SARASOTA, Fla. — The Sarasota School Board has voted against getting into a contract with Vermillion Education, a firm that would have consulted with the board on a range of school issues.
Tuesday afternoon, dozens of protestors gathered outside the Sarasota County School Board meeting to push back against the proposed hiring of the controversial consulting firm. The protest bled into a passionate school board meeting with more than four hours of public comment.
Ultimately, the board voted 3-2 against the contract with Vermilion.
The Vermilion Education partnership was proposed by conservative School Board Chair Bridget Ziegler.
"I became aware of this service, and I wanted to bring it forward and propose it to the board," Ziegler said as she introduced the idea to the board at the March 21 meeting.
According to the contract on the district's website, Vermilion would have sat in on teacher interviews and reviewed district policies and procedures. The group would also have reviewed and recommended teacher lesson plans, instructional textbooks, and library books among other things.
"To help us with certain things when it comes to keeping us away from the fire and keeping us focused on what we had today and not adopting things that are blindsiding people," Ziegler explained.
Vermilion Education's leadership has ties to Hillsdale College, a former liberal arts turned conservative Christian college based in Michigan. Critics say some of its leaders are behind the controversial changes at New College of Florida.
"Vermillion is a bright shade of red and we see right through this. We've had enough of these antics," said one frustrated community member during Tuesday's board meeting.
"We all know this proposed Vermilion contract is part of a long-planned political, profit-driven effort to undermine and destroy public education at tax-payer expense," accused another Sarasota community member.
The vast majority of the criticism over the contract surrounded the company's limited experience, with it being just four months old. Also, there were concerns over its leader's partisan background and the contract process itself.
"Please don't be an embarrassment to the community by hiring an unqualified consultant through a non-competitive bid process with really an unachievable scope of work," another community member pleaded.
Ziegler would not take questions after the meeting. According to the school district's communications team, she was under the weather.
We reached out to Vermilion for comment early Tuesday afternoon and have not heard back.
Support Our Schools, a public education non-profit, released a statement Wednesday in reaction to the board rejecting the proposed contract.
"Support Our Schools is pleased that the majority of the Sarasota County School Board voted against the approval of the contract for consulting services with Vermilion Education LLC," the statement reads, in part. "While we are happy with the result of the vote, we expect Rose and Ziegler will try to flip Board member Robyn Marinelli’s vote by changing the scope of the proposed contract."
"Support Our Schools and the citizens of Sarasota County will continue to advocate against the spending of taxpayer dollars for services provided by unqualified vendors and the use of our children as political pawns by Ziegler and Rose," the organization continued.