Sarah Leonardi
- A Florida school board member said the abuse she faces is a "microcosm" of a national trend.
- Sarah Leonardi chaperoned students to a LGBTQ-owned restaurant last week.
- She's since been receiving death threats, sexual harassment, and other abuse.
A Florida school board member who's gotten death threats after chaperoning a field trip to an LGBTQ-friendly restaurant last week said her abuse is just one example of the abuse faced by school officials across the country.
Sarah Leonardi, a Broward County Public Schools board member, joined students from Wilton Manors Elementary School to Rosie's Bar and Grill last week on a field trip to help students learn more about their community.
After posting a photo of the event on Twitter, Leonardi was bombarded by an onslaught of vulgar and disturbing abuse through emails, text messages, phone calls, and on social media.
Some urged her to kill herself or accused her of being a pedophile, according to screenshots seen by Insider. Others made vile sexist remarks.
-School Board Member Sarah Leonardi (@bcpsleonardi) October 27, 2021
She told Insider the abuse is a "microcosm" of what's been happening around the country.
Leonardi said she has friends who are school board members in other parts of Florida who have experienced their own harassment and abuse from people.
She said she never would have expected that school boards would be involved in a "culture war."
"I believe these are a lot of fake moral crises that are meant to distract from the day-to-day business of public education," she said in a phone call with Insider. "So far, it's working."
Leonardi said some of the abuse she's been facing has even referenced critical race theory, which has been a topic brought up at unruly school board meetings across the country - and has nothing to do with the field trip.
"I wish a lot of these people who are outraged about something they've been misinformed about were as outraged at the defunding of public education in the state of Florida," she said.
She said one thing this experience has shown her is that the spread and speed of misinformation is "astonishing."
School board meetings across the country have become increasingly unruly; the leader of a national school administrator group even dubbed the meetings a "battleground."
The once-mundane community occasions have become hotbeds for culture war issues like the supposed teaching of critical race theory, mask mandates, and vaccine requirements.
Meanwhile, education officials have been subjected to abuse and harassment as tensions boil over in recent months.
Leonardi said she doesn't quite know when school boards will see the end of abusive behaviors.
"I just worry about the future of public education in the country," she said.