{"id":31282,"date":"2025-07-02T01:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T01:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31282\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T01:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T01:10:10","slug":"jacksonville-organizations-continue-to-push-back-against-dcpss-updated-dei-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31282\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville organizations continue to push back against DCPS\u2019s updated DEI policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Jacksonville community members remained persistent in sending a message to the Duval County School Board about their disapproval of recent changes to the district\u2019s diversity, equity and inclusion policy.<\/p>\n

Despite the issue not being included on the school board\u2019s Tuesday night meeting agenda, multiple organizations, including Public School Defenders, rallied outside DCPS to advocate for equity in schools.<\/p>\n

Parents and community members rallied outside Duval County Schools to advocate for equity in Duval schools. (WJXT)<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>DEI language removed from DCPS policy; board assures continued support for minority businesses<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The school board stated that the changes were implemented to comply with the executive order from the Trump administration, but some individuals felt that the district was acting prematurely.<\/p>\n

\u201cExecutive order does not make it law, because Congress was not involved, and there are federal, state and local laws that\u2019s still intact, that we still need to abide by,” Therese Gamble said, who spoke during public comment.<\/p>\n

Gabriela Diaz-Vendrell, executive director for Our Florida, is also a former DCPS student. She also identifies as queer.<\/p>\n

She said the removal of books from shelves and the potential changes to DEI policies are deeply concerning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI contemplated taking my own life and what took me out of that environment and that head space was everything that my classrooms, my teachers, my friends and my peers were able to provide me as a network of support,\u201d Diaz-Vendrell said.<\/p>\n

Parents and community members rallied outside Duval County Schools to advocate for equity in Duval schools. (WJXT)<\/p>\n

Gamble worried that the standard changes would cause more harm to students rather than support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we putting this oppression on our students?\u201d Gamble said. \u201cCensoring our teachers? Our teachers are the ones that equipped all of us. We have a different dynamic of students. These students now have to compete globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diaz-Vendrell wanted the resources to stay in place because they could be life-saving for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think about how those were the resources that allowed me to navigate that situation and allowed me to even be here right now, and taking that away potentially takes away that life-saving opportunity for another student,” Diaz-Vendrell said.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville community members remained persistent in sending a message to the Duval County School Board…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,26459,407,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-31282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dcps","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114780977550415018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}