As some governments recognize June as Pride Month, Polk County Public Schools won’t be one of them.
Tuesday night, members of Polk County’s LGBTQ community and their allies showed up to a school board meeting to let district leaders know how they feel.
“The optics are ugly,” one of them told the board. “The timing is poor.”
The district proclaimed June as Pride Month last year and in other previous years.
Tuesday, the board was set to vote on the proclamation again, but Superintendent Frederick Heid pulled that vote from the agenda.
The move was celebrated by people like Robert Goodman, the leader of Polk County Citizens Defending Freedom.
“You can say whatever you want, but making the proclamation — it’s promoting what’s going on in people’s bedrooms. It’s not focused on what school is supposed to be: education,” Goodman said.
However, as Heid explained in the meeting, he is not trying to eliminate future Pride proclamations.
Heid said he simply delayed the proclamation until LGBT History Month in October and until the district can come up with a more formal procedure to recognize Pride and other worthy causes.
He said the current proclamation process has little consistency and some causes — like women’s history, autism awareness, and veteran appreciation — are rarely, if ever, officially recognized by the district.
“Part of the problem that we have is not only a process with the procedure but again, how do we ensure that our proclamations are reflective of all of the values and groups within our community,” Heid said. “I don’t want the community to believe for a moment that we are eliminating the Pride Proclamation month. That is not what’s being recommended here. We were not, in any way, let me clarify this for the record — we were not contacted by any group, nor was there a request to remove it. I simply did it as a matter of procedure and policy.”
Still, people like Anita Carson, who’s from Davenport and is the Field and Advocacy Manager for Equality Florida, think the district made a frustrating mistake in a time when many LGBTQ young people feel they aren’t valued or supported.
“And we hope to press the schools to show a large support to LGBT families and students — if they can’t this meeting, then next meeting,” she said.
Others in the room also asked Heid to reschedule the Pride proclamation for July. After the meeting, Heid told the media that he would be open to that if the district can enact a proclamation policy in time.
Thank you Superintendent, you have spine.