Broward schools safety chief resigns, days after metal detector chaos

Jaime Alberti resigned Friday as chief of safety and security for Broward schools, four days after a troubled rollout of high school metal detectors created chaos on the first day of school.

Alberti, 53, wrote in a letter of resignation to Superintendent Howard Hepburn that his last day will be Nov. 4, although he will use accrued leave time until then, district spokesman John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“Thank you for the support and opportunities provided to me at Broward County Public Schools and I wish everyone continued success,” Alberti wrote.

Hepburn said in a Friday afternoon email to School Board members that he was assigning district administrator Ernie Lozano to temporarily handle Alberti’s duties.

“A national search will be conducted to fill the position. I thank Chief Alberti for his service to BCPS,” Hepburn wrote.

Lozano, who has served as a principal and a director overseeing behavioral threat assessments for students, was appointed in June to lead a new district professional standards department. The new department was created to replace the employee investigation function of the Broward Schools Police Department, formerly known as the Special Investigative Unit.

Alberti couldn’t be reached for comment Friday night. Sullivan wouldn’t say whether Alberti’s departure was related to the district’s troubled metal detector implementation.

“All I can say is Mr. Alberti submitted his resignation to Dr. Hepburn, and he accepted it,” Sullivan said.

Alberti initially had proposed phasing in metal detectors at different schools over a two-year period, but School Board members decided in the spring they’d prefer the devices be available for all high school students at or near the start of the school year.

The district piloted the devices in two schools over the summer without incident, but on Monday, the first day of school for the fall semester, they created major logjams as students constantly set them off with their binders, water bottles, tablets and eyelash curlers. Many students waited in packed lines for more than an hour, and by 8:30 a.m., 50 minutes after the first bell rang, the district scrapped metal detectors for the day and let everyone in.

Alberti told the Sun Sentinel on Monday afternoon he expected the process to get smoother.

“We’re improving our processes. Look at TSA. It took them almost two years to get the process right,” he said Monday. “We’re going to make some adjustments overnight, and we’ll look to recalibrate.

“This is training for our staff, students and parents. We’re taking the journey together,” Alberti continued. “We’re not looking back. We’re looking forward to make sure every school is as safe as it can be.”

On Tuesday morning, the lines were much shorter, after the district adjusted the sensitivity settings on the devices and placed more security staff on campus to remind students which items to take out of their bags.

But there were more problems reported on Friday, as rainy conditions caused some schools to suspend the use of walk-through detectors.

“At those schools, we are conducting the screening of randomly selected classrooms with metal-detecting devices to continue ensuring the safety and security of everyone on campus,” Sullivan said in an email Friday morning.

Alberti took over as safety and security chief in May 2022, having been recruited by then-Superintendent Vickie Cartwright. He had served the prior six years as a police commander for the Orange County School District, where Cartwright had previously worked as an administrator.

As part of his duties, Alberti supervised the Broward district’s police department, which has faced criticism over the past year. In October, a police detective arrested a longtime volunteer for reasons a consultant said were unwarranted. More recently, three police detectives posed in uniform for photos announcing their union’s endorsement of School Board candidates.

Alberti’s future with the district first looked uncertain in December, when then-Superintendent Peter Licata proposed a major expansion of the district’s police department, with a newly recruited police chief to oversee a 370-member department. Under that model, district police would have replaced the school resource officers that are now supplied by city police departments and the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

The School Board rejected that proposal in January. Then in June, Hepburn shrunk the district’s police department, moving employee investigations into the new professional standards department overseen by Lozano.

Alberti is the latest in a string of high-profile resignations in the district in 2024. Since March, the district has lost its superintendent, its chief strategy and innovation officer, the police chief, the chief facilities officer, the chief information officer, the chief financial officer and the deputy superintendent for operations.

Hepburn, who started in April, addressed the high turnover in a recent interview with the Sun Sentinel.

“I can’t speak for the people that have left, but in any organization when there’s new leadership that comes in, there’s some level of uncertainty that may cause people to make different decisions and take advantage of different opportunities,” he said.

He said the district has lost leaders who “contributed greatly” to the district, but “it’s also an opportunity to bring in better talent, a different type of talent.”