Palm Beach County school board left group after ex-leader’s racist remarks. Will it rejoin?

Palm Beach Post | By Katherine Kokal | August 22, 2024

In 2021, Palm Beach County left the Florida School Board Association after its then-president made offensive comments about immigrant students.

Three years after leaving the Florida School Board Association in protest of racist remarks made by its president, Palm Beach County school leaders are weighing rejoining the organization, which provides training to elected officials and lobbies on behalf of member school boards.

On Wednesday, all but one school board official agreed they’re interested in renewing the district’s membership now that former president Chris Patricca, who remains a Lee County school board member, is no longer involved in the organization.

The board will vote formally at its Sept. 4 meeting, but they were far from unified Wednesday about whether to rejoin.

“She’s a despicable person,” school board member Alexandria Ayala said of Patricca. “I will never join this organization.”

In 2021, Patricca said school principals faced challenges when working with immigrant students because the students are “fascinated by plumbing” and spent extra time in the bathroom “because they’ve never seen running water before.” She’d been in the top job at the association for just three months.

Community groups, including Lake Worth Beach’s Guatemalan-Maya Center, immediately said the remarks were offensive and joined other groups in calling for her resignation. Later, videos surfaced of Patricca saying she “doesn’t really know” what challenges LGTBQ+ students face, angering LGBTQ+ community groups as well.

School board association head whose remarks offended several groups stayed for 3 more years

Palm Beach County’s school board (bottom) pictured at a recent board meeting and Chris Patricca (above right), a current Lee County school board member who previously served as the President of the School Board Association. Palm Beach County’s district withdrew from the organization after Patricca made offensive remarks in 2021.

But Patricca retained her role as president and remained involved with the organization until 2023.

She no longer serves as a leader or a member of the FSBA’s board of directors, according to the group’s website. Patricca, a former attorney and adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, has since served on the board of the Florida High School Athletics Association — where in 2023 she was one of two votes to keep questions about student athletes’ periods on registration forms that parents called invasive.

However, Patricca’s three years of involvement with the association was enough to make Ayala, an outgoing school board member, unequivocally reject any future membership.

“She made completely unacceptable disgusting remarks, not only about Hispanic students but also about LGBTQ students,” Ayala said. “She said the things she said. The organization then kept her on for three years. She was involved from 2020 until 2023 as immediate past president. They did nothing.”

Patricca did not return a request for comment Thursday morning.

Palm Beach County weighs rejoining association since ‘racist,’ as one board member put it, is gone

Board members Edwin Ferguson, Frank Barbieri and Marcia Andrews agreed that it’s time to reconsider joining the organization, and board chair Karen Brill said she agreed with both their viewpoints and Ayala’s.

Discussions of rejoining are especially important as three new school board members will soon replace Ayala, Barbieri and Barbara McQuinn, who are not seeking re-election.

“There was a high-ranking member of FSBA who, as best I can tell, was a racist,” Ferguson said Wednesday. “That person is no longer affiliated with FSBA, and that FSBA was a great resource to the board while we were members.”

Membership in the association costs the school district about $30,000 each year, Ayala said. It provides online training and consultations with school board members, assistance with election tracking, superintendent searches and legal and financial services, according to its website.

The organization also releases a legislative platform each year and was represented by four registered lobbyists to the Legislature in 2024, according to lobbyist registration records.

“Considering the fact that we will have not one, not two, but three persons who have never been on (school) boards before, it seems to me that that would be a prudent use of district funds for us as a school district to rejoin,” Ferguson said.

Palm Beach County’s school board is poised to bring on the three new members in November after a general election in which voters will choose new representatives from the Boca Raton and Jupiter areas. Virginia Savietto, who won Ayala’s Greenacres and Palm Springs-area seat unopposed, will join the two new freshmen members.

In the discussion Wednesday, at least one board member worried the school board’s resignations have left them out of the loop, especially as the association has lobbied on behalf of public schools against disruptive education-related legislation in recent years.

“I don’t think our absence has done any good whatsoever,” board member Erica Whitfield said after denouncing Patricca’s 2021 comments. “For any of the lobbying that is going on, we are not there to have any of the influence we should have as such a large school district.”

All of Florida’s other largest urban school districts are represented on association’s board of directors, including the Miami-Dade, Broward, Duval, Pinellas, Orange and Hillsborough school boards.

“This state is heading in a direction that does not align with the values of this community and does not align with the values of this board, and so I want to be part of that conversation,” Whitfield said.