VIERA, Fla. — Brevard County School Board members added an open forum on masks to the end of their meeting on Thursday — sparking heated debate in a roomful of vocal and passionately divided citizens.

The move to open discussion on safety measures and whether to make masks mandatory for the coming school year followed new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance of recommending K-12 students, teachers and staff mask up again.

Videos from Spectrum News reporter Asher Wildman show a meeting room out of control, with attendees standing, pointing, yelling and sometimes walking or being escorted out.

They also show audience members not only ideologically but physically divided: Members sitting on one side of the room wore masks, while members on the other side went without, with an aisle leading to the front separating the sides.

One maskless attendee stood in front of the room and declared in response to a man who said “Let them speak for all of us":

“I speak for the patriots of this town... The free Americans that love freedom. All of us who are fed up and tired, that’s who I speak for. I speak for all of these people who are tired of these mask mandates, OK?”

Others spoke in favor of masks.

“I think masks should be worn,” Cassandra Cannon, a nurse whose nephew is returning to elementary school in a few weeks, told Spectrum News.

She recently had a relative die due to the virus.

“You don’t really think about it until it hits really close to you,” she said. 

At one point, school board members left their seats, prompting one audience member to declare: “That means we get to take over the board.”

Another video clip shows a woman smiling and yelling something inaudible — to enthusiastic applause — as she apparently leaves the room, followed by three children and a law enforcement officer.

Other people had their say as well.

“Every piece of science, data, experts who know what they are talking about could not be more clear on this issue," said Dustin Platter. 

Lee Guthrie suggested, "Maybe we should we start teaching our kids to be safe and healthy. Like maybe good nutrition, get some exercise, go outside there are alternative medicines. And you know what anyone that is worried about getting ill can go get a vaccine." 

According to the Health Department in Brevard County, the current positivity rate is 20%. This same time last year, the positivity rate in the county was 7%.

“Obviously masks are going to be part of the discussion,” Matt Susin, Brevard School Board District 4 commissioner, told Spectrum News.

Other topics on the agenda included quarantining students and the questions of e-learning and contact-tracing. There will be a public comment period.

We'll “work together on debating hotly, and come up with the best solution for Brevard,” Susin said. 

“I think people are not taking it as serious as when it first started, and I think they should,” Cannon, the nurse, told Spectrum News 13.  

The school board made no decision on masks.