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Coming up next, Florida passes a ban on teaching critical race theory in the classroom but the definition of what it is, leads to controversy, we'll hear from both sides of the debate and we're now in hurricane season.

So what do local emergency managers fear the most about the threat from hurricanes.

All this and more, next on Florida This Week.

(lively music) Welcome back, in the meeting in Jacksonville this week, the Florida Board of Education unanimously passed restrictions on the way history is taught in public schools.

The Board of Education is controlled by the governor and it voted to ban teaching what's called critical race theory in grades K through 12 and it banned teaching about The New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning Project 1619, which looked at the 400 year history of racism in the US, the new regulation limiting what is okay, list some ideas that will no longer be allowed to be taught.

The regulations say examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with state board approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust and the teaching of critical race theory.

Meaning the theory that racism is not merely a product of prejudice but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.

Instruction may not utilize material from the 1619 project and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the declaration of independence.

Although critical race theory is not currently taught in Florida, there have been three attempts to teach it, according to Governor Ron DeSantis and he spoke in favor of the ban before the meeting.

- We have to do history that is factual and if you look at things that have grown out of that critical race theory, it's much more about trying to craft narratives about history that are not grounded in fact.

- Before the board voted to approve the limits on what can be taught, they heard strong comments from the public pro and con.

- I could tell that the textbooks that we've had here in Florida under common core, they are indoctrinating our children.

Thank God for Ron DeSantis, who decided to do away with it.

- Teachers should be allowed to teach the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly.

- We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

Well, there's a lie right there at that time in our history and our nation, black people were not pro.. we're property and they weren't even considered to be people.

I don't understand why we just can't teach the truth and let students develop their own ideas.

- The question we have before us is what will we teach our children about the nature of who we are?

What we judge one another by the color of our skin is critical race theory demands we must or where we would Dr. King judge one another by the content of our character.

- Black history is American history.

We will not let you erase our history because it makes you uncomfortable, allow critical race theory to be taught because you can't know where you're going without knowing where you've been.

- Critical race theory is nothing more than cultural marxism.

It attempts to separate society into a group of oppressors and the oppressed and the solution from CRT is to simply destroy the institutions of our country.

- The fact to the matter is that black and brown lives have not been treated equal and we need to address that we need to talk about it and by anyone saying that we should take it out and that it's not necessarily true, that's propaganda in itself, if they're not ready to face history then they shouldn't be in power.

- [Rob] Also this week, Orlando Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, and now she's running for the US Senate seat now held by Republican Marco Rubio.

- I'm running for the United States Senate because of two simple words, never tired.

- [Rob] In a video statement posted to Twitter in response, Rubio criticized Demings as a do nothing house member.

- I'm looking forward to this campaign because it's going to offer the people of Florida a very clear the difference.

- We're here to talk about critical race theory is Christian Ziglar.

He's the vice chair of the Sarasota County Commission, he's also the vice chairman of the Republican party of Florida and he joins us now, Christian welcome back to Florida This Week.

- Rob, I appreciate the opportunity to join you today.

- So let me ask you, do you know where the line is between teaching black history and teaching critical race theory?

Is that line clear to you?

- I think it's very clear.

Look, when I grew up, we dove into black history a lot and the impact that African-Americans have had on the founding of this country, we all learned about MLK.

We all learned about even before that Harriet Tubman, Emmett Till's from the horrific stuff that happened in the school in Alabama with that little girl, just trying to go to school that was all infused into our history lessons and we learned about it.

The difference here is with critical race theory, what this does, is it is basically indoctrinating our kids, shaming Americans, teaching them to hate America, but also teaching them that everyone's divided solely on skin color and what it does is basically critical race theory lays out that you are either an oppressor or you're oppressed solely by your skin color and I don't agree with that.

I actually stand with Martin Luther King Jr. when he stood up and he said, I have a dream that my children will not be judged by their skin color but instead by the content of their character and that's what we need to be focused on because when I was a kid, I remember, there was a lot of focus on race before my generation then during my generation, the whole lessons were, hey, let's ignore race, let's focus on people but actually being people not different colors, not different races and now we're coming back and now, yes, we are all different by race, that's what people are telling us now to listen and frankly I look at people they're either Americans or not.

That's the first criteria for me.

- So if somebody were to teach about institutional racism that is maybe looking at that hundred year period after the civil war where blacks were systematically denied voting in the south that that was part of the institution or when blacks had a hard time and were denied mortgages, that there was a lot of red lining going on from 1930 through the 1960s, that's part of institutional racism.

