SARASOTA, Fla. (SNN TV) — After a majority of the 67 people who spoke at the Sarasota County School Board meeting asked School Board Member Bridget Ziegler to step down, what’s next?
Neela Ravindran is a senior at Pine View School and a member of the youth-led Social Equity through Education Alliance, or SEE Alliance.
She showed up at the Jan. 16 school board meeting to ask Ziegler to step down from her position.
“You are unfit to be on this board,” Neela, who identifies as gender fluid, told Ziegler at the meeting. “Now that you’ve been on the other end, I ask you: what’s more dangerous? Your blatant disregard for and disrespect for the students you claim to represent, or the students themselves who are just trying to survive the hostile climate created by this board?”
“She hasn’t respected the students. She hasn’t passed policies that support the students,” Neela told SNN. “I think it’s hypocritical of her to be flat out cruel to queer students and then turn around and, in her own private life, be someone who could be considered a member of the queer community.”
She was part of dozens of people who spoke, the overwhelmingly majority of whom wanted Ziegler to step down.
Despite Mrs. Ziegler being comfortably reelected in 2022, SEE Alliance founder and executive director Zander Moricz told SNN that he feels she doesn’t represent Sarasota.
“Only 30 percent of our community voted in the Sarasota County School Board election. We can’t say that’s representative of who we are,” said Moricz.
While most speakers at the meeting wanted her gone, there was some support voiced for Ziegler’s policies.
“Stop allowing this faction to steer the direction of the school system,” said Larry Wilson, an elderly Venice resident. “It is absurd for this public institution to pretend that there is any truth in the proposition that there is anything normal about practicing an LGBTQ lifestyle.”
“What matters is 100% of the Sarasota County school student speakers [who spoke about Bridget] said that Bridget needed to go,” Moricz said.
With Governor Ron DeSantis being the only person who could remove Ziegler from office if she didn’t step down, SEE Alliance’s plan is simple: show the governor that Ziegler is no longer an effective ally.
“Republicans, Democrats, the whole community of Sarasota, every other member of the Sarasota County School Board, everyone wants Bridget gone. She’s no longer going to be an effective person to bring political power to Ron DeSantis,” Moricz said. “We’re not going to forget about this. We’re not going to move on.”
Bridget’s husband Christian Ziegler was officially removed from his position as chairman for the Republican Party of Florida last week in the fallout from a sexual assault accusation. Police have not charged him with a crime.
According to SPD, Bridget Ziegler admitted the couple did have a consensual sexual relationship with the alleged victim. She’s not been accused of a crime.
