In 2021, Palm Beach County left the Florida School Board Association after its then-president made offensive remarks about immigrant students.
Grove Park Elementary receives a visit from Mike Burke on the first day of school
Mike Burke, superintendent of Palm Beach County Schools, welcomes students on the first day of school at Grove Park Elementary in Palm Beach Gardens.
Three years after leaving the Florida School Board Association in protest of racist comments by its president, Palm Beach County school superintendents are considering rejoining the organization, which provides training for elected officials and lobbies on behalf of member school boards.
On Wednesday, all but one of the school board representatives agreed that they were interested in renewing the district’s membership after Chris Patricca, who remains a member of the Lee County School Board, left the organization.
The board will officially vote on the matter at its meeting on September 4, but there was far from consensus on Wednesday about re-entry.
“She is a despicable person,” school board member Alexandria Ayala said of the association’s former president. “I will never join this organization.”
In 2021, Patricca said, school principals face challenges when working with students with a migrant background because they are “fascinated by sanitation” and spend a lot of time in the toilet “because they have never seen running water.” She had only been in the association’s top position for three months.
Community groups, including the Guatemalan Maya Center in Lake Worth Beach, immediately called the comments offensive and joined other groups in calling for her resignation. Videos later surfaced of Patricca saying she “didn’t really know” what challenges LGBTQ+ students face, which also angered LGBTQ+ community groups.
The chairman of the school board, whose comments offended several groups, remained for three more years
However, Patricca retained her role as president and remained associated with the organization until 2023.
She no longer serves as a leader or member of the FSBA’s board of directors, according to the group’s website. Patricca, a former attorney and adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, also served on the board of the Florida High School Athletics Association – where in 2023 she was one of two people who voted to keep questions about student-athletes’ periods on registration forms, which parents called intrusive.
However, Patricca’s three years of involvement with the association was enough to convince Ayala, an outgoing member of the school board, to clearly reject any future membership.
“She made completely unacceptable, disgusting comments, not just about Hispanic students, but about LGBTQ students,” Ayala said. “She said the things she said. The organization then kept her for three years. She was there from 2020 to 2023 as the incumbent president. They did nothing.”
Patricca did not respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.
From 2021: PBC school board terminates FSBA membership over comments about Guatemalan and LGBTQ students
Palm Beach County considers rejoining association as ‘racist,’ as one board member put it, disappears
Board members Edwin Ferguson, Frank Barbieri and Karen Brill agreed that it was time to reconsider joining the organization, especially since three new school board members will replace Ayala, Barbieri and Barbara McQuinn, who are not running for re-election.
“There was a high-ranking member of the FSBA who, as far as I can tell, was a racist,” Ferguson said Wednesday. “That person is no longer associated with the FSBA, and the FSBA was a great help to the board when we were members.”
Membership in the association costs the school district about $30,000 each year, Ayala said. According to its website, it offers online training and consultations with school board members, election tracking assistance, principal searches, and legal and financial services. The organization publishes a legislative platform each year and had four registered lobbyists in the legislature in 2024, according to lobbyist registration records.
“Given the fact that we’re going to have not one, not two, but three people who have never been on (school) boards before, I think it’s a wise use of district funds if we rejoin as a school district.”
The Palm Beach County School Board will add three new members in November after voters choose new representatives from Boca Raton and the Jupiter area in the general election. Virginia Savietto, who won Ayala’s Greenacres and Palm Springs-area seat unopposed, will join the two new members.
During Wednesday’s discussion, at least one board member expressed concern that the board’s resignations left them out of the loop, particularly since the association had lobbied on behalf of school boards against disruptive education-related legislation in recent years.
“I don’t think our absence has accomplished anything,” board member Erica Whitfield said after condemning Patricca’s 2021 comments. “Despite all the lobbying that’s going on there, we’re not there to have the influence that we should have as such a large school district.”
All of Florida’s other largest urban school districts are represented on the association’s board, including the school boards of Miami-Dade, Broward, Duval, Pinellas, Orange and Hillsborough.
“This state is going in a direction that is not consistent with the values of this community and not consistent with the values of this body, and that’s why I want to be part of that discussion,” Whitfield said.
Katherine Kokal is a journalist who covers education for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at [email protected]. Support our work. Subscribe today!