Would that be allowed to be taught under this new rule?

Well, I think when you go back in history and if there's clear documentation and clear events that have occurred that is being taught in schools, I believe, I mean we hear about some of these cases that you mentioned.

The different is here it's when they start infusing it and they start looking at today and they start trying to define our kids and basically what it is, is it's state sanctioned segregation and we don't need that.

We need to be focused on really encouraging all our kids, no matter what race they are that they have a chance to achieve the American dream if they work hard and they hustle and my girls, it's interesting, I'm a father of a seven year old, five year old, two year old and I watched my oldest with her friends that happened to be other colors, right.

And she never noticed it, the only time she noticed it is when an adult pulled her aside and explained the difference in races and it kind of crushed me that day when I saw that because I knew a lot of things would change from that moment on but there was this period of innocence that was so glorious and amazing to see and when I don't wanna see other adults pulling my kids aside and basically telling them how and why they should think and basically indoctrinating them, that's what's going on and I would rather them look at their friends, look, this is my friend, this is her name, this is what she does, this is how smart she is and talk in that way, then rather than diving into their skin color and saying look we're different because our skin is different and I just..

I think that's the wrong way to go, I feel like American made a lot of progress after some of the stuff that happened in the fifties and even the sixties and we made a lot of progress and now we're turning back and we're actually taking steps backwards now.

So, you say that that's what's going on, is if it's being taught but even the governor admits it's not being taught here in Florida, especially through K through 12.

It is being taught in some academic courses in colleges and law schools, but it's not being taught in K through 12, so why was there a need to do this?

I mean, this is.. for instance, - Well.

if the governor's planning to run for president, is this part of a stepping stone on his run for president?

- Well, two things, number one, it's great to get ahead of an issue, right?

And be proactive, we don't see government do that enough.

So thankfully, Governor DeSantis has his pulse on what some of these other states are doing and what people are trying to bring into our city, that's number one Number two is my wife's actually on the school board and I'll give you.. Critical race theory maybe the exact name people might say is not in the school districts yet, but I will tell you here even in Sarasota county, this is last fall.

Parents approached my wife and there was a 10 minute video about black lives matter how important it is, how systematic racism's out there and how important it is to defund the police.

This is the type of indoctrination that's going on in our schools and it may not be titled critical race theory but it is just as concerning, so I think when they put these guidelines out there and they're making sure people teaching true history, true facts, true current events, that they're not infusing some of this messaging, I'm telling you, these third graders, third graders had access, it was a video on BrainPOP which is actually a software that is across the state multiple school districts.

Any third grader could go on there when you watched it, it was a 9 minute recruitment video for black lives matter and it mentioned how great it was that Minneapolis had quote unquote re-imagined their police force which is defunding their police force and there are plenty of other topics that are on that platform that are concerning.

And again, indoctrination.

So I actually, I get what the governor is saying but I think there's a lot of concerning stuff in our curriculum that needs to be looked at and I appreciate him stepping up and blocking critical race theory from occurring in our schools.

- And that video is something that you would want blocked from your school, in all schools here in Florida, nobody could play that.

Well, what they did is they turned around and they said, look, parents have to opt their kids in if they want their kids to see it and what's important is, this is the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Liberals, they wanna force their agenda, force their thoughts and force their priorities and their ideology on us.

Conservatives, we say leave it up to the parents, - Okay.

- leave it up to the home.

So look at these kids and these parents want to teach our kids certain stuff.

They can do that in the comfort - Okay.

- of their own home.

We're just saying don't use our tax dollars and don't if impact my kids that I don't want to be taught that stuff.

Christian, thank you very much for coming on Florida This Week.

- Appreciate Rob and have a great day.

(upbeat music) - At the center of the controversy over teaching about racism in Florida is the teacher who was removed from her job for hanging a black lives matter flag in her 12th grade classroom.

Amy Donofrio, she's here along with her Attorney Bacardi Jackson, Amy welcome back to Florida This Week.

- Thank you for having me.

- Amy the governor says this rule will stop teachers from indoctrinating students.

You're a history teacher.

You're up there in Jacksonville by teaching critical race theory, do you think that that is indoctrinating students?

And did you teach critical race theory?

Well, I want to say first I'm an English teacher, so I'm not History teacher And no there's..

The accusation is focused on the flag and my support of my black students and their right to speak.

But as far as the new rule goes, I was there yesterday.

It's concerning.

I wonder..

