The Sarasota County School Board voted to cut certain terminology protecting race, religion, sexual orientation, and more from the district’s code of conduct.
The current code of conduct states that all students have the right to attend school without regard to race, color, sexual orientation, or other protected classes.
The revised version is broader, referring instead to “all students” having the right to a safe and secure learning environment, with no mention of those classifications.
Tom Edwards, Sarasota’s only openly gay school board member, voted against the change.
“I personally have been in a situation many times on the dais where all and every meant exactly that to me. But I can’t trust my colleagues that all and every means that to them.” Edwards said.
But School Board member Bridget Ziegler calls the words a false sense of protection.
“We have created a far too divisive culture, and it actually has hurt individuals because they feel by virtue of whatever they look like, or whatever they identify as, are in fact victims, not victors.” Ziegler said.
The change to the code of conduct language passed 3-2.
Sarasota County EMTs have new high-tech tool to help save lives
The Sarasota County Fire Department has a new tool to deliver immediate life-saving care in emergencies.
The Butterfly iQ3 ultrasound system allows paramedics to conduct live telemedicine consults with the department’s EMS medical directors, who can see the patient and ultrasound images in real-time.
Beforehand, paramedics could only check a patient’s blood pressure and other parameters to determine if they were bleeding internally. Now, the ultrasound will speed up the process to see if a patient needs a blood transfusion, a program that began in February, already saving more than 15 lives.
“We wanted to make sure we didn’t miss any patients that might have issues. That might be internal bleeding internally that we would never have known. If they’re bleeding internally, we don’t have CT scanners on our trucks or x-rays, but the technology is now to where we can have ultrasounds hooked to iPads on our trucks,” said Sarasota County Assistant Chief of EMS Operations Brian Nadler.
The ultrasound machines are carried in EMS captains’ vehicles throughout the county.
The machines were purchased with funds from a state grant and complement the fire department’s whole blood program. Only a handful of fire departments in the country can do blood transfusions.
