Brevard parents and teachers share concerns ahead of new school year

Parents and teachers alike traditionally have a lot on their minds as students head back to class — and for many in Brevard Public Schools, that "lot" runs particularly deep this year.

While every school year comes with its own challenges and concerns, the upcoming one is particularly different in Brevard County and Florida, from a glut of teacher resignations and retirements to new state standards that could affect everything from what books are available in the library to the names students may go by.

FLORIDA TODAY spoke to several teachers and parents ahead of BPS' Aug. 10 start date, including educators prepping their classrooms.

Here's a look at some of the issues they're considering, as well as what they're looking forward to.

Staffing within the district

For Anthony Colucci, president of Brevard Teachers Federation, teacher vacancies are a top concern, as a lack of teachers pushes more students into fewer classrooms.

"What that means for them is larger class sizes, which negatively impacts students," he said, adding that teachers may also have to substitute in more classes when other teachers are absent.

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Adam Tritt, an advanced placement English teacher at Bayside High School, said the loss of teachers in the district has impacted him directly. He won't have a planning period and will instead have to take his work home. Additionally, his classes will be fuller.

"They tend to shuttle students who have not tested well enough to be in (honors classes) into honors classes, because honors classes don't have a size cap," he said.

"I'm going to have a ton of students in the classes that should be smaller so they can get individual attention. Not only will I be incapable of giving them the individual attention they need in an AP class, but I will have to spend the extra time with the students who came in the class without having the appropriate skills to come into the class."

Russell Bruhn, spokesperson for the district, said in an email to FLORIDA TODAY that the district is covered staff-wise for the start of the year, adding that there are 142 instructional openings and that the district has hired 379 teachers since May and is still processing applicants.

Inclusive environment for students

Tritt has kept a pride flag up in his classroom for several years as a way to let students know they’re accepted and safe. As he set up his room Wednesday, it was still there, along with his collection of books. He was surprised they hadn’t been removed, and worried they still could be prior to the start of school.

“It’s going to be difficult,” he said. “I’m probably going to have to come right out and say, ‘By the way, this is a safe, inclusive class. I cannot tell you exactly what I mean by that … but you are all welcome here, regardless of what Florida state law say.’”

Tritt, who has been a teacher off and on since the '80s, is autistic, a fact he speaks openly about with his students in an effort to improve communication during class time and to remind them that everyone is different.

“We are all different,” he said. “And (I want them to know) if you need to talk to me about how you can be made to feel more comfortable, please feel free to come and talk to me about that. And that’s how we generally start our year.”

What teachers can and can’t say specifically to students is murky, said George Derr, another advanced placement teacher at Bayside. Derr, who teaches AP history and English, mentioned the state guidelines, which prohibit teachers from referring to transgender students by their chosen names or pronouns and don’t allow teachers to discuss sexuality or gender with students. But those guidelines are different across Florida school districts, he said.

“Some districts are overreacting to (the state guidelines) by going way overboard one way, other districts are doing a test method, and it’s so much inconsistency all the way around,” Derr said. “It just feels like we’re being set up to fail.”

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Derr, who has taught at Bayside for 10 years and has been a teacher for 30, said the guidelines don’t fully align with Brevard’s teacher code of ethics. They also go against what teachers have been taught for years as to how to form relationships with their students.

“You can’t go 10 years telling teachers that we need to make personal relationships with the students and bring more of who we are into the class to make the class more inviting, and then freak out when people who are nonbinary are themselves,” he said. “You can’t tell us to do one thing and then when we do it, be upset that we did it.”

Kelly Kervin, mom to an eighth-grader in BPS’ virtual school and a ninth-grader attending in-person public school, said she’s worried about her older daughter and her friends with the new guidelines, and guidelines the district may put in place to align with the state.

“My biggest concern for Samantha … is that BPS is going to enact policies that target individuals, and she’s going to watch a friend be affected by that,” Kervin said. “She’s not going to shut her mouth, because she’s not the kid who sits down and just quietly obeys.”

Kervin added that she feels many kids — even those not directly impacted by state and local guidelines — will be bothered seeing their siblings or friends targeted.

“(This generation) has no problem calling out hypocrisy, and they have no problems calling out discrimination,” she said. “And so I know for my daughter, that if she witnesses an event like that, it’s going to disrupt her day, because that’s what she’s going to be focused on. And I know that there are countless Samanthas throughout this district here who are to experience those same kinds of feelings.”

Governmental overreach

Politics have crept into the classroom over the past few years, from discussions about critical race theory during the earlier days to the pandemic to more recent standards regarding how educators teach Black history — with the Board of Education saying teachers must include the idea that slavery could have been beneficial for some enslaved people.

“I just wish the government would stay out of education,” Derr said, adding that while public education is funded by the government, he doesn’t believe politics should be in the classroom.

The guidances officials have given, from not talking about LGBTQ issues to teaching mental health, have not been clear and are an overreach of power, Derr said.

“They have usurped local control from the school districts for how the districts are going to run,” he said. “Some districts are overreacting to that by going way overboard one way, other districts are doing a test method, and it’s just so much inconsistency all the way around. It just feels like we’re being set up to fail.”

Colucci said the teachers' union is still working to figure out how best to follow state guidelines while not teaching inaccurate history when it comes to slavery.

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"Our state organization is gathering guidance on what that really means to the classroom teachers," he said. "How to still teach accurate history without breaking the law. We don't advocate for our members to put their certificates in jeopardy or anything like that."