I wonder if it's even possible to teach black history to teach about some of the systemic racism that's occurred in our country such as slavery, Jim Crow and comply by this new rule.

I think a lot of teachers have questions right now.

- Well, that's what I want to ask you, is the line clear by passing this rule, has the state made it clear when a teacher is crossing the line from teaching black history to teaching something that's now been outlawed by the state?

- I can always speak as a teacher, right?

Not from a legal perspective but as a teacher looking at it where it says, You know, it must not suppress significant historical events such as slavery, the civil war reconstruction.

I'm not sure how you follow that mandate to teach it correctly, to teach it factually, and not discuss the way that built into that system of slavery.

For example, Jim Crow were laws that oppressed specific groups of people, to me, it feels contradictory, it feels confusing, and I think I'm not alone when I say that teachers are gonna have a lot of questions and quite honestly, I think a lot of teachers are scared.

- Bacardi, is this a free speech issue?

Do you feel like as an attorney, a lawsuit could be filed based on the first amendment and restricting the speech of teachers?

- Well, I'm not exactly sure if it's a free speech issue.

I do think it's probably a due process issue and that it is extremely vague.

And as Ms. Donofrio just expressed, it's not quite clear what a teacher can teach.

It will have the effect that the governor intents is to chill the teaching of truth, to chill the teaching of real history.

It's not just black history, but American history.

And that is deeply concerning.

Teachers may be facing sanctions, may lose licenses, may lose their jobs with this vague awful language that is just about stifling movements towards diversity, equity and equality.

- And that's the constitutional standard if something is vague courts ruled that then the law's unconstitutional, am I right?

- That is the case in many instances certainly.

Bacardi, Amy was removed from the classroom because she hung a black lives matter flag in her classroom.

Under this new rule, would you expect that now it would be against the rules in all Florida classrooms to hang a black lives matter flag?

Well, I think education commissioner Corcoran has already made clear that it is his intent to police all 185,000 teachers in Florida and his intent is to see them fired and terminated and otherwise disciplined if they do anything that he considers in his quote is crazy liberal stuff.

So this is about particular political ideology that they are seeking to shut down.

Black Lives Matter is not a political movement, that is about supporting any political party or candidate or issue.

- Amy, let me go back to you for a second.

Do you know any teachers who are teaching critical race theory or who are using the New York Times 1619 Project in their classrooms?

- I think most teachers are thinking the same thing I did when this topic first came up, which is most of us don't even really know what critical race theory is.

So I doubt (chuckles) and it's being taught when there's not really a clear understanding for most teachers I know of what that is, I think most teachers are teaching factual history.

I think, actually most teachers, particularly history teachers are passionate about teaching through facts and so it's concerning that could now be a dangerous thing for a teacher in Florida.

- Well, Amy Donofrio and Bacardi Jackson, thank you for coming on Florida This Week.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - The 2021 hurricane season began June 1st.

The season lasts from now until November 30th, since 2000, Florida's felt the impact of 79 hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions, all told.

They've killed 339 people in Florida and caused more than a hundred twenty billion dollars in damage.

In that time period, the largest and most damaging storm to hit Florida was Michael, which made landfall in the Panhandle in October of 2018.

It was a category five storm with highest winds reaching 160 miles an hour.

Michael devastated a wide area, including Mexico beach and parts of Panama city, killing 59 people as it made its way through Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Last year, there was so much storm activity the national hurricane center ran out of names from the English alphabet and had to begin using the Greek one.

This year, the nation's top hurricane forecast to say, we should expect another active above normal season experts from Colorado State University among the nation's top hurricane forecasters predict 17 named tropical storms will form, eight of which will become hurricanes.

If that prediction holds true, it will be the sixth consecutive above normal season.

Of the eight predicted hurricanes, four are expected to spin into major ones, Category three, four or five with top sustained winds of 111 miles an hour or greater.

The group says there's a 69% chance that at least one of those major hurricanes will make landfall somewhere in the US.

- [Laura] Fairytales always start off with once upon a time, disaster stories tend to happen with, I never thought it would happen to me.

My biggest fear is that you have those last minute calls to 911 as the storm is coming in and responders can no longer, be able to respond to help you out.

- Circuiting together your go kit if you've already had one or a hurricane supply kit, go through it, check what's expired.

- And a big thing we saw again back in hurricane Irma was know when not to evacuate, we had a lot of people in high and dry and well built homes evacuating to shelters when they didn't need to, we were running out of space for those that need to.

- So the three tenants that we advise people to do this time of year is one, know your risk.

