The SEE Alliance took to the streets, affecting change in the county school board
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: August 23, 2024
Zander Moricz
Host: In these primary elections, teenagers made their grand entry into Sarasota politics. Young activists made a big difference in school board elections. And this, according to one of their main organizers, is just the beginning. We talked to Zander Moricz, about the role played by his SEE Alliance in these and coming elections.
Zander Moricz: For the last 10 months, Sarasota students have organized this community to put students before politics. We’ve organized messaging campaigns. We’ve organized strategy sessions, events, and rallies. We’ve knocked thousands of doors. We’ve called thousands of phones. We distributed a student designed door hanger. We stood outside of polling locations and spoke to voters. We worked for 10 months to help this community. Make choices away from party politics, and instead make choices based on what was actually best for the student population here in Sarasota, and the emotions right now are electric. Sarasota students have been ignored for 10 months, and still, throughout the 10 months, they fought, they organized, they worked to become heard, and people are listening, people are responding, and people yesterday did not vote in accordance with their party affiliation, they voted to put students before politics.
Johannes Werner: That’s how Moricz describes the mood among his fellow high school and college students organizing through his group. SEE Alliance stands for Social Equity through Education, and Moricz is a recent Pineview high graduate who spent a short time at Harvard before he returned to Sarasota and dedicating his time to politics and organizing.
He says SEE Alliance organized up to 80 canvassers for the school board elections, which rivals the size of operations of not only the Democratic but the Republican Party as well.
ZM: So many high school and college students have participated in this movement. We have had meetings with up to 80 students working to strategize how we should respond to certain actions from the school boards. In the final weeks of door knocking, we had a canvassing team of 45 Sarasota students knocking doors and calling phones and the amount of students who dedicated their summers to this work absolutely changed the game.
JW: Tom Edwards, the liberal school board incumbent who cruised to re-election this week, says the young organizers signal that change is ahead.
Tom Edwards: What I love about the SEE Alliance is that it’s all Gen Z, it’s run and recruited and everything they do is all around Generation Z. And I am thrilled when I see public education deliver students who get involved in activism, whatever that is, because as a youngster, for me, growing up in the 60s and 70s, I saw how civil rights changed because, we were the baby boomers, and we went out onto the streets, and we protested, and we got our voices heard and listened to, and we changed agendas, and I’m so happy to see the next generation carrying that torch, whatever their issues are, whatever they believe in, they’re willing to go out and work for it, and that’s the part that I think is so new and so refreshing, that they’re part of the fabric.
JW: The effect of the Sarasota organizing makes even national ripples, believes Sebastian Martinez, a recent Riverview High grad and who spent this week in Chicago as a delegate for the local Democrats.
Sebastian Martinez
Sebastian Martinez: Almost every single day, whenever I have like an opportunity to talk or introduce myself, I’ve always mentioned Sarasota and before the election, it was, “Oh my God, you’re from Sarasota. I’m so sorry.” And after the election, it was like, “Hell yeah, you’re from Sarasota. Hell yeah, you organize.” And I think that’s the impact of youth organizing Sarasota. I think there was a perception that it was the result of the Democratic party. The majority of those young people aren’t even registered Democrats. They’re registered independents. And they’re just students who wanted a better school board, who’d actually listened to them. Sarasota County school board race was a nationally watched race. People from a bunch of different states were all watching Sarasota. And, the thing I always say when going out to events is: what happens in Sarasota ends up being replicated across the state of Florida. What happens in Florida then gets replicated across the country.
JW: Moricz believes the enthusiasm will carry over to the general elections – and not just in Sarasota. He believes young people here successfully battled the perception about Sarasota as a willing testing ground for Project 2025, and that they will take this model of grassroots pushback to the rest of the state.
ZM: You should expect more canvassing from the SEE Alliance, not only here in Sarasota, but across the state of Florida. We are hearing from so many different students, parents, teachers, organizers in different districts across the state that are so excited to see a growing movement here in Sarasota, because Sarasota has previously been labeled as a far right extremist community that was full of bigoted policies and had no hope for young people to lead. And now that people across the state of Florida are witnessing students lead a movement here in Sarasota, they are more excited about doing the same in their communities. And the SEE Alliance is working to support them and connect them in whatever ways that we can.
JW: Reporting for WSLR News, this has been Johannes Werner, with help from Mark Warriner in Chicago.
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.
