After marathon meeting, Miami-Dade School Board rejects LGBTQ Month — again

The Miami-Dade School Board on Wednesday again rejected a proposal to recognize October as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History Month after some members claimed the measure violated state law even though it included language saying it wouldn’t affect instruction and the board’s attorney assured it was legal.

The proposal — which drew enough people to fill the school board auditorium with at least 75 more people waiting outside to have their comments known, including a contingent of Proud Boys, with a few wearing shirts that said “Shoot Your Local Pedophile” — failed 5-3.

The vote occurred just shy of 1 a.m., 10 hours after the item was brought up, with board members Lucia Baez-Geller, who was the sponsor, Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall and Luisa Santos voting in favor. Board member Steve Gallon left the meeting in the afternoon and didn’t vote. Bendross-Mindingall and Santos flipped their votes from last year when the measure failed 8-1.

Board members who voted against the item, Chairwoman Mari Tere Rojas, Vice Chair Danny Espino, Roberto Alonso, Mary Blanco and Monica Colucci, said the recognition would violate the Parental Rights in Education law, which prohibits instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity to students in pre-K through eighth grade, and send mixed messages to teachers.

“There is a law on the books that is clear,” Espino said. He acknowledged the “slight changes” to the language of the item compared to last year, but said he didn’t understand how teachers were expected to observe the month “without crossing the line” to instruction.

Some also asserted their personal beliefs, arguing discussions related to gender identity and sexual orientation should be had at home and not in schools — a sentiment often espoused by conservatives and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who endorsed Alonso and Colucci and appointed Blanco and Espino to the board.

Board member Baez-Geller doubled-down on her proposal’s alignment to state law, arguing it did not impact curriculum, instruction or instructional materials. The difference between the board’s approving the measure two years ago, rejecting it last year and this year, she argued, is the political agenda and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric coming out of Tallahassee.

“I heard a lot of misinformation last year, and unfortunately, I heard a lot of it again this year,” said Baez-Geller. In 2021, she added, prior to the Legislature’s enacting certain laws and using “divisive rhetoric,” the item passed “almost unanimously.”

Last year, Baez-Geller included a provision to teach 12th graders about two Supreme Court landmark decisions — Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 (recognizing same-sex marriage) and Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020 (finding an employer can’t fire someone for being gay or transgender). This year’s proposal did not include the provision; neither did the proposal in 2021.

‘How do you want us to remember you?’

The majority of the long meeting was dominated by comments from people who spoke for and against the measure. (For about an hour, between 6 and 7 p.m., the board approved its budget for the year with little to no commentary from either the public or board members.)

Most who spoke in favor of the item — many who were district students, teachers and representatives from advocacy organizations including Equality Florida, a civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s LGBTQ community, Moms4Libros and Families Against Banning Books — stressed the measure’s legal sufficiency and that it was about “not othering” marginalized students who often experience higher rates of bullying. Many cited how the recognition simply acknowledged students and the contributions of those within the LGBTQ community; some called out board members for what they said was failing to provide a safe environment for all students.

Other speakers cited statistics that highlight the high number of those in the LGBTQ community that struggle with mental health issues and suicide — each taking a moment to note that board members were speaking from a dais draped in a banner that read “National Suicide Prevention Month.”

“Mental health is something this board has claimed to be a priority,” Crystal Etienne, a seventh-grade civics teacher, told board members. “Have you considered how the fight against the LGBTQ community makes [students] feel?”

Many young people reminded the board members that their positions would be recorded in history.

One speaker was moved to tears while speaking, prompting Baez-Geller and others to stand beside her during her speech. “We will learn about what you do here today,” she said. “We will learn about whether you voted for an item that, for one month, acknowledged that queer people existed and continue to exist. How do you want us to remember you?”

Many speakers who opposed the measure — including members of the far right group Moms for Liberty, which the Southern Poverty Law Center recently named an extremist group, and the Christian Family Coalition, whose members were passing out “Education not Indoctrination” stickers — claimed it violated their parental rights, went against their religious beliefs and would “indoctrinate” students by speaking about topics they believed were inappropriate for young people. The majority espoused the Christian faith, arguing God and Jesus should be brought back into classrooms.

Others, many who incorrectly referenced the LGBTQ community by misstating the acronym, claimed the measure was a “Trojan horse” that would enable educators to teach about subjects that violate state law — a statement many in support of the measure pushed back against, reminding the public that the item did not impact instructional materials.

“What’s crazy about so many people showing up today is that this item does absolutely nothing,” said Maxx Fenning, founder and executive director of PRISM, a nonprofit organization that provides sexual health information to LGBTQ+ youth. Nevertheless, he said, people will come to “spew vitriol as if we have not heard it all before.”

He reminded the board that the language in the measure aligned with state law and that other districts in the state, including Broward County, have already adopted a similar recognition.

What board members said

Perhaps the strongest rebuke of the item came from Alonso, who claimed the item had “zero substance” and “only seeks to divide our community.” He said he believed it imposed ideologies and encouraged discussions that shouldn’t be happening in our schools, and asked the board if it recognized or dedicated one month to celebrate any other sexual preference.

Still, like last year, board members who voted down the item rooted their opposition in concerns about existing laws that limit or prohibit certain classroom discussions. The recognition, they argued, could send a mixed message to teachers about what topics are allowed in the classroom.

Members who voted no also pushed back on the notion that voting it down meant they were against the LGBTQ community or a “vote for hate” — a sentiment echoed throughout the afternoon and evening Wednesday by many community members who spoke in favor of the item.

“I resent the notion that a vote against this measure is a vote against a group of people,” Espino said. “It is not all or nothing.”

Bendross-Mindingall, however, said she was voting in favor of the item because the board and the district “defend all children, and these are our children. My vote tonight goes with the children who have come to us and who so eloquently told us how they feel.”

Santos, for her part, spoke in both English and Spanish to detail what the item did and didn’t do and made a point to ask the board’s attorney for clarity.

The board attorney responded: “The item is legally sufficient.”