The Miami-Dade school board rejected a proposal to declare October LGBTQ Month Wednesday night, and you’d have thought Gov. Ron DeSantis was overseeing the event wearing an executioner’s mask and wielding a broadsword.
Hey, Miami-Dade School Board members, where was your backbone on the LGBTQ vote? fussed the Miami Herald editorial page, decrying “the culture wars unleashed by Gov. DeSantis.”
What’s the big deal? The Herald wondered. A year ago, a similar measure, acted upon by a board similarly comprised, endorsed LGBTQ Month 7-1, “with little fanfare.”
Well. Much has happened since then. To the regret of school boards, school districts, and teachers unions across the fruited plain, prolonged campus shutdowns triggered by COVID-19 brought classrooms into family rooms and kitchens. And, having at last become witnesses to social-agenda education, parents simply are no longer having it.
Aroused, just last month voters elected 25 of 30 school board candidates endorsed by DeSantis. Two of them ousted Miami-Dade incumbents; they’ll join the board after the general election in November.
There also was the passage, last spring, of the DeSantis-backed Parental Rights in Education bill, which prohibits instruction linked to gender identity or sexual orientation for students in third grade and younger. The statute, effective July 1, further directs age-appropriate curriculum for older students.
So all that happened, and here comes Lucia Baez Geller’s proposal, looking more or less innocuous, to once again declare October LGBTQ Month. Except it wasn’t the same. It was, if we may indulge our inner cynic, a test.
Geller’s proposal included a poison pill absent from the 2021 version: The district superintendent would be directed to provide resources enabling 12-grade teachers to instruct students on U.S. Supreme Court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage and backing anti-discrimination laws.
Opponents spied the proverbial camel’s nose pushing under the tent. A pastor and parent in the district told the Herald he detected “a Trojan horse.” Speakers lined up to provide board members the benefit of their wisdom.
In the end, Miami-Dade school board voted against the measure 8-1. Say this for Miami-Dade school board members: They know how to read the room.
Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago — oh, what is the word? — pounced. Owning the statute’s misnomer, Santiago declared the board’s vote “prov[ed] that the intent all along of Florida’s ‘Don’t say gay’ law was to hurt, shame and keep gay children and parents in the closet.”
Inevitably, Santiago tossed in references to white nationalists, January 6, Nazis, and Fidel Castro, linking all to DeSantis and his “GOP minions.”
You can believe that if you want to. Consider an alternative.
Ahead of schools opening last month, Florida Education Association president Andrew Spar said in an interview “widespread confusion” prevailed, a sentiment reflected in news stories. Another term for this condition is “respectful caution.”
School boards and districts have enough trouble managing the mandates for which the rules are well established. No school board chair wants to be hauled into circuit court as the first defendant sued for violating Parental Rights in Education.
In a Friday editorial, the Herald comes very close to nailing the issue … then, at the goal line, fumbles away any claim on seriousness.
Certainly, any action by schools regarding LGBTQ issues now will be under scrutiny by DeSantis and conservative activists ready to file complaints, no matter how frivolous, as a way to intimidate school officials. But we also must wonder whether board members are using the law as a shield for their own prejudices. (Emphasis added.)
A board that supported LGBTQ month a year ago deserves better from the editorial board than this specious, sophomoric we-also-must-wonder passage. Prudence with education dollars is a top-tier concern for any school board. Inviting a high six-figures legal bill to fight a self-inflicted battle might have earned the praise of social justice warriors, but taxpayers would not be amused.
Even if the board ultimately prevailed in court, there would be unpleasant fallout for Big Education supporters, including the FEA.
Florida’s GOP-led Legislature already is sympathetic to the cause of school choice. Besides charters, magnets, and online schools, the Sunshine State boasts robust tax-funded options for students with special needs or who are stuck in underperforming schools.
Force a court showdown over Parental Rights in Education, and, no matter the outcome, no one should be surprised if the majority entertains education-reform legislation modeled on Arizona’s — adopted this year — in which funding, rather than being funneled into public school districts, follows students.
Expect Florida to get there, ultimately. By approving LGBTQ Month and inviting litigation, the Miami-Dade school board would only have quickened the pace.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
