The Sarasota School Board member joins Cathy Antunes after local Republicans call on Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove him from office.
Cathy Antunes
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My guest today is Tom Edwards. He made the drive up from Venice just in the nick of time, right Tom?
Tom Edwards: Good morning!
CA: Just makes me a little nervous, but he’s here. So we’re gonna be talking about the school board. Obviously, Tom Edwards is a member of the Sarasota County School Board, which has been in the news because Bridget Ziegler introduced a resolution.
She spoke about it on Steve Bannon’s show over the weekend, five minutes with him talking about a resolution, basically about ICE in schools. And if you actually read the resolution, ICE is mentioned many times. First of all, the Sarasota County schools do cooperate with law enforcement. They have to, that’s the law. But this resolution looked to a lot of us, myself included, as a fear tactic and a response to the protests against Renee Good’s death. Renee Good, as most of you know, is the woman who was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Reports have come out saying she actually had a pulse up to eight minutes after she was shot. And there were reports that medical care was denied. So this is a very serious incident in our country with ICE, masked law enforcement. I’ve never seen police in the United States wearing masks. So there’s a lot of concern in the country, not just our community, about what’s going on with ICE.
Anti ICE protesters on Sarasota’s bayfront. Photo: Werner
There was a protest in Sarasota in the wake of Renee Good’s death. Tom Edwards, a school board member, attended that protest. And then we get this resolution from Bridget Ziegler, which seems wholly unnecessary and tone deaf to the very legitimate constitutional concerns about how ICE is operating.
Tom, thank you so much for joining me today. I think we need to start with that protest, because we haven’t seen, I was not there. I knew it was gonna happen. There were a lot of people in Sarasota who came out for that protest.
Tom Edwards: Right. Cathy, thank you so much for having me and giving me the opportunity to share my views and what precisely is going on.
There’s three very quick things that I’d like to get across to the public right away. One is, we had a really bad day at the schools yesterday. Lots of parents concerned about the resolution and the invitation that they perceived the board majority giving ICE to come and enter our schools. And so, the first thing I want to be able to say to everyone is, our local law enforcement, our [School Resource Officers] and our administrators, myself included, will always follow the law. But we care for our kids, and we will only do everything to make sure that they are safe and secure.
The second thing I need to get out to parents is, you need to double and triple check your news sources. There’s lots of misinformation that’s going around that’s fueling this at our schools. So please do not become a victim to algorithms on social media and please double and triple check any rumors or social media posts.
Bridget Ziegler, chair of the Sarasota School Board
And lastly, the best advice I could give everyone under all of the extreme circumstances that we’re seeing around isolated extreme behaviors, that the safest place for your kids is in schools and being protected by our SROs and our local law enforcement. So please stay calm, of course, stay informed, but do not allow the board majority to run your lives.
CA: Yeah, just so people know, SROs are the police. They’re a dedicated force to our public schools. All schools these days have SROs. And Tim Enos, a former Sarasota County School Board member, he was the chief of the SROs. He ran for school board, and now he is chief again of the SROs. I do think he’s a trustworthy man. I have interviewed him, have confidence in him.
This resolution – we’re gonna jump around a bit about what’s going on. I think the public became aware that there was a resolution afoot when Bridget Ziegler appeared on Steve Bannon’s show over the weekend. She actually wasn’t in the main show, but she was like a five-minute interview.
I gotta say, given what’s gone on with the Zieglers, their credibility in the community has declined quite a bit in the wake of a scandal. There was a 4-1 resolution. Tim Enos, Robyn Marinelli, Karen Rose, and Tom Edwards all asked for her resignation. We do not have an effective recall mechanism, for the voters to recall an elected school board member.
I talk to family. My sister is in Connecticut. She teaches special ed. So we compare notes about what’s going on and she’s like, How is she still on the board?’ And I’m like, ‘Marianne, she won’t resign.’ And if we don’t have a mechanism for her to be recalled, that’s what we’re dealing with.
And we’ve got her showing up on Steve Bannon’s show, which may be the only place that will have her, honestly, because the credibility is down the tubes. You find out from a school board member on that show that she is introducing a resolution, which references ICE again, and again, and again.
