ORLANDO, Fla. — Anger about face masks turned Orange County School Board meetings into tense affairs in recent months, with shouts of “Y’all are Nazis!” hurled at board members, a black pirate flag unfurled by a man at the speaker’s podium, and guns, knives and Tasers confiscated from those trying to enter the board room.
At other Central Florida school board meetings, crowds booed, heckled and shouted and police — now stationed in greater numbers in some board rooms — removed the most unruly from the chambers.
A Brevard County school board member made national news last week after describing publicly how protesters harassed her and told her she needed to “beg for mercy.”
“We’re in a really tough time right now,” said Angie Gallo, a member of the Orange school board.
School boards welcome public input, she and others said, and have long listened to upset residents vent about school attendance zones, teacher salaries, recess, books used in classes and LGBTQ rights, among other hot-button topics. But things changed in 2021.
“I don’t ever mind when someone comes to the podium and has a different opinion. That’s their right as a voter,” Gallo said. “This is the first time it’s felt like it’s just getting ugly, like they’re attacking,” she added. “It’s like we can no longer have a difference of opinion.”
The problem is a national one sparked mostly by fierce debates about whether face masks should be required in schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19, though critical race theory is a flashpoint, too. The unrest at meetings dovetails with a push by national conservative groups to challenge schools boards, which they view as left-leaning. Some groups urge political engagement but others stoke anger.
The website of Turning Point USA, for example, offers a “watch list” of school districts that are “anti-American” and teach “radical and false ideologies.” The list includes 16 Florida school districts, among them Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties, where both Democrats and Republicans serve.
The Biden administration responded to the “harassment, intimidation and threats of violence” against school board members by announcing this month that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices would jointly work on solutions. The announcement came days after the National School Boards Association wrote President Joe Biden asking for “immediate assistance” for what it termed possible cases of “domestic terrorism.”
But that federal response sparked new controversy as some Republicans, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, complained the Biden administration aimed to limit free speech. DeSantis tweeted that the federal government was “weaponizing” the FBI “to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation.”
Parents who had been fighting mask mandates reacted angrily, too.
“Think the bear has been poked now?” said Cheryl Bryant, a Lake Mary resident and member of the group Moms for Liberty, at the Oct. 12 Seminole County School Board meeting. “You will unleash a beast if you limit the ability for the public to speak and to express their opinions. The community must be heard by the board.”
Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group, has been active across the state in the fight against mask mandates in schools.
Local school board members said they do not want to stop the public from peacefully protesting or from commenting at board meetings. The Seminole school board listened to more than seven hours of public testimony on face masks at a Sept. 2 meeting. But they want civility and safety.
“I so strongly believe the public should have access to public officials,” said Teresa Jacobs, chair of the Orange school board. “There’s still a lot of good that comes from the testimony that comes forward. There’s a lot of good that comes from citizens being engaged.”
But starting this summer, Jacobs repeatedly recessed meetings when audience members turned loud and unruly or refused to wear face masks, as district policy requires. That was a first in her long career in public office, including two terms as Orange County’s mayor.
The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., weighed on her, as did troubling behavior she and other board members witnessed in their chambers.
That included the man angry about the district’s mask mandate who at a September meeting unfurled a black flag, suggesting it referred to an old pirate phrase of “no surrender, no quarter,” a warning that everyone on the enemy ship would be killed.
At another meeting, a woman upset about the district’s face mask policies shouted her displeasure and then, as police escorted her out, yelled, “This is Nazi, Germany. All y’all are Nazis!”
To curb the problems, district administrators recently set up metal detectors at the public entrance to their headquarters and stopped allowing anyone to congregate in the lobby, among other measures.
Board member Karen Castor Dentel said the changes helped. It was “unsettling” weapons were confiscated as result, she said, but the new safety protocols seemed to help reign in the worst behavior.
The Lake County School Board moved some of its meetings about face masks to a county government building that provided better security after protesters outside school headquarters made some fearful of attending, said Chairman Bill Mathias.
“In my entire service, this was probably the most divisive issue for the public,” said Mathias, a 10-year veteran.
But despite some moments of unrest, Mathias said he did not feel threatened, welcomed public input and had “absolute faith” in local law enforcement’s security. At one meeting, for example, police quickly removed a woman who started shouting at a board member who favored a mask mandate. The school board, he added, did not need the FBI’s assistance.
Similar feelings led the Florida School Boards Association to distance itself from its national counterpart’s letter to the president. But the state association is worried about threats against its members, fearful for their safety and concerned they will dampen interest in running for school board seats.
“Elected officials are used to personal attacks. That is nothing new,” said Messina, a former board member in Charlotte County in southwest Florida. “What they are not used to is personal attacks that say, ‘I know where you live, and I will get you,’” she said. “That is the level that is alarming and unsettling.”
In Brevard, board member Jennifer Jenkins said she has faced months of such behavior.
“I don’t reject people coming here and speaking their voice,” Jenkins said at her board’s Oct. 12 meeting.
“I don’t reject them standing outside my home,” she said, calling protests on public roads legal but ineffective.
“I reject them following me around in a car, following my car around. I reject them saying they are coming for me, that I need to beg for mercy,” Jenkins said.
Some protesters, she added, went behind her home and brandished weapons at her neighbors, and someone filed a false claim of child abuse against her with the Florida Department of Children and Families.
“That’s what I’m against,” she said.
Terry Castillo, vice chair of the Osceola County School Board, said that lately, anger at meetings seems more personal.
“We’ve had some meetings where I’ve taken a little bit longer to go to my car,” she said.
But some of the hostile displays seem like a performance, Castillo said, taking time from routine but crucial school board business, including decisions about teacher salaries and transportation problems.
“It’s kind of the Tuesday night show to watch,” she said of board meetings. “The other work that we have to do I think it’s suffered a bit.”
