of public comment, mostly in support of the superintendent, board members vented criticisms over student performance in reading, how he handled masking students and a perceived lack of transparency from Asplen.
Understanding he may not have a job much longer, Asplen offered up his resignation on Monday night — the day before the board met to weigh his ouster. But the superintendent also fought at the meeting to keep his job by attempting to punch holes in the critiques from board members.
“I have a feeling I’m going to be fired after tonight because I just can’t hold this back,” Asplentold the board from as a preface.
Asplensaid that some of the board’s comments were “ridiculous” given that he had been at the school since 2020, a timeframe that included the Covid-19 pandemic. And yet despite the coronavirus uprooting education, Sarasota earned “A” grades from the state both years. The superintendent also claimed he was being shut out by board members since the election and noted that he enacted a mandatory student masking policy for only three weeks, and that was due to Sarasota’s board voting 3-2 in favor of the mandate.
“You have to get the politics out of this school district,” Asplentold the board. “This school district could be No. 1, but we shoot ourselves in the foot every single time. We are getting in our own way all the time.”
It was clear after Asplenaddressed the board that a separation would be imminent. Board members said they felt the relationship with the schools chief was “adversarial” and beyond repair. Many of the claims by Asplenwere “not accurate,” according to new board chair Bridget Ziegler.
“I am very concerned,” said Zeigler, who was endorsed by DeSantis and co-founded Moms for Liberty. “I don’t know how respectfully we build a relationship where we are functioning together for the right reasons with mutual respect.”
One Sarasota board member, Thomas Edwards, noted the similarity between the pushes to remove school leaders in Florida and elsewhere in the country, including in Berkley County, South Carolina, where a newly-elected school board fired a superintendent. Edwards suggested a possible political motive behind the move and lobbied for Asplen to be granted a chance to fix issues spelled out by the board.
“Whatever rationales I’m going to hear tonight, I really have to throw out the window. Because we just have to — all of as a community — look at the tealeaves,” Edwards said.
But Edwards fell short of reaching the majority of the board, including the members endorsed by DeSantis and other conservatives, who voted 4-1 to move forward with negotiating a separation agreement with the schools chief.
The local teachers union in Sarasota planned a rally in support of Asplen ahead of the meeting Tuesday and dozens lined up to speak on his behalf. But local organizers in Brevard County didn’t demonstrate when its superintendent, Mark Mullins, was pushed out last week.
Instead, the Brevard Federation of Teachers contented that Mullins’ ouster could lead to positive changes within local schools. Union leaders claim that district officials did too little to quell student discipline issues and lingering teacher vacancies facing the county.
“Students verbally and physically abuse teachers and staff, and there will be no end in sight unless meaningful systemic changes are made,” union leaders wrote in a statement Monday on social media.
Similar to Sarasota, the leadership shift in Brevard was aided by new board members. Discussions to split with Mullins came at the suggestion of Megan Wright, who was backed in her race by DeSantis and installed on the board and elected vice chair about four hours before triggering the change.
Elsewhere in Florida, new board members endorsed by DeSantis are also scoring leadership roles. In Lee County, for example, new board members Armor Persons and Sam Fisher, both endorsed by DeSantis, were elected as chair and vice chair of the school board, as reported by the Fort Myers News-Press.
With at least three superintendent jobs opening in Florida, these new-look school boards are now facing the critical task of finding new leaders.
Teachers union leaders are staying optimistic that these board members will be focused on supporting educators and staff in local schools, said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. And in choosing a new superintendent, they hope board members will pick candidates who are aligned with the community and not only DeSantis.
“Firing is the easy part,” Spar said. “The hard part is finding the right person.”
Scottie's Playtime 