The Sarasota County School Board Just Gave Us a Perfect Example of How NOT to Lead

Written By Dr. Essence Deming-Rivers

On Tuesday, January 20, 2026, more than 150 people packed into a Sarasota County School Board meeting. Students skipped school, because in November, the board voted to hold meetings at 10 a.m. (when they are at school). Parents and community members also signed up to speak. 

This was one of the largest community turnouts in Sarasota County School Board HISTORY.

So, what’s the big deal? Well, school board chair Bridget Ziegler introduced a resolution affirming that Sarasota County Schools would "fully cooperate and coordinate with all law enforcement agencies, including ICE."

After more than five hours of public comment—much of it from students pleading with the board to vote it down—the resolution passed 3-2.

Ziegler said the resolution "changes nothing" and was merely a show of support for law enforcement. School board member Tom Edwards, who had spoken at an anti-ICE rally days earlier, voted no. So did Liz Barker, who identified the resolution as "political rhetoric" that had "nothing to do with academic achievement."

One Riverview High School student put it plainly: "None of this has anything to do with my education.” Another student, the daughter of immigrants, said simply: "We don't feel safe. And they honestly don't care."

What's Actually Happening Here

On the surface, this looks like a procedural vote. A "ceremonial" gesture. A political statement wrapped in the language of a law enforcement partnership.

Buttttt if you've spent ANY time doing even slight research on political violence, you know that 

symbolism is never just symbolic when it comes to safety.

Children don't care about the difference between "ceremonial" and "actionable." They don’t care if adults are fighting, making a statement, trying to spite each other or get under each other’s skin. Why should they? They’re kids. Their job is to be kids.

And the adults in our community? That’s our job. To look out for them, to keep them safe, to shield them from the unnecessary drama and bad behavior of irresponsible adults. But instead of being blissfully unaware kids, caring about kid things, they’re trying to fight injustice being perpetrated by the people elected (or appointed…) to serve them. And instead of this being rewarded and encouraged, they’re hearing: We’re just doing our job. We know that you don’t want ICE in your schools. We hear that you feel unsafe. We’re listening to you. Butttt we don’t care. We’re the adults, and we want to show that we can do whatever we want, so ICE is welcome at your school. Sorry, not sorry.

This isn’t going in one ear and out the other.

It’s sending a message, loud and clear, shaping their perception of whether or not their voices matter. To be clear - when this many kids leave school to use their voices, to participate in civil activism, to express their fears, and trust the adults (that work for THEM, btw) to do whatever is in their power to keep them safe, and those adults disregard everything said over the course of 5 hours and do what they want to do, the kids are learning that their voices do not matter, and adults can’t be trusted to keep them safe, even when they make their wishes known “the right way”.

Bridget Ziegler said if the resolution is approved by the school board, “there will not be any changes to existing rules because the resolution just affirms current policy”.

What the Research Shows: The Ripple Effect Is Real

Allowing ICE in or near K-12 schools or passing resolutions that signal cooperation with increased levels of surveillance and enforcement creates what researchers call "ripple effects." These impacts extend far beyond undocumented students and hit U.S.-born children of immigrants, their classmates, and entire school communities. Here's what we know from recent studies in 2024 and 2025:

Academic Performance Plummets

When ICE enforcement increases, students' grades and test scores drop dramatically

In the classroom, teachers describe their students going from fully engaged learners to being unable to focus. Unsurprisingly, when students are scared that their family members might be arrested or deported, their brains can't concentrate on schoolwork or plan for the future. This fear doesn't just hurt individual, undocumented children, it slows down learning for entire classrooms and schools because teachers have to repeat lessons and adjust their teaching pace.

Attendance Drops

Even just rumors about ICE can keep students out of school immediately.

When ICE raids happen or local police begin collaborating with ICE, absences immediately jump by 11–22%, especially for younger students and Hispanic students (Kirksey, 2020; Bellows, 2019; Dee, 2025).

