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Parents press Seminole board on discipline, phones, dress code and on-campus health services
Summary
Several public commenters at the June 17 Seminole County school board meeting urged stricter enforcement of student conduct, criticized costume role play in elementary classrooms, asked for stricter dress-code enforcement, supported restricting elementary phone use, and urged moving some health services off campuses.
Multiple public commenters used the June 17 Seminole County Public Schools board meeting to raise concerns about discipline enforcement, cell-phone policies, dress codes and on-campus health services.
Raquel Molina, who identified herself as a grandmother, said her grandchild’s fifth-grade class included two students “identifying, acting like furries” and making statements about sexual orientation that Molina called “inappropriate or distracting.” She asked the district to enforce its student code of conduct and said administrators should make “clear and consistent rules for all students regarding costume wearing and role playing behaviors at school.”
Jessica Tillman, a public commenter, praised a new district strategic plan but urged the board to measure “student achievement, not discipline logs.” She said the district should track reading levels and student behavior — not just a reduction in referrals — because underreporting referrals can skew the data. Tillman voiced support for limiting cell-phone use in elementary and middle schools and called for the district to “discourage them from having them out period, bell to bell.”
Tillman also urged the district to minimize on-campus delivery of health services and to direct families to county health departments for certain services; she asked the board to consider the apparent contradiction between approving a district app (listed on the agenda as the Minja app) and the stated goal of limiting in-school phone use.
The board acknowledged the public comments during the meeting and reviewed phone-policy work earlier in the day’s workshop; there was no immediate formal action recorded in the meeting minutes in response to these particular public comments.
Board members later praised the strategic-plan workshop and thanked staff for policy work; member comments referenced the recent workshop on phone policy and other policy updates but did not record immediate policy votes on the items raised by commenters.
