Despite a strong showing from the hate group Liberty Counsel and a speaker being carried out by police, updated anti-discrimination protections for the Brevard County School District are moving toward a final vote.
At the May 24 special meeting, the board voted 3-2 to set a hearing for July 19, where the board will vote on a proposed overhaul to their anti-discrimination policy, which would add protections for LGBT students and staff. Board members John Craig and Karen Henderson were the dissenting votes.
Scott Wall-DeSousa, a key advocate for the protections, whose husband teaches in the district, says the goal is to protect Brevard Schools by getting them up to the standards of Neola, a company that recommends best practices in school policy and, for schools in compliance, provides a warranty against lawsuits should they be sued for following those best practices.
“Unfortunately, Brevard County Schools at this point is not up-to-date, and it has not been since 2005,” Wall-DeSousa says, adding that the district bylaws state the policies have to be addressed every two years.
During the meeting, Dean Paterakis, who is running for a spot on the Brevard County School Board, approached the podium for his comment period and began talking about a teacher allegedly showing a photo of his penis to students. School Board chairman Andy Ziegler warned Paterakis to stop and that his comments were “not appropriate.” Paterakis refused to leave the podium, and when security officers approached him, he sat down on the floor. Eventually, officers carried him out of the room. Brevard County police charged Paterakis with disrupting a school function and resisting arrest without violence, and he was released from county jail on $750 bond.
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Wall-DeSousa says a number of the people present who were part of the Liberty Counsel group expressed disappointment that Ziegler said the evening’s discussion would not cover who can use school restrooms and locker rooms. That topic has been hotly debated on a national scale, with states and municipalities approving rules about restroom use and a directive from President Obama that public schools should allow transgender students to use facilities aligning with the gender with which they identify.
“The Liberty Counsel came in full force, [the meeting] went totally insane,” Wall-DeSousa says. “You could hear a resounding chanting and cheers every time somebody got up to speak with a bible in their hand.”
Despite the pushback, he says staff is reviewing some wording in the proposal, answering questions from board members and the proposal is on track for a final vote July 17.
“We’re going to make sure that all of the LGBT community and the allies we have in this community, which is an immense amount, all of these people are going to be there [July 17] and we are going to make a very large presence known,” he says. “Unfortunately, so will the opposition. But I am OK with that; we all are OK with that. We know what we got ourselves into.”
The changes have been in the works since late 2015 and almost seemed to be a lost cause in March of 2016, when Liberty Counsel speakers flooded meeting and the board voted to move the issue to a workshop. Since then, LGBT advocates have been able to get the anti-discrimination updates back before the school board and on track for a vote.