Bruhn said teachers are prepared to comply with new state and local standards.

"We have held several training sessions over the summer to prepare staff," he said.

Marcus Hochman, a varying exceptionalities support teacher at Golfview Elementary Magnet School in Rockledge, doesn’t have to worry about some of the new guidelines as much due to the age group of his students. But still, he said he feels restricted on what he can and can’t do. At a recent board meeting, he spoke during public comment, asking the board to let him have more of a say in what books he uses in his classroom.

“Give me the autonomy I need — let me pick my own books out for my kids, because they’re at a lower level,” he said. “I want that autonomy, trust me to do it. Trust me to make that decision.”

He added that while he has more independence as a support teacher, many of his colleagues have also felt frustrated by local and state guidelines.

“For my fellow teachers, I’ve heard a lot saying, ‘We’re getting our autonomy taken away at the state level, district level, etc.,” he said.

Susan Hammerling-Hodgers, mom to four kids ranging from 3 years old to a 10th-grader, is a Republican. She said she’s felt frustrated because she believes in smaller government and has seen the opposite from the Florida Legislature and Brevard’s conservative-majority school board.

“You’re way overreaching, and you’re not giving people freedom and liberty, so I think it’s just hypocritical,” she said. “Let people have freedom, let them do what they want. If they want to read a book, great. If they don’t want to read a book, great. If they want to read about the history, great. … But don’t be carving it out for everybody thinking that’s what’s best for them (based on what’s) good for me and my family.”

Board actions raise questions

For both Hammerling-Hodgers and Kervin, the school board and what they may or may not do over the course of the next year is a top concern as they prepare to send their kids back to school.

Hammerling-Hodgers, who has started attending board meetings on occasion after working on board member Gene Trent’s election campaign, expressed frustration with how board meetings are run, saying there’s a lack of decorum between other attendees and that she was personally berated by supporters of Trent after she publicly questioned the investigation into his teaching application.

“If you have people that are vocal at the school board meetings opposing the majority of the school board, are they going to retaliate on their families?” Hammerling-Hodgers said. “It does make me concerned, but I still think that people should speak up because if you don’t speak up, then you just let the people run amok, and that’s not the majority of Brevard.”

Kervin said she wants to see more common sense and compassion from the board.

“What I feel like the board used to be was they would look at the state and the recommendations, and if they didn’t agree with them, or they wanted to kind of tweak where they could … or just to make it fit our district, there was wiggle room,” she said.

“And now I feel like we’re stuck with a majority that’s like, ‘Well, DeSantis said this, so this is what we’re going to get,’ without taking into account the thoughts and feelings of the people who work there and the families with kids there.”

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Kervin is also concerned that the board hasn’t been more proactive in general, especially when it comes to House Bill 1, which created a universal voucher system. This year, she wants them to listen to the community more and also be more open with how they’re handling issues within the district.

“It’s like they take the feedback, they hear the feedback, but they never do anything with the feedback,” she said. “I would find it refreshing if they would actually talk about the concerns, if they would actually be like, ‘Hey, we’re having a staffing issue. Here’s what we’re doing about it. Hey, we’re having an issue with this, this is what we’re doing about it.’ But everything, because it’s all PR, has to be, ‘oh, we’re positive, positive, positive.’”

Hammerling-Hodgers is hopeful that starting the new year with Mark Rendell, who stepped into the role of superintendent June 1, will be a positive for the district.

“I’m just hoping that … if there is something that the board tries to push through, that he calls them out on it,” she said. “Fair is fair, and you’ve got to do what’s best for the community, not for whoever they’re friends with on the board.”

Discipline and parental involvement

Hochman thinks teacher retention rates would improve dramatically if discipline issues were handled better within schools. It starts with parents taking ownership in their children's education, he said.

"If you had that, more parents being involved, there'd be less discipline issues," he said. "Get involved in your child's education. Make sure they're making good choices in school. Go to parent conference nights. Have that open communication with the teacher."

Derr said cell phones cause a huge disruption in class, saying they can distract students and also cause an environment where both students and teachers feel like they may be filmed at any moment. Though BPS approved a policy April 11 restricting the use of cell phones and banning the filming of teachers and other students, Derr is uncertain how this year will go.

"The cell phones are hard to enforce when the parents feel entitled to contact the child at any time during the day," he said.

Colucci said BFT is grateful the district has begun working toward a better discipline policy. But he wishes there had been more progress by now.

"We would have liked to see more in place for this year," he said.

Looking forward

Despite the unknowns and stressors, there's much the parents and teachers are looking forward to. Kervin said she's excited for her daughter to get to experience high school and homecoming. Hochman is happy to see his students again. Derr is hoping to maintain a high success rate in his classes, saying both his AP English Literature and AP U.S. History classes had the highest success rates for those courses last year out of the past five years.

Though he sees the difficulties teachers face each day, the first day of school is never about that, Colucci said.

"When all is said and done, the chaos that has been this district for a couple years now is not what our teachers and students are going to be thinking about on the first day of school," Colucci said.

"Our teachers are excited to have their students back and to start a brand new school year. ... And despite all the chaos, all the negativity, all the turmoil, that excitement of the first day of school is still there for teachers and students."

Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at 321-290-4744 or [email protected]. Twitter: @_finchwalker.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: As a new school year looms, Brevard teachers. parents share concerns