Two, make a plan, and three, stay informed.

Yeah, I'm most concerned about the coastal area in regards to storm surge.

We have also have many low lying areas which could be prone to flooding just from the rainfall but there's also the areas where a lot of our at risk populations live.

- So if you have an other home or a mobile home that could be substantial wind damage that's a big concern for us.

- Be prepared for the storm follower instruction, evacuate when needed.

- We always recommend people go tenths of miles, not hundreds of miles.

- We try and coach everyone to run from the water or hide from the wind.

This year, we have our hurricane guides in three languages, English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Find these online.

You can find them at the libraries.

- If you type one word Manateeready to 888777 that's your short text message from us.

- We definitely encourage residents to sign up for our alert passcode.

So it's our standard pascocountyfl.net/365.

Maybe it's in a year, we're prepared for all of them, 365.

- Well there we heard from the emergency managers in Pasco county and Pinellas and Manatee county and we're joined now by Hillsborough county, Emergency Management Operations Director, Timothy Dudley.

He previously worked in emergency management and planning in Pinellas county, also served at US special operations command in Tampa as a Sergeant Major, Timothy Dudley.

Thanks for joining us on Florida This Week.

- Oh, how are you?

Glad to be here.

- It's great to have you here.

So would you add anything to that list with what your colleagues said, is there anything else that you'd like to add to that list about what maybe your biggest fear is, or what's the best way to prepare long before hurricane hits?

You Know, The Tampa Bay area is become a premier area for work and play and we have a lot of new folks coming in the area and our biggest fear is with the new folks coming in, not being familiar with what type of handles that we have here in Hillsborough county, Tampa Bay area, and in them not being prepared for that unexpected impact that may come.

Well, thousand new people moved to Florida every day and a lot of them move right here to the Tampa, Sarasota, Citrus county area and Polk county.

So what's the first step if somebody has just moved here and hasn't experienced the brush with a storm, what's the first step would it be to identify your evacuation zone if you live in one?

- Absolutely, you wanna visit the county website or your local website, ours just happened to be hdfldub.net/staysafe.

And once you visit that site, we have all the information that you need to identify how to prepare your hazard kit, how to put together good plan if you do need to evacuate and that includes looking up your evacuation zone and it also includes little information for HCFL alert where you can get all the latest information and we'll have our disaster as available also in our local libraries and other public places.

- If you were to name two or three things that people often forget when they evacuated for a hurricane they forget to take from their house, I think people are taking their cell phones and their medicine but what also do some.. What do people sometimes forget when they're evacuating?

Sure, you want to get all the important papers you may need, especially any papers that have to do with your insurance information for your home.

This time of year is the best time to double check that insurance and make sure that you have enough insurance that covers a flood impact that may occur, quite often some folks forget about that.

And also don't forget the important documentation of medication for your pets as well.

Okay, so if you live in a home with somebody who's disabled or if you live in a home with an invalid and you're maybe you're in an evacuation zone, what should you be thinking about right now before the storms hit?

Sure, we definitely wanna keep our eye out on our most vulnerable population.

That's our special needs, folks, and we have a registration for them.

Again, you can either visit Hillsborough county Department of Health and they can pre-register for those that might have some transportation challenges or they have some underlying medical conditions that does not bad enough for a hospital but not they're sensitive enough where they should be in our general population shelters, but we have special needs shelters for them and they can go to htfldub.net/staysafe again and pre register and we can do some of that free triage to make sure we have in the right place and in a safe place as well before the last minute.

- Timothy, you've probably heard this.

A lot of people say, well, the Tampa Bay area hasn't had a direct hit since the 1920s and this area is safe from a hurricane.

Sure a hurricane is gonna hit New Orleans or the Panhandle, it's gonna hit the East Coast and Miami and the Keys, but Tampa Bay is fairly immune from being hit.

What would you say to those folks that say that?

I'll tell you, here in emergency management, this is all hazards business and we encourage our citizens and folks visiting Hillsborough County we have to be ready for any and all hazards, your disaster kit, knowing where your important papers are, knowing how you get out if you have to evacuate for any type of situation.

So we encourage you throughout the year to have all of your emergency items identified, have a good plan.

If you're gonna go visit with family.

So, we're always gonna prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

- Well, Timothy Dudley, let's hope we have a safe season.

Great to see you.

Thanks for coming on the program.

- Thank you so much.

Stay safe.

(upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

Your comments are always welcome.

Please write us at FTW@wedu.org.

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