Okay. So there was huge public outcry. Once again, so many public speakers came and basically said, ‘This is fear mongering. We don’t need such a resolution. We do follow the law.’ And yet the board majority, as you put it, went ahead and approved this resolution that stands in stark contrast to their behavior about a resolution that came forward in April of 2024. There was a resolution that you put forward. Tom, can you tell us what that was?
Tom Edwards: Sure. What I had asked for was a reaffirmation of our school board that clearly states that we follow all of the federal and state regulations for Title IX and protections of our students. Just to reaffirm it, because frankly, where it came from was, Mrs. Ziegler asked in a previous workshop of the superintendent, ‘Do we keep records on the immigration status of our students?’ And I think everyone was shocked that she had even asked that question. And then I had community members, particularly our Hispanic community members, reach out to us and say that it was beginning to terrorize the community.
I think the other thing that I’d want to point out right here, the biggest difference between my resolution and her resolution: Our lawyer wrote my resolution. I went to make sure that when I put something out, that it had the actual teeth and guidance of our law firm.
And as I pointed out in the board meeting the other night, she did not have the lawyer write it. I equate that to a political stunt.
CA: I love the direction that you’re taking because it causes me to ask questions. Is this a political stunt to repair a damaged, if not ruined political career, where she starts escalating it from local politics to Steve Bannon, and now national news?
I have to give a shout out to Paulina Testerman and her public input on Tuesday’s meeting. I’m going to play that for you because she talks about the difference. It’s so important for people to understand that context, that you brought forward a resolution in response to Bridget Ziegler’s inquiries about data, about immigrant kids. And in that same meeting about the resolution she calls these kids ‘outside students’.
She realizes what she says, and then she tries to recover. But often, she gives herself away. When she spoke to Steve Bannon, she took issue with the fact that she had liberal colleagues on the school board. I mean, these are people who were voted in by the voters.
That doesn’t seem to matter. But she talks about protesters and is using pejorative terms about people who disagree with her. But she says, ‘We need to stop them dead in their tracks in the wake of Renee Good’, which was the whole reason for the local protest, for a school board member to be saying that we need to stop protest or protesters dead in their tracks.
And she never mentions Ms. Good. She never talks about the reason why people were protesting. You know, it’s, my interpretation of her comments that she is staying deliberately far away from the fact that a woman is dead. A woman is dead because of ICE shooting her, a fellow mother. An American mother who was peaceful. She told the ICE agent, ‘Hey bro, I’m not mad at you’, whatever she said, and she was very slowly turning her car away from the agent to leave as they wanted her to leave. And she was shot. Mrs. Ziegler says absolutely nothing about that.
So in the context of the meeting, Paulina Testerman is pointing out a problem with the different attitudes about resolutions that she’s seeing. Let’s play this.
Paulina Testerman
Paulina Testerman: Mrs. Ziegler, one thing that I’m really good at is memorizing your acts of hypocrisy. I can’t remember my own kids’ names, but your hypocrisy, will they stick? Let’s revisit. August 16th, 2024 board work session. Mr. Edwards brought forth a resolution. A resolution, just like the resolution you’re bringing forth today. And do you remember what you said about that resolution, Mrs. Ziegler? I quote, ‘There was almost a commitment that we are not going to be doing resolutions because we are trying to suspend the political theater.’ You went on to say, quote, ‘To prepare a document without any decision, as a board, I think that is a reckless use of taxpayer dollars.’ Interesting, right? You seem so passionately opposed to resolutions, and yet here you are shoving one down taxpayers’ throats. So what has changed? Or is this just your usual dose of obvious hypocrisy and political grandstanding? Now, in case Mrs. Marinelli is thinking about backing your resolution, allow me to remind her what she said during that same workshop. Quote, ‘I have a big problem with having a resolution like this, and the reason is I’m, it’s already federal law. It’s already state law, and I find that it was done as a sheer political maneuver. It’s political theater. I, they want, the community wants the focus to be on academic achievement, and I think there needs to be an apology to the citizens of the county. And I also think if you have to bring this kind of thing, then maybe you should resign. I don’t normally get this upset over things, but I find this an affront, and this is really what I think about it.’ And that’s when Mrs. Marinelli ripped up the resolution, like a child having a temper tantrum. Next up to bat is Mrs. Rose. I certainly didn’t forget you. You lined right up with Mrs. Ziegler and Mrs. Marinelli, like a good little soldier expressing your disdain for resolutions. So ladies, our community is on the edge of our seats. Are you going to back this political stunt of Mrs. Ziegler’s and prove once and for all that the two of you are just a mouthpiece for Mrs. Ziegler? All we want to know is, how could you possibly vote for today’s ICE resolution, after you being so passionately opposed to resolutions in general? Quite frankly, ladies, I’ve had sushi from gas stations that I have trusted more than I would ever trust the three of you.
