In two rallies, thousands made their frustrations known.
Roman Lopez & Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: Feb. 19, 2025
Host: Elon Musk’s cutting of federal agencies and jobs has prompted at least 17 protests in Florida, including one in Bradenton, and two in Sarasota. Let’s begin with Ramon Lopez, who was at a protest ahead of the school board meeting Tuesday, expressing concern about how cutbacks will affect low-income and special needs students.
Zander Moricz: Government for all—
Crowd: Every day!
ZM: Every student—
Crowd: Every day!
ZM: Support—
Crowd: Our schools!
Ramon Lopez: Ahead of the Sarasota County School Board meeting Tuesday night, two organizations—Support our Schools, or SOS, and SEE Alliance—held a rally in the school district admin building’s parking lot. The goal was to spread awareness about possible dangers to local schools.
Protesters outside the school district admin building. Photo: Lopez
The 100 or so demonstrators were there because of concerns over the possible dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education by President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a government organization designed to slash federal spending and the government payroll. The rally followed a series of executive orders and came just days after layoffs across federal agencies.
Trump continues to talk about abolishing the Education Department, and has asked Linda McMahon, his pick for education secretary, to “put herself out of a job.” Meanwhile, Musk has cut more than $900 million from the Education Department, mostly targeting its research arm.
But shutting down a federal agency entirely requires congressional approval. So Trump would need support in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
The department doles out Title One funds—cash given to school districts with a high percentage of low-income students. Sarasota County gets around $50 million annually.
At the Tuesday rally, Zander Moricz, the founder of SEE Alliance, said the goal is to get transparency and a plan from the Sarasota School Board should Trump get his way.
ZM: Therefore, it is this board’s obligation to ensure that, when there are attacks attempting to take away funding from our education, that they intervene where they can; that, when there are illegal attempts at a national level to defund programs that support the most marginalized students in Sarasota and across the state of Florida….
We stand to lose a potential $50 million of funding towards our most marginalized students. It’s not chump change, and there is no plan to supplement it. There is no plan to make sure that those resources are maintained and that those impacted students have the support structure that they need.
And we are confused as to why what seems to be a deeply illegal action and deeply illegal attempts to erode one of the departments of our government that was instituted by our congress—that we are working with a government that does not seem to be particularly concerned at all points in time about what is legal. We need to understand that we are working both in a long-term and a short-term sense to make sure that we are challenging an unconstitutional, fascist attack against our government and our education system.
RL: Protester JT Priar is also opposed to “deep-sixing” the Education Department.
JT Priar: It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s all politics. It’s all a smoke-and-mirrors show so they can get people riled up and keep them from focusing on the main thing that they need to focus on. It’s a smoke-and-mirrors act, and I want no part of abolishing the Department of Education.
RL: One after another, public speakers at the school board meeting said largely the same thing. Robin Williams:
Robin Williams: Trump and Musk are taking a sledgehammer to democracy and destroying public education. As constitutional officers, I ask you to defend federal protections for public education. Never in the history of our nation has anyone as unqualified as Linda McMahon been picked to run the Department of Education. She was deliberately chosen to oversee its illegal destruction. $50 million in federal aid to Sarasota schools can be lost. Children with 504s, IEPs—decades of progress will be destroyed by this lawless administration. Florida students—if Linda McMahon has her way, all American students—will be behind their global peers.
RL: Unclear is when and if the Education Department might be disbanded.
Crowd: Every student every day!
ZM: When I say “we,” you say “fight!” We—
“Students B4 politics.” Photo: Lopez
Crowd: Fight!
ZM: We—
Crowd: Fight!
ZM: When I say “for,” you say “every student every day!” For—
Crowd: Every student every day!
ZM: We—
Crowd: Fight!
ZM: For—
Crowd: Every student every day!
ZM: And we’re going to keep on doing that.
RL: This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
Johannes Werner: The Department of Education protest was the sequel of a much bigger protest a day earlier in Sarasota. Despite a bit of confusion because the nationwide organizers of the “Not My President’s Day” protests suggested a different start time than the local organizers, the event drew an estimated 2,000 to downtown. The action began along the bayfront stretch of US 41, where protesters lined up on both sides of the road, eliciting loud responses from drivers.
[Vehicles honk, crowd cheers]
Protesters gather outside the federal building on Orange Avenue. Photo: Werner
JW: They wielded homemade signs with messages such as “Bad Doge,” “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA,” “Dump the president, and dump Trump too,” or simply “Gulf of Mexico.” Many waved the Star-Spangled Banner.
The protesters then walked along Main Street to the Federal Building chanting slogans, turning downtown into a traffic nightmare and lunch for some restaurant and café patrons into a noisy affair.
The steps and patio of the Federal Building in Sarasota was packed, with protesters spilling on the other side of Orange Avenue.
Scott Furlong plays “Jack and Diane” for protesters. Photo: Werner
Street musician Scott Furlong regaled protesters with a spirited rendering of “Jack and Diane” at his usual corner at Main and Five Points park.
[Musician plays and sings, crowd chants, vehicles honk]
JW: His main concern was about the crackdown against migrants:
Scott Furlong: Because I’m sick of this crap! Stop messing with the migrants. Look—if you’re going to let them in, let them in. If you’re not—stop messing with these people. Handcuff them, send them out of the country, let them in, give them five grand on a Visa card, give them a hotel room—I’m not looking for a handout. Nobody is. Nobody wants a handout, but let us struggle again. Let us work again!
JW: Reporting for WSLR News, Ramon Lopez and Johannes Werner.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.