7 moments from that rowdy Hernando school board meeting this week
Many words were spoken when hundreds of people showed up for an eight-hour Hernando County School Board meeting that started Tuesday evening and stretched into Wednesday. There were pleas and requests, accusations and claims as students, teachers, residents and visitors from around Florida got up to speak.
Each got 3 minutes to expound on the education politics that have preoccupied the district and state in recent months. Listening on stage in the Hernando High School auditorium were board members Susan Duval, Gus Guadagnino, Mark Johnson, Linda Prescott and Shannon Rodriguez, along with Superintendent John Stratton.
Here’s a sampling of what was said that night, with some portions edited for space:
Robert Kordon
Nature Coast Technical High School junior
I love my school. My school means a lot to me. This county means a lot to me. Over the years of my education here in Hernando County, I have seen a lot of change. Students have changed. School procedures have changed. And what it means to be a student has changed.
(Board) members like member Rodriguez and member Johnson see an issue of teacher-less classrooms and instead focus their energy on the LGBTQ community and other problems like getting Superintendent Stratton removed. This is why teachers are leaving the profession. Because members like member Rodriguez and member Johnson don’t listen to the people that they serve.
When taking this position, you accepted the responsibility to represent every single student fairly and justly. I do not feel you have done that. Instead of representing me and other LGBTQ+ students, because yes we exist, you instead have alienated and made us feel as if our entire existence is an issue for you. My existence should not be an issue to you. But come next election season, my vote will be.
Kathryn Birren
Hernando Beach resident
I have a question for you. Did you carry each of the 22,621 students of Hernando County in your womb? Or worry by their bedsides when they were sick? Their parents did. Why? Because those 22,621 children belong to them.
As they enter the doors to the schools, they still belong to their parents. When they drop them off at school or leave them at the bus, they are trusting you to protect them.
We the people, we the voter and we the taxpayer are here to speak about what happens when the very young are exposed to pornographic pictures, drawings and writings like the ones found in the libraries of Hernando County schools. There’s been a lot of talk today about book banning. Let me tell you about the books that need to be banned in the schools. ...
When I hear an elected school board member state that the pornographic materials found in the books of our very libraries in Hernando County don’t really matter because, after all, the children may be exposed to it somewhere else anyway, it angers me and it should anger everyone who is an advocate of protecting the minds, hearts and future lives of these children.
Jennifer Sullivan
Community activist
If the two school board deviants really cared about children, you’d stop making teachers feel uneasy in their profession. You’d stop making children think that some people are wrong because they are different. You’d stop being preoccupied with book banning.
Matthew 7:1 says, “Judge not or ye shall be judged.” So I guess boycotts of your business is judgment. But don’t worry about your job being harder, because you choose to make it harder. And you also are making the teachers and the school staff and the board’s job harder.
Hosea 6:6 says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” So don’t be a false Christian. If you really had strong spiritual guidance, then you would focus on being sure no students are hungry, homeless, feeling bad, and you would be showing tolerance and acceptance.
Robert Christenson
Spring Hill parent
You’ve got this teacher running around pretending she’s the Lorax. These are supposed to be mentors. I don’t want your teacher to be my child’s friend. Your teacher is there to teach my child and be a mentor, be an example of what an adult is to be.
Men are to be men. Alpha males. Do you understand me? You have awakened the entire alpha male blood of this country with your leftist, woke ideology you’re pushing in here.
John Stratton
Superintendent
I wholeheartedly believe in parental rights. Absolutely. You know what’s best for your child. I don’t.
We know how to educate them. We know how to do other things. We know how to follow state standards. That’s what we do.
And I am disgusted when I hear that our teachers are called groomers. I don’t care what you defend that with. I will never buy into that. That’s ridiculous. I’ve been in this business 30 years, and that’s crazy.
Keep in mind, you’re not a groomer because you accept everyone. We’re public education. Beliefs, non beliefs, everything in between, they show up at our doorstep and guess what? They’re ours and we educate them and we love them and we do all that stuff. We don’t care about all those other things, nor do we have time for that.
Shannon Rodriguez
School board member
I can assure you, if I was a principal at a school, there isn’t a teacher who would have something in there that shouldn’t be, that violated state law. You can have your knickknacks, you can have your owls, you can have your frogs, you can have your pictures. You can have all that stuff.
But you cannot have items that violate state law. That’s from the governor. That’s from Tallahassee. That is not from Shannon Rodriguez.
So under my watch, in my district, I’m not OK with getting email after email, and text after text, from parents asking why we’re indoctrinating. I don’t want us to indoctrinate. I want us to be a county that we can hold our head up high and say we don’t indoctrinate.
I know we have 98% of teachers that do not do it. I know that we have 98% of wonderful teachers that I honor, that I get behind, that I would do anything to help. But we do have that 2%, we do have that percentage that do not want to follow the rules and they do want to push their agenda and they want to do push whatever they want in their classroom. That can’t be. It’s not allowed.
Caitlin Kendall
Weeki Wachee High teacher
If all of you can take a look at the end of this night and take away what has been clearly stated, we have problems in our district that we need to address. There’s things that we can do better, and I know you know that. And I know you’d like to fix these things, Ms. Rodriguez, overnight, and your heart is in the right place.
But if we fight against each other, I can tell you how this is going to end. It’s going to end up with a year lost of what’s best for our children. It’s going to end up with three years recovering for the board members that go on.... The problems that it’s going to cause are going to be so detrimental to the reason we’re all here.
So I ask all of you to take a step back, please. Find something you love about what Mr. Stratton does. That’s what my mother taught me when I was young. And find something you love about what Ms. Rodriguez does. Find that connection, all of you as school board members, and embrace and come together, because I do believe we can fix this, but not if we attack each other.
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