CA: Okay, I don’t recommend getting sushi at gas stations. As somebody who watches local government, it can be really tough sometimes, because you remember something that happened, and you can’t quite find it. But you know that something doesn’t work. And Paulina Testerman did a great service for us in that she remembered, ‘Wait a minute, there was a whole discussion about resolutions where these three folks said, oh, this is theater. We’re not gonna do this.’ And it was, I believe, a well-intentioned resolution to protect all children as they are under the law in this country. Every child has a right to an education.
Tom Edwards, speaking at the protest remembering Renee Good. Photo: Werner
Tom Edwards: I will tell you, I’m grateful for Paulina, and I was so very impressed by our students who showed respect but disdain for the political stunt.
Frankly that’s how I see it. I’ve seen the playbook from the very first time I’ve been in the boardroom with Mrs. Ziegler. Quite frankly, this is full circle for me in Minneapolis, because I watched George Floyd be murdered on television, and now I’ve watched Renee Good. I’ve seen the videos.
Mrs. Ziegler started her political stunts with social media around George Floyd and the indoctrination that … not education that was going on in public schools, particularly Sarasota, around a BrainPOP video and Black Lives Matter. That’s what she’s done with her political career. And my observation is, she climbs on the backs of the marginalized. First Black Lives Matter, then don’t say gay, transgender, and now our black and brown communities. And she uses the disenfranchised to elevate her political ideology. And what I don’t do, which I’m very clear, I don’t take their bait, they tried to get me to have a conversation about why I said what I said at a rally.
I will not allow oxygen to be sucked out of a room when the point of why I am in there is to discuss educational outcomes. And at the very … as Mr. Connor said, more important than educational outcomes is the safety of our children. And what this resolution does is insinuate the opposite.
CA: Yeah. I write a column on Substack, and I talked about this being a straw man argument. A strawman argument is when you basically set up something that never happened or an idea or an issue that really isn’t an issue, and then you knock it down. So the idea that Sarasota County schools don’t follow the laws simply isn’t true. And you know, what you did with your resolution is you were looking to reaffirm that, that commitment to every child, in the context of a request for data about immigrant kids.
And there were other children that, you believed, or many of us believed, were being marginalized. So I do think it’s a different situation. The other piece here is that you have a right, we all have a right under the constitution to protest. We have a right to free speech. And you didn’t say anything, you said you didn’t trust ICE. Well hello!
Tom Edwards: There are a lot of us who don’t, given what’s going on in this country. Look at the polls. I am not alone. I’m in the majority, on the right side of history.
CA: Yeah, they’re wearing masks, and they’re taking, you know, many reports out there about ICE taking legal immigrants. This was sold to the public as though we’re just going after criminals. That’s not what we’re seeing. And look who’s dead now. A mother, an American mother, is dead.
So, getting back to April of 2024 and what Paulina Teman pointed out, and this is how Robyn Marinelli responded to the resolution, just to back up what Paulina had to say.
Robyn Marinelli
Robyn Marinelli: I have a, I have a, a big problem with having a resolution like this, and the reason is it’s already federal law. It’s already state law, and I find that this was done as a sheer political maneuver. I’d like to know how much money it costs to do one, the first resolution with one attorney, and then we get delivered Monday, a second resolution that had two attorneys working with it. So I, I. I find it very, it’s political theater. It started off with being directed at a specific board member, and I think the majority of the citizens of Sarasota County are really tired of the political agenda that is brought into this boardroom. They want the focus to be on academic achievement, especially reading and problem solving. And I think there needs to be an apology to the citizens of this county. And I also think, you know, if you’re, if you have to bring this kind of thing, then maybe, maybe resign. But I do think that this really is an affront, and I, I don’t normally get this upset over things, but I find this an affront, and this is really what I think of it.
