{"id":32791,"date":"2023-06-13T23:28:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T03:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=32791"},"modified":"2023-06-13T23:28:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T03:28:40","slug":"polk-schools-superintendent-heid-explains-his-decision-to-skip-the-pride-proclamation-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/06\/13\/polk-schools-superintendent-heid-explains-his-decision-to-skip-the-pride-proclamation-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk Schools Superintendent Heid explains his decision to skip the Pride Proclamation in June"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As some governments recognize June as Pride Month, Polk County Public Schools won\u2019t be one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday night, members of Polk County\u2019s LGBTQ community and their allies showed up to a school board meeting to let district leaders know how they feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe optics are ugly,\u201d one of them told the board. \u201cThe timing is poor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district proclaimed June as Pride Month last year and in other previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday, the board was set to vote on the proclamation again, but Superintendent Frederick Heid pulled that vote from the agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move was celebrated by people like Robert Goodman, the leader of Polk County Citizens Defending Freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can say whatever you want, but making the proclamation \u2014 it\u2019s promoting what\u2019s going on in people\u2019s bedrooms. It\u2019s not focused on what school is supposed to be: education,\u201d Goodman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as Heid explained in the meeting, he is not trying to eliminate future Pride proclamations.<\/p>\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the current proclamation process has little consistency and some causes \u2014 like women\u2019s history, autism awareness, and veteran appreciation \u2014 are rarely, if ever, officially recognized by the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart 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,\u201d Heid said. \u201cI don\u2019t want the community to believe for a moment that we are eliminating the Pride Proclamation month. That is not what\u2019s being recommended here. We were not, in any way, let me clarify this for the record \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, people like Anita Carson, who\u2019s 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\u2019t valued or supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we hope to press the schools to show a large support to LGBT families and students \u2014 if they can\u2019t this meeting, then next meeting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some governments recognize June as Pride Month, Polk County Public Schools won\u2019t be one of them. Tuesday night, members of Polk County\u2019s LGBTQ community and their allies showed up… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14,26],"tags":[5211],"class_list":["post-32791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","category-schools","tag-polk-schools-superintendent-heid-explains-his-decision-to-skip-the-pride-proclamation-in-june"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32792,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32791\/revisions\/32792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}