Elementary schoolers (who are at the most critical developmental periods for learning) miss the most school. Teachers report that students disappear overnight because families had to move suddenly or were too afraid to leave their homes, so classrooms become revolving doors of students. Some families move out of the district, and others pull their children out of public schools for good. This isn’t good for learning, or for the health (or wealth) of local school districts.

Since school funding is often tied to Average Daily Attendance (ADA), high absenteeism and enrollment drops can lead to a significant loss of state and federal revenue. Think about it. When 1 out of every 5 students (20%) stops showing up because of fear, schools lose funding. Schools get paid based on how many students attend, so when attendance drops, funding drops. This means cuts to sports, after-school clubs, and counseling services—programs that all families, including those with no immigration concerns, depend on.

Mental Health Takes a Direct Hit

Child psychologists say that when ICE shows up near schools, kids feel like "nowhere is safe."

Reports from UC Riverside School of Medicine show that children in families with mixed immigration statuses as well as kids who are U.S. citizens develop serious mental health problems when enforcement happens near their schools. Some children start acting like adults, trying to take care of and protect their families. The constant fear that a parent or they themselves might be arrested can cause PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), ongoing anxiety, and depression. For younger children, this fear can show up as behavior problems and trouble developing social and emotional skills.

When students no longer feel like they belong in their community (something every child needs) it damages their ability to grow up healthy and happy.

Being a U.S. citizen doesn't protect students from harmful effects

The 2025 Florida study found that test scores dropped by almost exactly the same amount for both foreign-born students and U.S.-born students who spoke Spanish at home. In other words, having citizenship doesn’t protect students from the damage caused by fear. Research from UCLA shows that ICE enforcement creates a ripple effect that makes all Latinx students feel less like they belong and increases bullying reports—whether they're citizens or not.

Did you know that 5 million children born U.S. citizens have at least one family member who is undocumented?

For these kids, ICE at school isn't a legal threat to them directly—but it is a threat to their family staying together. Watching their family members live in fear creates the same harmful stress as if they were undocumented themselves. Even families with ZERO deportation risk feel the damage when ICE shows up at schools:

  • Classroom disruption: Teachers have to pause or repeat lessons because so many students are absent or have suddenly disappeared. This slows down learning for everyone.

  • Student anxiety: A 2025 survey found that 87% of teachers in large districts said student anxiety about immigration enforcement was getting in the way of learning.

  • Loss of resources: 1 in 5 teachers (21%) said their school had to redirect significant resources away from regular education to crisis counseling instead.

  • Teacher burnout: Teachers in areas with high enforcement experience the same kind of exhaustion and burnout as social workers in trauma centers.

In other words: When fear walks into a classroom, it changes how every single student learns and connects with each other.

What This Means for Sarasota

Ziegler says this resolution "changes nothing." But here's what we know about how fear works in communities and in the bodies of children:

Fear doesn't wait for danger to be proven. Fear is activated by threat.

And this resolution—no matter how "ceremonial"—is a threat. It tells students and families: We are knowingly prioritizing a political stance over your sense of safety. Your voices don't change our agenda.

The students who spoke at that meeting weren't confused. They understood exactly what was happening. One said: "Schools, churches, hospitals should be sacred. But they're just not understanding that we don't feel safe."

Based on the research, here's what Sarasota can expect:

  • Immediate attendance drops, especially among elementary-aged Latinx students, triggering ADA funding losses

  • Achievement gaps widening as students fall behind at rates equivalent to missing weeks of instruction

  • Strained family-district relationships as trust erodes and enrollment drops

  • Overwhelmed support staff as counselors and social workers manage increased trauma and anxiety

  • Teacher burnout and turnover as educators absorb secondary trauma while trying to maintain instructional continuity

These aren't hypotheticals. These are documented patterns in districts that signal cooperation with ICE enforcement. And all of this will fall hardest on the students the district is supposed to serve.