CA: And you heard her, uh, tearing it up. And I just wanna make clear to the audience, that’s from April of 2024, a resolution that Tom Edwards introduced about the, about the federal law that every student is to be educated.
So Tom, that stands in contrast. She voted for, I mean, she would, she voted for a resolution. Again, this was about ice. So she voted for a resolution about ice being, you know, um, a law enforcement agency that has the power to go to, into the public schools. But she wouldn’t vote for your resolution about educating every child.
Tom Edwards: I think if I had that moment to do over, I would not have introduced a resolution. But I was trying very hard to reassure the community and I thought that was a tool that was available to me. But what is astounding to me about Mrs. Marinelli’s response isn’t the fact that she ripped it up. I mean, her emotionality and displays of that are profound, and people know them well. But the stench of hypocrisy on this board is so profound that I feel like at the end of every meeting, I have to immediately go home and take a shower. Because it’s disgusting.
You have a board that did the total opposite of what they said at that meeting to adopt Mrs. Ziegler’s political stunt, which is clearly what everybody thinks about it. And then, this is also the same board that called for her resignation and made her board chair. So this level of hypocrisy, I’m telling you, it’s difficult. And I do get compliments. People know how painful it is for me to actually sit next to them and share the room with them because my integrity would normally walk away.
CA: The thing is, you’ve got two board members there. Mrs. Ziegler, who, if we did have a recall mechanism, you got to believe, I believe, that the citizens of this county would have availed themselves, would’ve signed petitions, would’ve found a way using a real recall mechanism, which we don’t have. Mrs. Rose has been appointed by the governor after she lost a race, decisively, to Liz Barker. So, there’s two board members there who you can reasonably say, don’t have the support of the community. You can question their legitimacy.
Robyn Marinelli has come through sometimes with Tim Enos. Robyn, when Vermillion Education was up for a vote to be the consultant for Sarasota County curriculum – this was at least two years ago – and Vermillion Education was an unproven new company. The guy was a Hillsdale graduate, so he appeared to have a… there was every reason to believe there was a strong ideological bent. And the community did not want Vermilion Education being a consultant about our curriculum. And to their credit, Tim Enos and Robyn Marinelli listened to the public, and they would not approve the Vermilion contract. And I think a lot of people were really encouraged by that. I’m sad to see Ms. Marinelli fall in line behind two board members who don’t… Ms. Rose, the community weighed in and said no. They’re elected at-large. You guys are elected by the whole county. And the whole county rejected her candidacy. Governor DeSantis put her there again when Tim Enos resigned, and now he’s head of our SROs, our school resource officers. So I think there’s an element here of … and what we’re not even saying, we’re not even talking about how Bridget Ziegler was calling out the local Republican Party for not speaking negatively about the protest against ICE in the wake of Renee Good’s death, and saying that they weren’t MAGA enough. And then the local Republican Party turned around and asked Governor DeSantis to remove you from office, Tom Edwards to remove you. So we’re at an inflection point, where it’s important for people to really see how these folks are operating, how they got there, why they won’t leave, like Mrs. Ziegler won’t leave, and Mrs. Rose. She’s not an elected member. In fact, she lost.
Tom Edwards: I also want to say that I am appreciative of Tim Enos and Robyn Marinelli, their votes in relation to making sure that Vermilion and Hillsdale College curriculum didn’t find its way into our school district. I am grateful for that, and then in that same vein, I will tell you that Mrs. Ziegler’s recommendation of superintendent would have taken us down a very dark road. It was Karen Rose and Robyn Marinelli and myself that elected Terry Connor, who I would say as reluctant as I was to lose Brennan Asplen. Yes, I am grateful. I am equally grateful as I was reluctant to have Terry Connor. And what that gives me is that, way down deep, Robyn Marinelli, and even Karen Rose, that they thought of students first instead of politics. Because Mrs. Ziegler’s choice was 100% political. So the community has been saved by their care of children. But every single time that it’s not that serious, and they have a choice between politics and public education, they choose politics.
