Around the state: Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended four Broward County School Board members on Friday for what a statewide grand jury called “acts of incompetence and neglect of duty” and appointed replacements, a recount by the Hillsborough supervisor of elections confirms that the special tax the school district was asking voters to approve was rejected by a slim margin, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist has chosen the president of the Miami-Dade County School District’s teachers union as his running mate, a search committee recommended Friday that the state Board of Governors pick state Sen. Ray Rodrigues to replace Marshall Criser as the next chancellor of the state university system, a Duval teacher whom prosecutors declined to charge is critical of the district’s handling of an allegation of abuse, a 15-year-old Pinellas County high school student was struck and killed by a car Friday as he tried to cross a street to get to his school bus stop, and the Seminole County School District has put a halt to book fairs until it receives guidance from the state of how to comply with the Parental Rights in Education law. Here are details about those stories and others from the state’s districts, private schools, and colleges and universities:
Miami-Dade: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist has chosen Miami-Dade teachers union president Karla Hernandez-Mats, 42, as his running mate. She’s a former middle school special education teacher who joined the union leadership in 2013 and was elected president in 2016. Miami Herald. Sun-Sentinel. USA Today Florida Network. News Service of Florida. Associated Press. Florida Politics. WPLG. WTVJ. A student-athlete at the Somerset Academy in Homestead was arrested Friday after police officers found a gun on the floor of the school’s equipment room after the football team returned from a game. WSVN.
Broward: Gov. DeSantis has followed through on the recommendation of the statewide grand jury investigating the Parkland school shooting by suspending four school board members for engaging “in acts of incompetence and neglect of duty.” In announcing the suspensions of Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Laurie Rich Levinson and Ann Murray on Friday, DeSantis said, “These are inexcusable actions by school board members who have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district.” All four were supporters of former superintendent Robert Runcie, who was indicted on a perjury charge in April of 2021 and stepped down four months later. Sun-Sentinel. Miami Herald. News Service of Florida. Politico Florida. Florida Phoenix. Tallahassee Democrat. Associated Press. WLRN. WPLG. All four of the replacements for the suspended school board members are Republicans, all are men, and two have previous school board experience. DeSantis has now appointed five of the nine members of the board, and all five are men replacing women. Sun-Sentinel. Miami Herald. Teachers who came to Broward from the Philippines to help fill open positions talk about how they’re adjusting to their new lives. Sun-Sentinel.
Hillsborough: A recount has confirmed that the school district’s tax initiative was defeated in Tuesday’s primary election. Craig Latimer, the county supervisor of elections, said the recount showed 110,486 votes for the initiative, and 111,076 against. “The margins didn’t change at all; it remained at the exact same percentage as before the recount,” Latimer said. “You know this just does nothing but show how accurate the equipment is.” Superintendent Addison Davis has said he’ll put the measure on the ballot in November 2024. Tampa Bay Times. WFLA. WTSP. WFTS. Spectrum News 9. WUSF. WTVT.
Duval: A former teacher of the year at Darnell Cookman Middle-High is criticizing the district for the way it handled an allegation that she struck a student almost a year ago. The state attorney dropped the charges last week against Caroline Lee, 60, due to a lack of evidence. Lee, a 9th-grade English teacher, said the process that school administrators and police officers took was one-sided and unfair. “I really feel like my administrators did nothing to help me,” Lee said. “I was guilty before proven innocent.” She’s been cleared to return to teaching, but won’t be allowed back at Darnell Cookman. “I’ve had the most wonderful career at Darnell Cookman. I love those students. I don’t think the principal (who has since left the school) knew how to deal with this,” Lee said. “I’m not pointing fingers, but the system is broken.” Florida Times-Union. A student at Atlantic Coast High School in Jacksonville was arrested Friday after allegedly making a threat against the school on social media. WTLV. WJCT.
