Miami-Dade, Broward school districts targeted by state over school safety concerns
The Miami-Dade School District on Monday received a letter from the Florida Department of Education claiming it and other large districts in the state had failed to follow the state’s school safety requirements.
The letters, sent to superintendents in Broward, Duval, Orange, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, asked district leaders to meet with officials from the state education department to discuss safety issues identified in the 122-page Florida grand jury report released last month.
The report concluded the Broward school district mismanaged an $800 million bond and failed to follow through on school safety projects after the mass shooting in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, which resulted in the death of 17 students and faculty members. Florida Politics first reported about the letters.
Gov. Ron DeSantis cited the grand jury report in suspending four of the nine Broward School Board members last Friday, replacing them with four appointees who have connections to him and to the Republican Party. The grand jury report, issued in mid-August, called for the removal of the four board members, plus a fifth person who no longer was on the School Board. School board members generally are elected, not appointed, as school districts are funded by local property taxes.
READ MORE: DeSantis suspends four Broward County School Board members, appoints replacements
“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 an Aug. 26 news release announcing his suspensions.
DeSantis had asked the Florida Supreme Court to impanel the grand jury in February 2019, a year after the Parkland shooting. While the grand jury was convened as a statewide jury, it focused on Broward County public schools.
2019 grand jury report blasts Miami, Broward schools
A 2019 interim report from the same grand jury alleged the Miami-Dade and Broward school districts were manipulating discipline data in the School Environmental Safety Incident Reporting system, known as SESIR. In Miami-Dade, the report highlighted the discrepancy in reporting physical attacks at the schools. One year there would be hundreds of fights and battery reports, while the next year there would be no incidents reported, the grand jury report found.
READ MORE: Grand jury calls out ‘data manipulation’ in Miami-Dade, Broward school districts
Miami, Broward school districts meet with state
Miami-Dade County school officials in a statement Friday said administrators met with the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Safe Schools on Tuesday, where the parties discussed the district’s discipline data that it reported to the state.
When asked about the grand jury’s findings, district officials said staff has “taken a proactive role by implementing a number of measures to improve and align data reporting to address matters regarding student discipline,” including instructing staff to conduct “a thorough analysis of progressive discipline models including the Student Success Center program.” School security, officials added, remains among the district’s top priorities.
For its part, Broward County school officials met with Department of Education officials on Thursday.
“The District welcomed a visit by the Department of Education on Thursday, September 1,” Broward district officials said in a statement Friday. “Broward County Public Schools remains committed to providing safe and secure learning environments for students and staff and is happy to collaborate with the Office of Safe Schools in that endeavor. We look forward to receiving the State’s report about their visit to the District.”
Neither district elaborated beyond their respective statements.
READ MORE: State grand jury recommends five Broward School members be removed. Read the report here
DeSantis appointees align to name new board chair
On Tuesday, the Broward School Board named a new chair and vice chair after swearing in the four new board members: Ryan Reiter, 36, District 1; Torey Alston, 38, District 2; Manuel “Nandy” A. Serrano, 52, District 6; and Kevin Tynan, 63, the countywide at-large seat in District 8.
DeSantis appointed a fifth member to the board at the end of April, Daniel Foganholi, who replaced Rosalind Osgood, who resigned from the board to run for Florida State Senate. She was elected in March to the Florida Senate.
Osgood, along with Board Chair Laurie Rich Levinson, Board Vice Chair Patricia Good and longtime board members Donna Korn and Ann Murray, were the five board members the grand jury recommended for removal. DeSantis removed Rich Levinson, Good, Korn and Murray; he said he didn’t have the authority to remove Osgood, now a state senator.
READ MORE: Who are the four people Gov. Ron DeSantis just suspended from the Broward School Board?
Korn is still on the ballot, as she and Allen Zeman each garnered about 30 percent of the vote in the Aug. 23 primary among the four people running for the District 8 at-large seat. They will square off in the Nov. 8 election.
In a 5-4 vote on Tuesday, the five DeSantis appointees on Tuesday joined together to pick a new chair, Alston. The four dissenters were the elected incumbents: Lori Alhadeff, Debra Hixon, Sarah Leonardi and Nora Rupert. The board named Alhadeff as the vice chair.
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Alston is the only one of the five DeSantis appointees who will be on the board after the November election. The other four are not on the ballot. Alston, who replaced Good, will be on the board until 2024, when that seat comes up for reelection.
The suspended board members were all women; the appointees were all men.
READ MORE: DeSantis appointees sworn into Broward School Board; new chair, vice chair named
Miami Herald staff writer Jimena Tavel contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 2, 2022 at 7:56 PM.
