Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended four members of the Broward County School Board after a grand jury recommended they be removed over alleged incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority.
DeSantis announced Friday the immediate suspensions of school board members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray, and Laurie Rich Levinson.
DeSantis said the move was made in response to a grand jury report released last week that recommended the school board members be suspended due to “deceit, malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty and incompetence.”
“It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This action is in the best interest of the residents and students of Broward County and all citizens of Florida.”
The grand jury began meeting 15 months after 14 students and three staff members were gunned down on Feb. 14. 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Former Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie resigned last year after he was indicted for allegedly lying to the grand jury. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. The district is the nation’s sixth-largest, with more than 270,000 students at 333 campuses, and an annual budget of $4 billion.
The school board has nine members, including two, Debra Hixon and Lori Alhadeff, who were elected after Hixon’s husband Chris and Alhadeff’s daughter Alyssa died in the Stoneman Douglas shooting. They ran on platforms promoting better campus security. Alhadeff, in particular, has frequently been at odds with the targeted members, particularly over Runcie’s performance before his resignation.
The grand jury said that Runcie’s and the accused board members’ “uninformed or even misinformed decisions, incompetent management and lack of meaningful oversight” has led to massive cost overruns and delays in the SMART Program, a multimillion-dollar bond specifically solicited for school safety and renovation initiatives approved by county voters in 2014.
The report said the $1 billion program that was supposed to be completed in 2021 is now projected to cost $1.5 billion when it is finished in 2025 — estimates the jury called “wishcasting.”
The grand jury report said the Broward school district seems to be more focused on how it is viewed publicly than on actual accomplishment.
“Broward County has provided a cornucopia of examples of an almost fanatical desire to control data and use it to manipulate public perception, including that surrounding safety,” the grand jury wrote. Runcie and the accused board members “are seemingly obsessed with the optics of any situation and control of public impressions of their activities.”
“The District produces training materials on ‘Building the Brand’ as though the district were all important while its students were mere commodities and instructs employees to always consider how situations might affect the perception of the District as opposed to the reality,” the jury wrote.
After the report’s release last week, Levinson, the board’s chairwoman, angrily slammed it as a “political hatchet job” orchestrated by the governor.
“It is nasty partisan politics. He should be ashamed of himself,” she said.
Levinson, who was not seeking reelection as her third four-year term expires at the end of the year, said the grand jury was supposed to focus on what caused the Stoneman Douglas shooting, pointing to the victims’ parents who stood with DeSantis when he announced its formation.
“It is disgusting that on the backs of these families to have a bait-and-switch grand jury,” she said. “The majority of the report has nothing to do with Marjory Stoneman Douglas.”
Korn, who ran for re-election this year and is heading for a runoff, said in a statement last week that “while I respect the grand jury process, I stand on my record,” pointing to the district’s high graduation rate.
DeSantis appointed four people to replace the school board members, including former Broward County Commissioner Torey Alston, former Broward School Board member Kevin Tynan, Manual “Nandy” A. Serrano and Ryan Reiter.
The school board released a statement Friday after DeSantis issued the suspension order.
“Broward County Public Schools is in receipt of the Governor’s Executive Order 22-202. As our District undergoes this transition, we remain focused on the operations of our schools and our commitment to our Student First approach to provide a great educational experience to all students,” the statement read.
“It is nasty partisan politics. He should be ashamed of himself,” ron desatan at it again