In the first case of its kind, the state has sided with two South Florida school administrators who faced retaliation for trying to convert their public school to a charter.
This month’s ruling by the state Department of Education upholds the findings of an administrative law judge, who found Miami-Dade schools unlawfully retaliated against a principal and assistant principal by assigning them to other jobs, where they had to perform menial tasks.
Florida law protects school employees from reprisal by school districts if they support charter conversions, and this is the case in which administrators relied on those protections.
Administrators will be compensated for attorneys fees bonuses they would have received if they had remained in their leadership posts at Neva King Cooper Educational Center.
But their charter conversion efforts remain thwarted, and the school district will not have to return them to their old positions. The department’s final order in the case notes that the school district has placed them in equivalent positions.
A Miami-Dade school district spokeswoman told the Miami Herald, which first reported the ruling, that the district was now “satisfied” with the outcome.
The original ruling in the case can be found here. We explored the significance of this case in an interview with Robin Gibson, the attorney who represented the administrators.