Why This Is a Failure of Leadership

Leadership is not about making statements or ceremonial gestures. It's about creating conditions where the people you are leading can thrive.

The Sarasota County School District's mission is to "Engage, elevate, and empower every student, every day!" The role of the School Board is to set and implement policies that accomplishes this mission, and brings forth their vision to be the premier provider of education, empowering every student to thrive in the everchanging world through innovation and continuous improvement.

This resolution is a clear derailment to that mission, and is NOT leading us toward that vision. It demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what schools are supposed to do—and what leadership in education actually requires.

Let's assess this decision through DRSC's Culture Capacity Framework, which measures leadership across four dimensions: Relational Integrity, Structural Alignment, Sustainable Capacity, and Proactive Empowerment.

1. Relational Integrity: Broken ❌

Good leadership builds psychological safety—the foundation that allows students to learn, take risks, and grow. Bridget Ziegler’s resolution does the opposite. It signals to students and families: We do not prioritize your sense of safety. We will not protect you from harm, even when you tell us you are afraid.

Students stood up at that meeting and said, clearly and directly, "We don't feel safe." The Board's majority response was to vote for the resolution anyway. That is not leadership. That is a refusal to listen, care, or validate their concerns. It’s also a failure to engage healthy conflict, a cornerstone of relational health. When leaders dismiss the lived experiences of the people they serve, they destroy trust—and without trust, there is no learning.

2. Structural Alignment: Absent ❌

Schools exist to educate children. That is the mission. Every policy, every decision, every allocation of resources should align with that mission. This resolution does not.

Bridget Ziegler claims it is "imperative to ensure we keep our staff and students safe and that we keep a stable learning environment”. But the research is unambiguous: ICE enforcement near schools directly harms academic performance, attendance, and mental health. If your policies contradict your mission, they are not policies—they are obstacles.

The Board members who voted yes on this resolution have chosen to prioritize a political stance over the operational reality of running schools. That is a failure of Structural Alignment. When your systems don't support your stated values, you don't have values—you have PR.

3. Sustainable Capacity: Ignored ❌

This resolution places an immense burden on students, families, teachers, and counselors—without providing any additional support to manage that burden. Teachers are already stretched thin. Counselors are already overloaded. And now, the Board has introduced a policy that will increase absenteeism, widen achievement gaps, strain mental health resources, and accelerate teacher burnout.

Good leadership anticipates the consequences of high-risk decisions and builds in systems to absorb the stress. These Board members did neither. They introduced a stressor and walked away. That's not sustainable. It’s reckless.

Sustainable Capacity requires leaders to ask: "What will this cost our people, and how will we support them through it?"

Tom Edwards, the School Board Member for District 3, shared “I don’t ever want students to see another student or adult being taken away under gunpoint, I think that’s a traumatic experience, I think it’s scary for our students.” Ziegler, Marinelli and Rose made a conscious decision knowing that it could harm and even traumatize some students. They just don’t care.

4. Empowerment: Disregarded ❌

Students spoke up. Families spoke up. Teachers and community members spoke up. And the Board ignored them.

Empowerment is about creating conditions where people feel equipped to contribute, to dissent, and to lead from where they are. The Board's decision sends the opposite message: "Your voice doesn't matter. Your fear doesn't matter. We will do what we want, regardless of what you say."

That is not empowerment. That is silencing. And when leaders silence the people they serve, they lose legitimacy.

Leadership in education requires the courage to prioritize students' well-being over political theater. It requires the humility to listen when people say they are afraid. It requires the competence to align policies with the mission of the organization, even when you disagree on a personal level. And it requires the integrity to build systems that sustain—not harm—the people doing the work.

Three members of the Sarasota County School Board have demonstrated none of these qualities. Instead, they have chosen to use their platform and votes to amplify fear, undermine trust, and destabilize the very system they are supposed to steward. That is not leadership. That is negligence.

And the people who will pay the price are the students—all the students—who deserve better.

Dr. Essence Deming-Rivers
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