‘Threats of violence’: School boards curb public comments to calm raucous meetings
TALLAHASSEE — Parents in one Kentucky school district must communicate with their school board via email after a meeting devolved into a shouting match. In northern Virginia, school officials restricted who is eligible to speak at their meetings. A Florida school board is considering shortening public comment to one minute per person.
School leaders nationwide are beginning to eye ways to rein in public commentary at local meetings in an effort to quell raucous crowds over hot-button issues like mask mandates and critical race theory.
The potential changes could add more strain between school boards and the public they serve, a domain that has emerged as a fierce culture war battleground amid the coronavirus. Parents across the nation are fighting for more control over what their children are learning in school, frustrations that have boiled over during the pandemic and are gaining support among the GOP.
Adding to the tension is the U.S. Justice Department, which pledged to probe threats against educators, a move that sparked more strife between the DOJ and Republican lawmakers who accused federal authorities of overreach.
“What I reject is this effort to create fear and division in the community that leads to credible threats of violence against me and my family,” said Jennifer Jenkins, a school board member in Brevard County, Fla.
Jenkins has faced a slew of threats over the past few months, she said, including people warning that they are “coming” for her. She also said someone made a baseless claim to Florida’s Department of Children and Families that her daughter was being abused.
School board meetings have been ground zero for intense debate on issues like masking students and critical race theory, which have emerged as critical points of division among Republicans and Democrats. In Florida and other states, parents and conservative activists are hounding board members for their policies as larger questions swell surrounding how or if the history of race in America should be taught in schools.
School boards in Florida counties like Brevard, Orange and Sarasota are also floating ideas to tinker with public comment as a way to lower the tensions and shorten the length of contentious meetings.
In Brevard county, for example, the board is proposing rules to prevent speakers from raising signs during meetings, limit the number of speakers and how much time they have when a large number of people are scheduled to weigh in on an issue. Some parents say the new policy would restrict their freedom of speech and further disenfranchise community members who are losing trust in the school board.
Already, Brevard’s board is facing increased pressure from the public and a local state lawmaker who are questioning how they are handling the ongoing debate over masking students in school. Florida has been a hotbed for debate about the issue since Gov. Ron DeSantis banned school mask mandates.
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School leaders nationwide are beginning to eye ways to rein in public commentary at local meetings in an effort to quell raucous crowds over hot-button issues like mask mandates and critical race theory https://t.co/atLnRBzHvJ
— POLITICO (@politico) October 27, 2021
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