CA: Yeah. And I just hate to see Robyn Marinelli losing that independence, or at least it looked like ot this time, because she was inconsistent with her prior stance. If she had been consistent with what she said in 2024 about political theater and resolutions, she would’ve voted no.
Tom Edwards: Yeah, that’s true.
CA: And the reality is, bullies are loud and project strength, but actually in the end, they’re weak. And I think, Bridget Ziegler’s position is very, very weak. She’s going to be loud, she’s gonna bluster. But the reality is, I think she has a very hard time winning. And so, the context of being pro-law enforcement and very grateful to law enforcement in our community – they have a tough job, which doesn’t mean they never make mistakes. We’re human, right? We’re all human, and certainly ICE. There’s very good reason to look at the constitutional questions about what’s happening about masked ICE agents. And about what happened, the killing of Renee Good. So you’ve got a school board member who after her scandal, the local police investigated the Zieglers and they looked at the evidence on Christian Ziegler’s phone and found probable cause, in their mind, to look into a charge of video voyeurism, which they ultimately did not, follow through with. But the Zieglers are now suing the City of Sarasota, and personally suing the two detectives that were investigating. And they’re suing them for lost income. So I’ve written about this on Substack. It’s The Detail, Cathy Antunes on Substack, so you can read the details there. But it’s quite a contrast to see an unnecessary resolution about a loaded political law enforcement agency, ICE, unnecessary, you know, it’s gonna engender fear.
What I saw on there, when she was talking about that resolution, were lies. She was saying, this will never happen. We will never have masked ICE agents taking kids away. Well, she doesn’t know that. I mean, she can’t guarantee that. Oh, I feel better, you said. Are you kidding me? You don’t know that this, what we’re seeing with this particular agency, there’s real reason to be concerned.
So you’re saying that, claiming to be all pro-law enforcement. But on the other hand, you are personally suing two Sarasota detectives who were doing their job because you lost income, because your reputation was dinged. And I gotta tell you, if you’re out there engaging in threesomes, you’ve gotta know you’re risking public exposure. You’re involving somebody else. And when you have a job with the Leadership Institute, which Mrs. Ziegler had, and as chair of the Florida Republican Party, Mr. Ziegler, that behavior doesn’t fit with the brand. So all that needed to come out was that behavior, which it inevitably did.
It was like in the first interview. And you lose your income and you wanna blame the cops for that. You want city taxpayers to foot the bill for your lost hundreds of thousands a year. Because the cops did their job. It’s stunning. It’s stunning to me.
Tom Edwards: You talked a couple of things there that struck me. One was bullying and, and it has happened to me often on the dais. It happens to me from the board majority. They go out, like they did on that resolution, and bully me. They bullied me for speaking, with my freedom of speech rights. But I want to be the role model for students all the time, to be the person that is not a victim, but understands that I’m a target. And then, I even have to understand why am I a target? And I’m a target because my values are such that I care about every student and every student outcome, and people know that. And I won’t compromise my values for anyone. It was instilled in me.
I watched a government, both sides of the aisle, go after Richard Nixon when the country’s values were compromised. He cheated, he lied. And those are values that we hold dear.
CA: And it was so much less. I was telling my son the other day, what Nixon did is like stealing bubble gum compared to what’s going on now.
Tom Edwards: I’m astounded that we as a country, or we as a political party, can compromise values for the sake of a tribe, or power, or money. And that is not my level of integrity, and that is not what I was taught, and as a public official that I was exposed to. I had great role models who taught me those lessons, and I want to perpetuate those values in every way that I can.
And that is why I’ve been four-one on that board. And we’ve got it three, two, God willing, after this last fiasco that the board majority has done. I’m pretty sure the community is looking at that board majority and saying, ‘The jig is up. We know that you make decisions on politics and not student outcomes, and we will not bring in you or anyone like you onto this board’.
CA: Well, to be going on a national podcast and to be talking about a school board resolution, that’s very unusual. And again, the grandstanding around the resolution is that strawman argument. We, Sarasota schools, of course, are subject to the law. The reality is, there’s big questions about whether or not ICE is operating within the law.
