Broward School Board rescinds superintendent’s firing by DeSantis appointees
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In the latest of a series of twists and turns regarding the superintendent of the nation’s sixth-largest school district, the Broward School Board Tuesday handed Superintendent Vickie Cartwright her job back — at least temporarily.
The board voted 5-3 to rescind Cartwright’s Nov. 14 termination. That firing came in a late-night, controversial vote after the five members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis terminated her contract in a 5-4 vote. Four of the five members in favor have since been replaced by newly elected School Board members.
The eight board members at Tuesday’s meeting agreed to revisit Cartwright’s performance come Jan. 24, a deadline initially set in late October by the former board for a 90-day improvement plan for Cartwright.
READ MORE: Broward School Board abstains from firing superintendent, gives her 90 days to improve
The members also decided to keep the national search for a new superintendent going, in case they end up dismissing Cartwright, 52, next month.
Board Vice Chair Debra Hixon and board members Jeff Holness, Sarah Leonardi, Nora Rupert and Allen Zeman voted to retain Cartwright. Board Chair Lori Alhadeff and board members Torey Alston and Brenda Fam voted against Zeman’s motion.
Alhadeff had initially supported Cartwright in the Nov. 14 termination vote, citing concerns that the Board had possibly violated the state’s Sunshine Law because it did not list on its agenda an item about reviewing Cartwright’s contract. The law requires governmental bodies to post items on a public agenda to give people the right to comment.
On Nov. 15, a day after the late-night termination, Alhadeff, Hixon, Leonardi and Rupert voted to rescind the termination over the Sunshine Law concerns, but the motion failed, with the DeSantis-appointees — Alston, Daniel Foganholi, Ryan Reiter, Manuel Serrano and Kevin Tynan — once again banding together. Only Alston remains of the DeSantis appointees.
During the Tuesday meeting, however, Alhadeff said waiting until January would be “kicking the can down the road.”
Asked whether the public could trust that the Jan. 24 vote on the superintendent would be final, Alhadeff told the press after the Tuesday vote: “Absolutely. We are going to be moving forward. We are going to be focusing on our students, our schools, our teachers and making sure that we become an A-district and focusing on our strategic plan.”
Cartwright: ‘Grateful to the board’
After Tuesday’s vote, Cartwright said she still felt shocked that the former board fired her in November and thanked the new board.
“I’m very grateful to the board for the decision that they made today,” she said. “I look forward to continue working with every board member as we move forward.”
Asked whether she worried about the ongoing search for a new superintendent, Cartwright said, “I am confident the board will keep an open mind and that they will see where we are after the 90 days.”
Cartwright is Broward’s first female superintendent
The School Board hired Cartwright as interim superintendent in July 2021 to replace Robert Runcie, who stepped down after being charged with one count of lying to a grand jury investigating whether the district was complying with school safety laws after the Feb. 14, 2018, shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. The mass shootings led to the deaths of 17 students and faculty members.
The board hired her as the permanent superintendent in February, the first female superintendent in the district’s 107-year history. The board approved a $350,000 annual contract to run until Dec. 31, 2024.
Cartwright’s problems began after DeSantis removed four sitting board members in August, citing the grand jury investigation, replacing them with four appointees connected to him or the Republican Party. He also appointed a fifth to replace a board member who had stepped down to run for the state Senate. School Board members normally are elected, not appointed, as districts are funded by local property taxes.
READ MORE: DeSantis suspends four Broward County School Board members, appoints replacements
Four new board members were elected in the Nov. 8 election — Fam, Holness, Rodney Velez and Zeman — in addition to the reelection of Alhadeff and Rupert in the Aug. 23 primary.
One new board member still not on board
Velez, elected to the District 1 seat, hasn’t been sworn in because of issues related to his eligibility to hold office after he was convicted in 1995 of aggravated battery, a second-degree felony.
Still, Velez spoke during the meeting’s public comment period as a parent and told the board to “fix it.”
READ MORE: ‘We’re at risk as an independent school system,’ new Broward School Board member warns
“Let me get on the board, and let’s get it done,” he said.
Asked after whether that meant to fire Cartwright or not, Velez texted a Herald reporter, “We need stability!”
Holness, the newly elected representative for District 5, proposed the agenda item to rehire Cartwright, stating concerns of instability and violations of protocol.
“My item is not so much necessarily about the superintendent. It is about the process and procedure of how this was done,” he said Tuesday. “We cannot punch a hole in the ship, because we have an issue with the captain.”
Holness had initially indicated in the agenda that he wanted to rehire Cartwright, halt the search and reset her 90-day probationary period.
Zeman’s three-part motion prevails
During the discussion Tuesday, Zeman proposed to overturn the firing because, he said, the termination didn’t occur at a meeting that respected the spirit of the Sunshine Law, because all media weren’t allowed in and because the former board backed out on its 90-day plan for Cartwright to improve.
“In my mind, there’s a huge difference between the what and the how,” he said. “This is a monumental decision, and we ought to treat it in that light.”
Zeman wanted to keep the search going, however, as a plan B and then review Cartwright’s performance again on Jan. 24, the initial probationary period deadline.
The board voted 5-3 on Zeman’s three-part motion.
Hixon voiced concern that rescinding Cartwright’s termination while still searching for a new superintendent was “disingenuous,” but she ultimately voted for Zeman’s motion.
Alston, the remaining DeSantis appointee and District 2 representative, led the charge against Cartwright in November. He said he maintained the same points he brought up then, including issues with the district’s declining enrollment, delayed public records requests, low academic performance since the pandemic and what he says is a corrupt district culture.
“As a former board chair and member of the board, I’ve seen too much, I’ve heard too much and I know too much. And it didn’t take me long to recognize that it’s time for a change,” he said.
Alston’s plan to keep Cartwright fired fails
Alston tried to replace Zeman’s motion with his own five-part motion, which called for tabling the discussion on rescinding the dismissal, keeping Cartwright’s termination letter, calling for a special meeting on Jan. 9 to discuss where the board stood, sharing the superintendent applicant resumes and allowing Earlean Smiley to give a “public hello” for three minutes.
Both Alhadeff and Alston have shown interest in appointing Smiley, a former principal at Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach and former deputy superintendent for Broward Public Schools, as interim superintendent to replace Cartwright.
Alston’s motion failed 5-3, with only Alhadeff, Fam and Alston supporting it.
