VIERA, Fla. – The Brevard County School Board is scheduled to discuss its public comment policy Tuesday during a work session following its 9 a.m. regular meeting at the Educational Services Facility in Viera. The discussion follows weeks of disagreement among board members over when, where and whether the issue would be heard in public.
The discussion was requested by District 3 board member John Thomas, who has proposed changes that would livestream and archive all public comment, move non-agenda comment earlier in the meeting, and allow speakers up to three minutes on each individual agenda item.
In a Sept. 11 Facebook post announcing the dates, Thomas wrote that the board’s business “is the public’s business” and that discussions about policies affecting the public’s ability to address the board “should be open, accessible, and easy for the public to follow.” He added that he would reserve substantive discussions with fellow board members for properly noticed public meetings, consistent with Florida’s Sunshine Law.
Agenda item pulled Sept. 10
The issue was originally listed on the board’s Sept. 10 work session agenda as “Public Comment Policy Discussion,” with an agenda item summary and a copy of the district’s public participation policy attached.
The item appeared on the agenda posted at 11:30 a.m. that day but was gone from a version posted at 12:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before the 1 p.m. work session. The group, which is registered as a political action committee, posted side-by-side images of the two agenda versions and attributed the removal to board chair Matt Susin. BPS Watch said Thomas had requested the discussion several times in recent months.
During the Sept. 10 work session, according to video posted by the group, Thomas said he preferred to hold the discussion at the board’s regular Sept. 22 work session. Susin proposed instead taking it up at the board’s off-site workshop on Sept. 15, and District 2 board member Gene Trent agreed. Thomas objected and again argued for Sept. 22.
BPS Watch argued that off-site workshops are generally not recorded or televised and draw few members of the public.
Thomas memo lays out three proposals
At the Sept. 15 workshop, held at the Brevard Veterans Memorial Center on Merritt Island, Thomas gave board members a memorandum titled “Proposed Revisions to Public Comment Policy and Procedures.”
In the memo, Thomas wrote that every restriction on public participation “should serve a legitimate and necessary purpose,” and that while order and efficiency qualify, “Our own comfort or convenience should not be.”
He wrote that the board’s central question should not be the minimum access the law requires, but “the maximum amount of reasonable public access” the board can provide while keeping meetings orderly and functional.
His three proposals are:
Livestream and archive all public comment. Under current practice, only agenda-item comments are part of the board’s regular broadcast. Thomas proposed including both agenda and non-agenda comment in the livestream and archived recording. He wrote that the board has spent “considerable time” deciding whether a speaker’s remarks belong in the agenda or non-agenda portion of the meeting, and that broadcasting all comment would simplify the process.
Move non-agenda comment before the consent agenda. Non-agenda speakers now wait until near the end of meetings that can run for hours. Thomas wrote that for some residents the wait is an inconvenience and for others “a genuineThree minutes per agenda item. Speakers are currently limited to a single three-minute period covering all agenda matters. Thomas proposed allowing up to three minutes on each individual item before the board votes on it.Thomas noted that Florida law requires boards to give members of the public a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before them, while allowing boards to set reasonable procedures for that opportunityA policy with a legal historyThe board’s public comment rules have drawn scrutiny for years. In 2023, the board approved a policy that split public comment into two parts and cut off live broadcasting of non-agenda comments, a change prompted in part by concerns that speakers might read explicit material from challenged books aloud at meetings under HB 1069. BPS Watch says Brevard’s school board is now the only government body in the county that does not record and publish all public comment.Separately, in October 2024, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that the board’s prohibitions on “abusive,” “personally directed” and “obscene” comments violated the First Amendment. The lawsuit was brought by Moms for Liberty’s Brevard chapter and several parents, represented by the Institute for Free Speech. Susin, then vice chair, was a named defendant.In January 2025, after attorneys said the board continued to enforce those rules, a federal judge in Orlando issued a temporary restraining order barring the board from enforcing or even reciting the restrictions at meetings.Tuesday’s work session is open to the public. Work sessions do not include a vote, so any policy changes would need to come back before the board through its formal rulemaking process.The Space Coast Rocket will update this story with the outcome of today’s discussion.
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