Police escort hecklers. Proud Boys jeer. Miami school board meetings becoming ‘hostile’
As the policy director of an organization that advocates for the LGBTQ community, attending school board meetings is part of the job for Steven Rocha.
Rocha, of South Florida-based PRISM, works to get others to attend school board meetings to speak in favor of LBGTQ-inclusive policies and oppose those that would harm marginalized students. Rocha, 21, is a former Broward County student and trans man.
He’s attended recent Miami-Dade meetings that have garnered national attention for the board’s decisions — including the initial rejection of a comprehensive sex-education textbook in July. And though he plans to continue to show up at meetings, particularly when there’s an agenda item that could affect the LGBTQ community, he understands if people no longer want to attend.
“They’re hostile environments,” he said. “It’s very intimidating sitting next to the opposition and people who are screaming.” The board claims to support everyone, but during recent meetings, Rocha said he “wasn’t feeling it.”
READ MORE: Miami-Dade School Board’s anti-LGBTQ vote shows chilling effect of parents’ law, some say
Rocha’s experience highlights a growing concern about what is allowed to occur during a school board meeting — once sleepy events — and how disruptive some in the crowd can get before they’re removed.
And as the board is set to welcome two, possibly three, new members on Tuesday who are expected to push the board’s political leanings to the right, some are concerned meetings will become even more contentious.
Women removed from meeting by police
At the July Miami-Dade School Board meeting, where board members discussed a sex-ed textbook, two women were escorted out after yelling over board members, calling out the superintendent by name and bringing the meeting to a halt. A third person, who was sitting quietly, according to a bystander, was arrested, as reported by WLRN.
It was a rare incident to have individuals removed, despite the board’s bylaws stating speakers “may not use any form of profanity or loud, abusive comments and are prohibited from creating a disturbance or disruption by “clapping, applauding, heckling, shouting comments from the audience or [having] verbal outbursts in support or opposition to [their] remarks.”
Speakers are routinely allowed to talk uninterrupted during their allotted time, regardless of what is said from the podium. Attendees — typically those who claim the district is indoctrinating students — often clap after a speaker or heckle those whose comments they oppose.
READ MORE: After debate citing indoctrination and Nazis, Miami-Dade School Board rejects LGBTQ month
In September — when board members were discussing whether to recognize October as LGBTQ History Month and a contingent of Proud Boys members jeered supporters of the measure outside — the student adviser who supported the measure was heckled by adults in the room, even after expressing her fears about speaking publicly on the topic.
The interaction prompted Mina Hosseini, executive director of P.S. 305, an organization that engages families with the school district, to call out the board at the October meeting for failing to “protect her in allowing her to speak without interruption.” (At the September meeting, she blamed board members for “creating the conditions” that led to some audience members, including her, to “no longer feel safe.”)
The September meeting “was a disgrace,” she told board members. It “signaled to me a changing trajectory, one I imagine will be enhanced when we see a change of the board in November.”
Indeed, Steve Gallon III, the vice chair, acknowledged the changing dynamics in the boardroom over the past two years, saying emotions and passions “ran deep” on some issues.
Nevertheless, he said in a statement, he remains confident the board will provide a meeting environment “in which parents, stakeholders, board members, staff and most importantly, students, feel physically [and] emotionally secure, and highly respected and valued.”
READ MORE: Will the 2 DeSantis-backed Miami school board members be independent? Some are asking
‘A vicious cycle’
On Tuesday, the board will welcome two, possibly three, new members, all of whom are either backed or appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Roberto Alonso, who will replace longtime board member Perla Tabares Hantman when she steps down, and Monica Colucci, who defeated Marta Pérez, were endorsed by the governor.
DeSantis will appoint a new board member to replace Christi Fraga, who is required to step down before Tuesday, as she is one of two candidates running in the Dec. 13 mayoral runoff election in Doral. As of Friday, the appointment had not been announced.
Alonso and Colucci have maintained they’ll operate independently from DeSantis, despite both running on conservative platforms and are aligned with groups like Moms for Liberty, a parents’ rights organization that has espoused QAnon conspiracy theories and has been a vocal opponent to the board’s LBGTQ-inclusive and sex education curriculum.
READ MORE: Who are the Moms for Liberty and why do they have the ear of Florida’s school officials?
Joined by Lubby Navarro and Maria Teresa Rojas, who is often seen as the swing vote but has recently aligned with conservative efforts, their addition almost ensures a 5-4 conservative board.
Like Hosseini, of PS 305, May Marquez, a Christopher Columbus High School and Florida International University graduate, believes the new political makeup could pave the way for even more hostility in the school board auditorium.
The new members, she argued, may introduce political, possibly divisive issues, which will, in turn, attract more people to meetings who feel strongly about one topic or another. Marquez, a 23-year-old trans woman, described it as “a vicious cycle.”
Earlier this month, Fraga, who will be off the board Tuesday, proffered an item that would allow only the American flag and the official motto of the State of Florida — “In God We Trust” — be displayed in classrooms and on school district grounds. It was withdrawn a week later, but the potentially controversial issue could again appear on a future agenda.
READ MORE: Should parents be concerned about flags? Miami-Dade School Board to discuss what’s OK
Board members need to do more, critics say
Touri White, a parent and former district teacher who often tunes in to meetings virtually, argues attendees and board members must be held accountable for potential board room violations to reinstate the decorum that has been degraded.
“There’s no adherence to a standard set of decorum,” he said, and that’s when problems arise.
And rarely, he noted, are attendees reprimanded for disrupting meetings. (The chair or presiding officer is the only person that’s statutorily given authority to remove someone from a meeting based solely on their disorderly conduct, according to school board lawyer Walter Harvey.)
“There’s a reason we have lawyers and police officers. They work in tandem and you have to make sure you’re exercising energy in both areas,” he said. “That’s something I don’t see happening, but I’d like to see it moving forward.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
