Miami-Dade School Board Tackles Political Flags on Campus

After residents raised issues {that a} measure to bar politically charged flags in colleges was designed to stop shows of LGBTQ or Black pleasure, the Miami-Dade County School Board agreed to permit on-campus flags that symbolize federally protected teams.

Introduced by board member Roberto Alonso, the measure’s said intention was to limit college workers’s “show of flags that promote a political difficulty,” get together, or candidate. The motion would additionally guarantee compliance with current state regulation and college board coverage requiring an American flag in each classroom.

“The merchandise is to not create hate however to create unity,” Alonso mentioned through the board assembly on Wednesday, December 14.

Board member Lucia Baez-Geller warned that in its authentic type, the measure was far too imprecise.

“Being within the classroom as a trainer 15 years, I do know there are quite a bit issues that come up that might be ‘decided to be a political difficulty’ which might be really simply tutorial,” Baez-Geller mentioned throughout the assembly.

At the top of the assembly, the college board authorised former Miami-Dade college superintendent Steve Gallon’s modification that permits for “federally protected” teams’ flags at school. While Gallon didn’t outline the phrase, some activists, together with Miami legal professional Carrie Feit, took it as a reference to folks protected underneath federal anti-discrimination legal guidelines comparable to Title IX, which prohibits on-campus discrimination based mostly on gender and sexual orientation.

Feit posted on social media that the modification amounted to a “win in opposition to flag banning in Miami-Dade County.”

The board voted unanimously to go the measure as amended.

Alonso says he launched the merchandise after he toured colleges and seen the required American flags have been lacking from the classroom. His proposal was a trimmed down model of a now-withdrawn initiative launched by board member Christi Fraga final month, which might have gone a step additional by aiming to expressly ban any flags apart from American and Florida state flags outdoors of use in authorised class classes.

“I’m very pleased with the American flag as a result of it supplied my household freedom,” Alonso, a son of Cuban immigrants, mentioned on the dais.

Alonso, who was endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and was elected in November as a part of a conservative shift of the nine-member college board, lamented that dialogue about his proposal “has change into so political.”

In the general public listening to main as much as the vote, some native residents mentioned they’d no downside with reinforcing necessities to show the American flag within the classroom, however felt the measure was written to focus on shows of LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter flags.

“I am unable to consider I’m right here once more preventing for the proper of my baby and different LGBTQ kids in Miami-Dade County Schools to have the proper to really feel secure,” mum or dad Jennifer Solomon mentioned in entrance of the dais.

Solomon mentioned the flag measure is a part of a “sick political recreation.”

Others frightened the proposal would pave the way in which to curtail further types of expression.

“Are we going to cease at flags? Or are we going to then cease at [saying] possibly carrying my crucifix is taken into account controversial or possibly carrying a star of David is taken into account controversial?” one other speaker requested.

Alonso maintained that his measure seeks to implement current Miami-Dade college guidelines. His proposal pointed to a college board coverage that already regulates political messaging by public college workers.

“School services or gear might not be used as a way of manufacturing or disseminating to the group any materials that advertises or promotes a political get together, a political trigger, or the candidacy of a person for public workplace,” the present coverage reads.

According to Alonso, the measure permits for a variety of flags to be displayed as a part of a lesson in an authorised curriculum.

“I feel generally we misconstrue issues. And no offense to the oldsters within the again, however the media likes to create some dividing drama… Shame on them,” Alonso mentioned on the dais.

Ahead of the vote, Karla Hernández-Mats, president of the United Teachers of Dade union, mentioned the merchandise is “a waste of time” as a result of colleges have been by and enormous in compliance with the present flag coverage.

“We are an ideal group due to the inclusivity that we have now,” Hernández-Mats tells New Times. “They are attempting to say that we should not be inclusive and that we should not show any pleasure in different communities… What if [teachers who are veterans] needed to show their Marine Corps, Navy, or their Army flags? That’s clearly not a part of the curriculum.”

The union president argues the college board ought to use taxpayer {dollars} to deal with substantial points, comparable to the continuing trainer scarcity, insufficient pay for lecturers, and over-testing of scholars. The board, she says, is as a substitute spending time and assets “debating flag poles.”

Miami-Dade college board conferences have been a hotbed of debate tied to the classroom tradition wars in current months.

In September, the board voted in opposition to recognizing LGBTQ History Month in October throughout county colleges regardless of observing the month final 12 months. The board additionally struck down a plan to show highschool college students a couple of landmark Supreme Court choice that established same-sex {couples}’ proper to marry.