Public commenters urge board to push back on state policies and criticize leadership rotation

Two scheduled public commenters urged the St. Lucie County School Board to defend local control and fairness.

Christy Thanos told the board to “stay strong and unified” and to focus on students rather than ‘‘political theater.’’ Thanos cited legal and budgetary pressures from Tallahassee, including a reference to Honeyfund.com v. DeSantis, saying a federal court blocked major portions of the Florida classroom censorship law and that recent state budgets have directed roughly $4 billion annually to voucher programs and education savings accounts. Thanos said per-student funding in St. Lucie County is "about $9,000 per student," compared with a national average she said is closer to $13,000, and urged the board to demand stable funding and defend professional educators.

Rick Reed, vice president of the Saint Lucie County NAACP, addressed board governance and equity. Reed said he had spoken individually to each board member about a yearly rotation of chair and vice-chair and alleged that board member Richardson had been repeatedly skipped in prior rotations. He described comments by certain board members as "demeaning and dysfunctional" and said silence by one member could be viewed as complicit. Reed praised the Westwood ribbon-cutting and said he had been told the completed facility cost was "over a $100,000,000." He urged the board to adopt an automatic rotation practice similar to other local boards.

The board acknowledged both speakers but the transcript records no formal board response to the substantive policy criticisms or the governance allegation during the public comment period.