The Sarasota School Board chair’s post about a proposed resolution drew 1,300 comments—most of them negative.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: January 16, 2026
Home: The same week a woman was killed by an ICE agent in her own neighborhood in Minneapolis, Sarasota School Board Chair Bridget Ziegler posted on her professional Facebook page that she requested discussion of a resolution pledging full cooperation between the school district and all law enforcement, including ICE.
Johannes Werner: She prefaced the post of a draft resolution by saying, “Our School District cannot provide safe harbor to criminals, including those who violate our immigration laws.”
Bridget Ziegler
Ziegler produced a firestorm. Her post triggered 1,300 comments as of Friday—most of them negative.
In replies to comments, Ziegler suggested that some of the commenters were recruited. She also wrote, “People asserting that this resolution equates to ICE raiding out schools is ridiculous and politically charged.”
She followed up with three posts of examples of immigrants posing dangers to U.S. schools.
Asked by the Bradenton Journal’s Marc Masferrer about the significance of the resolution, Sarasota Sheriff Kurt Hoffman said it was “much ado about nothing.”
In a similar vein, fellow school board member Liz Barker lambasted the Ziegler resolution in a statement as “pure political theater” that changes nothing about existing policy or practice.
Draft of Ziegler’s resolution.
The immigration crackdown does have effects on students and schools. A survey from the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access in California paints a picture of widespread fear among immigrants. The survey about the impact of immigration enforcement, conducted last summer, includes responses from 600 high school principals and in-depth interviews with 49 of them. More than half of the principals reported that immigrant parents left the community during the school year. In the interview portion, a Florida principal said that immigrant parents told him their child is afraid to come to school.
According to the State of Florida’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, the immigration crackdown has produced a dip in school enrollment in Florida. The number of students expected to enroll in the 2025-26 school year dropped by more than 46,000 from the last estimate in April.
In response to Ziegler’s resolution, at least two organizations have called for parents and community members to protest before the Tuesday meeting and testify during public comment. The school board meeting will begin at 10 a.m. at the Landings complex in Sarasota.
We reached out to Bridget Ziegler but did not hear back by deadline.
Johannes Werner, reporting for WSLR News.
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