DeSantis-appointed board chair asks if state can suspend Broward Schools superintendent
First, Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended four Broward School Board members, citing a recent grand jury report. Then the state’s Department of Education pushed for the dismissal of three Broward school district administrators, citing the same grand jury report. Now, the chair of the Florida Board of Education asked whether the board, appointed by DeSantis, can suspend Broward Schools Superintendent Vickie Cartwright.
“I’m wondering if this board has the authority to suspend a superintendent in a school district or to suggest to a district that such an action be taken,” Florida Department of Education Board Chair Tom Grady asked of Jacob Oliva, the department’s senior chancellor, during a Thursday board meeting via conference call.
Grady’s speculation followed a discussion by the board of how Cartwright defied an order by DeSantis before the start of school last year. The order, issued in July 2021 when the delta variant of COVID-19 was raging and Florida was reporting more than 20,000 new COVID cases a day, called for parents to decide the issue of masks, not school districts.
Broward and at least seven other school districts, including Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties, defied DeSantis and imposed mask mandates to protect their students.
Oliva responded: “I’m not going to tell you that I’m an expert on all Florida statues and laws, but my understanding ... they are employed by the school board at the local level who would have all of the hiring and, I guess, firing or any personnel-related actions, which would be done hopefully by the elected officials in the school district.”
“I see. Well, hopefully that process will play itself out,” Grady replied. “I wish that there was something that this board could do. Perhaps we can in the future.”
Grady didn’t reply to an emailed request for comment from the Herald about what board actions he was considering or whether he plans to contact Broward School Board members to encourage them to fire Cartwright.
In response to a request for comment via text, Oliva wrote that he had forwarded the Herald’s request for comment to the press office. The press office did not reach out to the Herald.
DeSantis suspends four Broward School Board members
The discussion comes at a critical time for the Broward School Board, which is reeling from DeSantis suspending four of its nine members on Aug. 26, citing a grand jury report that said the board’s “incompetent management and lack of meaningful oversight” resulted in major cost overruns and delays in an $800 million school-safety program approved by voters in 2014.
READ MORE: DeSantis suspends four Broward County School Board members, appoints replacements
DeSantis suspended Board Chair Laurie Rich Levinson, Board Vice Chair Patricia Good and Board Members Donna Korn and Ann Murray — and appointed Torey Alston, Manuel “Nandy” A. Serrano, Ryan Reiter and Kevin Tynan to replace them.
The four men all have ties to DeSantis and the Republican Party. DeSantis also appointed a fifth board member, Daniel Foganholi, in April to replace Rosalind Osgood, who resigned to run for the state Senate. She was elected in March as a state senator.
So, of the nine members of the Broward School Board, five have been appointed by DeSantis in a county that has more than twice as many registered Democrats than registered Republicans. School board members, because school districts are funded by local property taxes, are generally elected, not appointed, in nonpartisan races.
The grand jury report, released Aug. 19, was the result of the Florida Supreme Court acceding to DeSantis’ request in early 2019 to impanel the statewide jury to examine school safety measures following the 2018 Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in which 17 students and faculty members were killed. The grand jury investigation did not involve Cartwright.
Since the grand jury report became public, DeSantis suspended the four School Board members, following the report’s recommendation. Tim Hay, a Florida Department of Education official, also met with Cartwright to address the report. After their meeting, Cartwright told three district officials to resign or face an investigation: Chief of Staff Jeff Moquin, David Watkins, director of diversity and school climate, and Ron Morgan, assistant chief fire official, according to a Sun Sentinel report. They all quit, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
During the Thursday meeting, Oliva updated the board on the grand jury report ramifications. The board is led by Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., a former Hialeah state senator with close ties to DeSantis.
After the update by Oliva, Grady questioned Cartwright’s leadership skills and brought up the issue of suspension:
“Over the years, very consistently, this board has been keenly interested in leadership. Leadership within our department, leadership within the districts, and in particular the board level leadership within the schools. It’s a key issue any time a school presents a turnaround plan and the board is very interested in not in making a selection but in understanding who will be leading that school in such a transition,’’ he began.
“I’m wondering, particularly in Broward, since Superintendent Cartwright has been before this board before ... why the board should not take further action in light of her decision to consciously disregard rules that the board had issued and to consciously disregard Florida law,” Grady said.
Cartwright’s response
In statement emailed by the Broward school district Thursday afternoon, John Sullivan, a district spokesman, said Cartwright was required to implement the face covering policy that the School Board enacted.
“In response to a statement made by the Chair of the State Board of Education earlier this morning (Thursday, September 15, 2022), Superintendent Cartwright has and will continue to follow all laws. School boards adopt policies that govern school districts based on laws and other factors; superintendents are required to implement the policies,” the statement reads.
Sullivan also said Cartwright has “made significant improvements in the organizational structure of the District, safety and security, and the management of the SMART Bond program over the past year and continues to implement additional improvements.”
After the grand jury report was released, Cartwright gave a presentation to the Department of Education and the School Board on some of those actions.
The Broward School Board hired Cartwright as superintendent in August 2021. She replaced Robert Runcie, the former superintendent, who stepped down in August 2021 after the grand jury indicted him on one count of perjury, stemming from his testimony to the grand jury last year. He has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.
After the Parkland shootings, DeSantis had said he explored whether he could fire Runcie but learned that he couldn’t because Runcie was not an elected official. The School Board had hired Runcie.
This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 8:33 PM.
