Prompted by concerns about HB 1069, Brevard school board to vote on public comment policy

Brevard's school board is set to approve an updated policy at a Sept. 19 meeting that will split the public comment section into two parts and cut off live broadcasting for non-agenda items.

The revision to the policy was prompted by concerns about speakers potentially abusing House Bill 1069, which regulates instructional materials within schools. The law, which went into effect July 1, says parents may read content they find objectionable, though it does not specify where they can read the books or under what circumstances.

That ambiguity, as well as a recent meeting in Indian River County that resulted in at least 33 books being pulled out of schools, prompted Brevard's school board to consider how they should react if a parent reads explicit content at a meeting.

"I don't think we're about to pull every book that might have content that we wouldn't necessarily want read in a public meeting," said board member Katye Campbell. "I'd like us to proactively think about, 'What if this happens in Brevard?'"

Brevard School Board Attorney Paul Gibbs said the law can be read numerous ways, but the "plain definition of 'to read' is either read to yourself or read out loud."

If a school board member stops someone from reading a sexually explicit passage during a meeting, the book must be pulled from schools within five days. The decision to stop public comment — and thus decide what books should be pulled from BPS shelves — would generally rest on Board Chair Matt Susin's shoulders, according to Gibbs.

Districts have more leeway with books that have other content that may not be age appropriate, such as violence or explicit language, and are not required to pull them from the shelves entirely. Rather, they may restrict them to a certain grade level.

In Indian River County, at least 33 books were pulled from district shelves after members of the public read passages containing sexual content at an Aug. 28 meeting. Though a handful of people have read content they find objectionable at Brevard meetings in the past, generally without interruption, school board members brought up concerns at a Sept. 7 board meeting about a situation similar to Indian River County arising and how they would handle it.

It was then that board member Campbell proposed no longer broadcasting public comment, but rather recording that section of the meeting and uploading it later with a content warning.

Her goal was to not allow parents to circumvent the district's book review policy, but also not break Federal Communications Commission guidelines about explicit content being broadcast.

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No decisions were made at the Sept. 7 meeting. However, at Tuesday's work session, the board agreed on a plan for moving forward, which incorporated Campbell's idea to not broadcast part of public comment, and also split public comment into two parts: agenda items and non-agenda items.

Unless a book or the book review policy is on the agenda for a specific meeting, all comments about a book must fall within the non-agenda section of public comment, which will take place at the end of each school board meeting. Speakers will have three minutes to address the board during the agenda section of the meeting, as well as during the non-agenda section. Non-agenda public comments will be recorded but not livestreamed or broadcasted.

BPS spokesperson Russell Bruhn said the recorded portion of the meeting will be posted within 24 hours of the meeting.

The board discussed only moving book-related comments to the end of the meeting, though board member Jennifer Jenkins said she worried that was a "lawsuit waiting to happen."

Gibbs said as long as participants are treated equally and still allowed to speak, it would be hard for someone to argue against the board.

"They could argue it, (but) I think that you'd be on firmer ground, saying 'we're just controlling our agenda by moving those toward the end of the meeting if someone wants to do that,'" he said.

Gene Trent said he has always been a fan of the idea of splitting public comment into two sections, saying that it would help the meetings run more efficiently.

"By the time we get down to doing what we're supposed to be doing, it's way into the evening, and that's unfortunate," he said. "I just think it would be a better way to run our meetings."

Though books will likely come up at some point on the agenda, Trent said it won't happen "meeting after meeting."

"Maybe at that point, we would fall back on the chair to take charge of that one," Trent said.

Relying on Susin to stop a speaker and thus cause a book to be pulled from the shelf was a topic of concern for Jenkins at the prior school board meeting. She brought up the concern again on Tuesday, saying it's "inappropriate" for one person to make a decision impacting the entire district.

"I think that's the whole point of the policy and the committee that we had put in place, especially when it's the consequences of a very broadly written law that has nothing to do with that exact scenario," she said.

Though the board opted to stop broadcasting non-agenda public comments, Gibbs said he has never heard of a district getting into trouble for an FCC violation related to reading books.

"(Other districts) had people come and read books and argue that books shouldn't be there, and they've never been hit," he said.

Campbell, who initially brought up the concerns about FCC guidelines, said the guidelines do not protect obscene content.

"You don't have a right to say everything you want to say at every location that you want to say it," she said. "That's not the First Amendment."

Megan Wright said she feels there's "no perfect answer" to the situation.

"If somebody sits here and reads it and we're not streaming it live, and there's kids in the room, the kids in the room are still hearing it, so it doesn't protect them," she said.

She added that with the current book policy, sharing concerns about a book may not be necessary.

"The need to come here and read a book ... it's not necessary, because the book is inaccessible if it's gone through the formal challenge process anyway," she said.

Though Gibbs estimated the revised policy wouldn't be on the board's meeting agenda until sometime in October, Susan said the policy could be enacted at the next meeting. The board agreed to move forward with this, with a plan to make a motion at the start of the meeting to vote on the policy.

The book review committee, which formed in April following the approval of the revised book review policy, has been on hold since the end of June. Though book review requests can still be submitted, the formal review process — which requires a review by the committee — is on pause.

The school board opted to put it on hold due to concerns about public comment during committee meetings and negative comments toward committee members.

Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at 321-290-4744 or fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finchwalker.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard school board set to approve revised public comments policy