Pinellas: A 15-year-old Largo High School student trying to cross an unlighted road to get to his school bus stop Friday morning was struck by a car and died at the scene. Ethan Weiser, who lived in Clearwater, was identified as the victim. The 60-year-old driver, who stopped, was not injured. Florida Highway Patrol troopers are investigating. Tampa Bay Times. WFLA. WTSP. WTVT. WFTS.
Seminole: No school book fairs will be held in the district until officials get guidance from the state on how to comply with the new Parental Rights in Education law. Administrators said they have focused on complying with the law on instructional materials, classroom libraries and media centers before gauging how the law affects book fairs. Spectrum News 13.
Manatee: A jury has awarded a former Braden River High School student $500,000 for a December 2015 assault in the school’s locker room. Daniel Dombroski suffered a head injury when he was beaten by another student after baseball practice. He contended the school failed to properly supervise students in the locker room. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Sarasota: When the three school board members elected Aug. 23 are sworn in Nov. 15, the current 3-2 liberal-leaning majority will switch to a 4-1 conservative supermajority. One of those board members, Bridget Ziegler, characterized the new majority as “common sense” and “parent-focused” and more in line with the community. “We live in a conservative county, and it has had a liberal majority for decades,” she said. “It doesn’t line up to the community which we’re representing.” The new majority is expected to quickly change the board’s public commenting rules, which some parents contended were enacted to limit their input. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Nassau: The school district has reached a contract agreement with school support staff that calls for a raise of $1.37 an hour, to $15, an increase to two paid bereavement days for a death in the immediate family and annual contract status for all employees after one full year of probationary employment. Negotiations with the teachers continue Thursday. Florida Politics.
Colleges and universities: A search committee recommended Friday that the state Board of Governors pick state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, to replace Marshall Criser as the next chancellor of the state university system. News Service of Florida. Florida Politics. The Board of Governors said little about the very low response rate to the state’s survey to measure the “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on the state’s colleges and universities, and said the results will be published this week. Only 2.4 percent of the system’s students and 9.4 percent of employees answered the survey. Florida Phoenix. The Higher Learning Commission appears to be the accreditor of choice among the state’s universities. If approved, it would replace the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Politico Florida. Almost 340 Florida A&M University students have been moved from the Palmetto Phase 3 Apartments to hotels because of a pest infestation, according to university officials. Students are expected to be able to move back into their dorm rooms Thursday. Tallahassee Democrat. WTXL. WCTV. Gov. DeSantis has appointed Daniel Leben, Kevin Madok, Michelle Maxwell, Michael Puto, Stephanie Scuderi, Sheldon Suga and Richard Weinstein to the board of trustees at the College of the Florida Keys District. Office of the Governor. A 22-year-old student at Keiser University in West Palm Beach was arrested Saturday and charged with having a gun and ammunition in his dorm room. Palm Beach Post. WPTV. WPEC.
Candidates on education: Gov. DeSantis and Democratic challenger Charlie Crist agree that teacher pay needs to be increased. Otherwise, the differences in their education policies are stark. DeSantis wants to give retired first responders the opportunity to teach even if they don’t have a college degree, put an emphasis on civics education and stamp out “critical race theory” and “woke gender ideology” in classrooms. Crist wants to make the education commissioner’s position an elected one again, and change health-care options for teachers and other school employees. Miami Herald.
Opinions on schools: We can either stay silent and allow the privatization of the public-school system to continue so the wealthy become wealthier, our schools become more segregated, and the ideals that the public-school system represents is completely denigrated, or we come together, push back, and speak up against the dismantling of the public-school system.. Rocky Hanna, Tallahassee Democrat. It’s time to close the achievement gap in the Tampa Bay area between white and black students. Paul Luna, Tampa Bay Times. How about dealing with the teacher shortage by emphasizing teacher retention instead of attempting to incentivize retired cops and firefighters and veterans to risk further hazardous duty in a classroom? Chris Fulton, Tampa Bay Times. I’m glad to see that a school district in Florida is making sure impressionable elementary school students won’t be exposed to an attempt to indoctrinate them with a dictionary. Frank Cerabino, Palm Beach Post.
