LEE COUNTY — The Lee County Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee is calling on Lee County School Board member Chris Patricca to consider resigning.
This comes after Patricca made public comments about Guatemalan students in the District that many found offensive.
That committee consists of 15 members of the community who offer recommendations for the School Board to follow.
On Monday night, they passed two motions: One condemning what Patricca said and asking the Board to hold her accountable up to a vote of no confidence, and the other is asking her to consider resigning.
Specifically, the members of the Committee took offense to Patricca’s comments that date back to the Estero Council of Community Leaders meeting on September 24th, where she said in part “The biggest challenge... principals are facing is getting [Guatemalan students] out of the bathroom because they’ve never seen running water before.”
We saw people at the last School Board meeting protesting and calling for Patricca’s resignation after those statements.
We had the chance to speak with School Board member Betsy Vaughn Monday night, who is the liaison for the EDAC. She explained their reasoning.
"The EDAC committee would like Ms. Patricca to consider resigning. One of the things that was mentioned early on in their discussion was that if a principal or a teacher had said something like Ms. Patricca said, that they probably would be losing their job," siad Vaughn.
We did reach out to Patricca Monday night to get her response to the Committee’s calling for her resignation, but we haven’t received a response.
Vaughn tells us she plans to relay the EDAC recommendations to the School Board at its next action meeting. That will be on Tuesday, October 19th.