But to have a school board member be using this, the good faith protest of her constituents. These are her constituents. Not talking about Renee Good’s death at all. And then trying to make it look like anyone who doesn’t agree with her is some kind of scofflaw. This is quite something.
If you just joined us, you’re listening to The Detail on WSLR 96.5 LP FM in Sarasota, Florida, and WBPV 100.1 LP FM in Bradenton, Florida. My guest is Tom Edwards. He is a member of the Sarasota County School Board, and we’re talking about an ICE resolution introduced by Bridget Ziegler, that was passed by the board three to two this past Tuesday.
I wanna thank my followers on social media for bringing forward this question. This is about HB 1071. It’s a new bill in the state legislature. And within that bill, there is a clause about cooperation with law enforcement, which looks a lot like … you know, a lot of times you gotta understand there is large coordination. This could be a trial balloon in Sarasota County for the rest of the State of Florida, to see how this plays. But this clause within the bill, and that’s that’s being considered by the State House, reads like this: “Cooperation with law enforcement – each district school board and charter school governing board shall adopt policies requiring school administrators to cooperate with law enforcement’s campus visits, including the use of a police canine as defined in statute 8430.19. Such policies must prohibit a school administrator from denying law enforcement officers as defined in statute 943.10 access to a district or a charter school campus.” I mean, again, if it’s in the law in those two statutes, it begs the question, why is the state legislature feeling like they have to put something in about schools following the law?
Tom Edwards: I will tell you once again that my observation of just watching the Zieglers using media and manipulating media, and manipulating social media algorithms to escalate their presence, I don’t think that that’s exclusive to that family’s political beliefs.
And to your point, Cathy, I think we led the charge here in Sarasota about revising the ACE and IB program legislation that wanted to take those categorical dollars away from us. We’ve led the charge in Schools of Hope. And it’s because if they can win in Sarasota, then … and so that’s why I’m so proud of our community for standing up and really pointing out that this resolution that Mrs. Ziegler has put forward, and the board majority supported, is in fact political theater. And they’re trying to see if it will leverage themselves statewide. So our community will be, much like we were the first community to push back on Moms for Liberty, even though it started here. Everything is Ground Zero here. But this Sarasota is not a little petri dish. We’re not having it.
CA: So let’s talk about Schools of Hope, and the things you could have been talking about. So one of the things that this distracts from is the very real budget challenges that universal vouchers have brought into every public school board, every decision making body in the State of Florida. So that’s one piece, is Schools of Hope, is this high-flying, I mean, the hype around it is. Let’s bring in a private operator that’s going to transform our schools. The very first Schools of Hope project was under Richard Corcoran, and Manny Diaz took over during this timeframe. It began around 2017 and ended in 2022, an utter failure in Jefferson County. Jefferson County is a small, typically underperforming rural school district like around Tallahassee, north of Tallahassee.
The reading proficiency. And so what they did was they brought in Academica. The name was Somerset Academy, but it’s a division of Academica. And Manny Diaz is an Academica executive, also in the state legislature at the time. So Richard Corcoran’s Schools of Hope program, this was its pilot test case. They took over the whole district because it was easy to do. K-12 is in the same building in Jefferson County. Third grade reading proficiency, which is a benchmark that Richard Corcoran has himself said is very important. If kids can’t read by third grade, there’s data saying there’s reason to be concerned about the rest of their learning. Those test scores began at 42% proficiency before Academica took over. At the end of the experiment, those test scores dropped to 19%. So it was an utter failure. Schools of Hope is also a way for charter schools to kind of grab underutilized space, facility space, and Sarasota County schools came up with a brilliant solution to relocate administrative offices and to essentially keep those public assets in the public domain.
So can you talk a little bit more about that success? ‘Beause I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
Tom Edwards: I’m so glad that we’re on that topic. I would say that the superintendent’s ability to springboard out, the concepts that we have for recovery from co-location of Schools of Hope, is astounding. At least from my seat as an individual board member, I had been talking with the superintendent for at least a year on where space was available. What issues should we be doing? Do we have to merge schools? We had already been having this conversations before the legislation happened. I don’t know if my other school board members do, what they talk about, and what they don’t talk about, but I know I had been having those conversations.
