The Sarasota School Board voted 3-2 Tuesday to advance a policy that would allow the district to ban certain kinds of protests during school hours — as critics warned it was vaguely worded and could infringe on freedom of speech.
The conservative majority on the five-member board voted in favor, while Liz Barker and Tom Edwards voted against advertising the policy, which is expected to formally come up for a vote at a future meeting.
"The language is intentionally vague because we have to dance around students' First Amendment rights. To me, that's red flag number one," Barker said.
The debate came weeks after some Florida students joined nationwide walkouts against ICE and the killing of two protestors in Minnesota.
In mid-February, Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas posted on X.com: “Florida does not and will not allow school officials to encourage students to ‘walk-out’ or protest.”
The new policy would allow the district to “impose time, place, and manner restrictions on demonstrations,” and prohibits “demonstrations that constitute disruptive conduct that materially and substantially disrupt instruction during the school day or during a school-sponsored event or activity.”
It also said staff should not “encourage, discourage, organize, or lead student participation in demonstrations.”
Furthermore, outside organizations cannot “organize, direct, lead, facilitate, supervise, or materially assist student demonstrations that constitute disruptive conduct on school property, during the school day, or at a school-sponsored event or activity.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, some students and parents questioned why the board would get involved in a matter that could draw lawsuits over free speech infringements, and pointed to its broad language as a recipe for problems.
“It risks uneven enforcement with arbitrary and subjective consequences. This makes it harder for students to know what is allowed or how it will be enforced, and that creates confusion, inconsistency and mistrust,” said Coreen Prochnow, during public comment.
Board chair Bridget Ziegler spoke in favor of the policy.
"The disruptions cannot happen. And the safety cannot be compromised," Ziegler said.
Ziegler later asked the school board’s superintendent and legal staff to explain how they drafted the language.
“Students do possess First Amendment rights, but they are not unlimited,” said school board lawyer Patrick Duggan.
The language in the proposed policy, 5.301, prohibits “material and substantial disruptive conduct, which are terms that the United States Supreme Court has used,” said Duggan, referring to a 1969 case called Tinker v. Des Moines.
The high court ruled that students wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War did not cause any significant disruption in school.
Duggan did not define the terms “material and substantial” but said they are well understood by administrators.
“I believe overall, this policy as written is lawful,” Duggan said. “The key will be how this board, if it does pass, applies it,” he added. “So that we don't pick and choose what speech we prefer and permit or prohibit based on the content of it.”
Superintendent Terry Connor said there would not be a handbook or document to explain the rule if it passes and said school administrators are “already well-equipped” to “handle disruptions.”
During the public comment period, some speakers pointed to Ziegler’s past activism as an original co-founder of the group Moms For Liberty. The group’s Sarasota chapter in 2021 encouraged students to act out in school in protest of mask mandates during the COVID pandemic.
“Where exactly was this moral clarity in 2021," parent Paulina Testerman asked. "Where was the outrage when parents were, by your current logic, grooming children to protest?”
