At a virtual news conference on Wednesday, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar denounced allegations that the union supports student walkouts protesting Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never encouraged or organized students to walk out of class in protest. I don\u2019t know of any educators that have and there\u2019s no evidence to show otherwise,\u201d Spar said. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Spar was sparring with the public backlash and social media comments claiming that the FEA encourages student walks outs. The allegations came after FEA featured Social Equity through Education co founder Zander Moricz, who said this at a February 5 press conference: <\/p>\n \u201cTo students being told that they do not have the right to speak out or walk out on their campus. I want to be clear that this is the United States of America. You do not share your First Amendment rights when you step foot through the schoolhouse gates.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n In contrast, Spar said this on Wednesday: \u201cAs educators, we want students in the classroom. We want them to learn. That\u2019s what we advocate for all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Moricz has been outspoken before, notably protesting Florida\u2019s Parental Rights in Education Act or as critics called it, the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law. Spar added that any social media information suggesting FEA encourages walk outs is disinformation. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n The Jacksonville area has seen student walkouts locally, including late last month at Sandalwood High School.<\/p>\n Spar\u2019s comments come after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas responded, blasting FEA for allegedly encouraging the protests. <\/p>\n They then suggested this is why lawmakers should pass a state House and Senate Bill making it harder for unions to keep their certification. <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a virtual news conference on Wednesday, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar denounced allegations that the union…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77136,55577,77135,7810,57947,28,55578,6281,5052,1877,969,116,118,117,634,77133,5242,45479,39832,77134,4214,77131,63246,77132,71896,71903],"class_list":{"0":"post-161074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-anastasio_camutso","9":"tag-andrew_spahr","10":"tag-education_commissioner","11":"tag-faa","12":"tag-fea","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-florida_education_association","15":"tag-governor","16":"tag-house","17":"tag-ice","18":"tag-jack","19":"tag-jacksonville","20":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","21":"tag-jacksonville-news","22":"tag-local","23":"tag-moris","24":"tag-president","25":"tag-ron_desantiss","26":"tag-sandalwood","27":"tag-sandalwood_high_school","28":"tag-senate","29":"tag-spahr","30":"tag-united_states_of_america","31":"tag-xander_morris","32":"tag-zion_deoto","33":"tag-zion_deoto_action_news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}