So what Mr. Connor did, was he put out two trial balloons. One was the closing of Wilkinson Elementary, and the other was a merger of Polytech with Brookside Middle, and he got incredible pushback from our community. Which, by the way – if anyone is anywhere astute trying to read a community, our community loves their public schools.
And that was the noise that Mr. Connor needed to hear, absolutely, to present the plans that we had been talking about for almost a year. So we – they – moved quickly. I want to commend not just Mr. Connor, Rachel Day, uh, Dr. Kemp, Jody Dumas, all of the folks in …
CA: And the parents.
Tom Edwards: Oh my gosh. Parents United! I and Liz Barker made ourselves available to parents as much as we possibly could, to hear the feedback and to bring that to the superintendent. Often there’s a lot of voices, and as an accomplished school board member, as Liz and I are, we can take those voices and compact them, and bring the concern to the superintendent.
So I’m really thrilled that we’ve been able to reimagine and reengineer our open enrollment. And I am actually positive, which we have said, that out of adversity comes opportunity. And I think the opportunity that we’re presenting to the entire community is going to bring us well beyond… We’re at 70% right now of all students, in Sarasota County attend our public schools. I think that number is going to find itself in 80 and 90% over the next five years.
CA: Okay. I just want to explain to people, so with the Schools of Hope program, if you’ve got underutilized space in a public school, the charter school can basically come and take that space. Charter schools don’t have the same accountability. And what we’re finding also, if you listen to my show last week, they don’t perform any better when it comes to education of students. In fact, there’s concern they don’t perform as well. So, specifically in Sarasota County, the administrative offices at The Landings, it’s a lot of real estate that’s going to be sold and the administrative offices are going to be relocated within the school district in space that is currently not being used.
So we’re going to get much better efficiency in terms of the use of space. The school board is going to realize some benefit from selling. These buildings are old, they would need to be refurbished. But now, something else can go there. It’s a great example of efficiency in the public sector, just like our hospital is a great example of efficiency in the public sector.
And, Tom, the reason we don’t have a private sector school system is, we can do a lot more for students in this country, right? We can do a lot more for students when we aggregate our resources, when we pool them, and when we have people of good faith making decisions that are going to benefit all the kids.
I mean, that’s what good government looks like, and we need to get back to that. The Schools of Hope solution in Sarasota County is a great example of how this program, which really could have bled our schools dry, you, all responded, and the community rallied and came up with something better. So hats off.
Tom Edwards: I have had an incredible career, lots of things that I’ve been able to do, courtesy of a really solid foundation of public education. And so, when I flunked retirement, that was really what I wanted to do, was pay it forward and make sure that students have the same opportunities that I had, and better. And I’ve been able to deliver on that promise. I love my job as a school board member. And I love the team that I get to work with at Sarasota County Schools. And I love our parents, our families. Our students always astound me. But I have to admit, I don’t like being in the boardroom.
CA: Well, well, we need you. We need people of good faith there. And I have to say, obviously I am not a fan of what went on this past week. Bridget Ziegler, you are welcome anytime to come, and I will give you space and time to talk about what you believe, and we can have a conversation. Ditto Karen Rose, Robyn Marinelli. Because we have to come together to do better for our kids. We all have a responsibility to the children of this county. And Lord knows, as I get older, I want to make sure those nurses and staff and doc, I want everyone at that hospital to know what they’re doing. And we need an educated populace, and we need to help our kids find what excites them and follow that excitement. Learn.
Tom Edwards: Yeah, at Sarasota County schools. And before we close, I just want to quickly reiterate, please do not take out your aggressions or your frustrations or your fears on our local law enforcement. Also, please double, triple check your news sources and make sure you’re not succumbing to rumors or hearsay. And lastly, the safest place that your children can be today is in Sarasota County Public Schools.
CA: Yeah. And these conversations are important for a community that values its public education.
I want to thank you all for listening. You’ve been listening to The Detail on WSLR 96.5 LPFM in Sarasota, Florida, and WBPV 100.1 LPFM in Bradenton, Florida. Be sure to stay tuned right here for more public affairs programming here on WSLR. Make it a great day.
This episode of The Detail aired on WSLR Thursday, January 22 at 9 a.m.