TALLAHASSEE — A federal appeals court Tuesday backed a chapter of the group Moms for Liberty in a constitutional challenge to Brevard County School Board policies that placed restrictions on speakers at board meetings.
A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said policies targeted at “abusive,” “obscene” and “personally directed” speech violated the First Amendment. The panel overturned a decision by U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton.
“For many parents, school board meetings are the front lines of the most meaningful part of local government — the education of their children,” said Tuesday’s...
Florida should reverse course on its “harmful” abstinence-only requirements for public school health classes and allow schools to teach a comprehensive sex education curriculum, according to a letter sent to state leaders Thursday from seven Democrats serving in Congress.
“Abstinence-only programs have been consistently proven ineffective, damaging to students’ health, and discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community,” read the letter from the Florida congressional members. “This directive is another extremist attack on evidence-based, data-driven policies.”
The letter was sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis...
Nine Broward schools could be the focus of dramatic changes next year, with some possibly facing closure, under a new proposal from Superintendent Howard Hepburn to deal with underenrollment.
Hepburn presented five schools to the School Board on Tuesday that could be candidates to be closed or repurposed in some way, such as becoming a new type of school or office space. They are: Broward Estates Elementary in Lauderhill, North Fork Elementary in Fort Lauderdale, Silver Lakes Elementary in Miramar, Silver Shores Elementary in Miramar and Olsen Middle in Dania Beach.
He also proposed making grade...
Broward Schools Superintendent Howard Hepburn has agreed to conduct a “thorough investigation” into how an internal spat within the Broward Teachers Union nearly resulted in a school employee getting suspended.
The dispute between Jimmy Witherspoon, a steward for the Broward Teachers Union, and union President Anna Fusco made its way up the School Board and superintendent’s office, resulting in a lengthy discussion during Tuesday’s School Board meeting.
Witherspoon, a college and career adviser at Dillard 6-12 in Fort Lauderdale, told the School Board on Tuesday that Broward sheriff’s deputies...
The carbon monoxide leak in Cypress Bay High School’s cafeteria, which sent six people to the hospital Friday, has been repaired, school principal Dr. Kassandra Fried said Sunday.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we will continue to monitor the cafeteria and conduct additional testing on Monday morning before students and staff arrive,” Dr. Fried wrote in an email to students and their families. She added that school operations will resume as usual on Monday.
Six people were hospitalized Friday morning and at least nine were affected after a carbon monoxide leak in the high school’s cafeteria...
A week after a chaotic rollout of metal detectors, Broward Schools are still working out the kinks.
Although most students can quickly walk through the metal detectors without them going off, the devices still require a lot of security staff, preventing them from manning other parts of campus, school district officials said during Wednesday’s School Board meeting.
They also said they are still working out plans of what to do when thunderstorms or other inclement weather make it impractical for students to wait outside in line. And one School Board member said she’s hearing concerns from parents...
The winners of the Palm Beach County School Board races are still undetermined after Tuesday night’s election, with no automatic winners in either race as no candidate received more than 50% of the vote.
As of Tuesday night, there was a slim margin between candidates Gloria Branch and Mindy Koch in the District 5 race. State law requires a recount when the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total votes. The results of a recount could likely occur in the coming days, unless the candidate with the lesser votes requests for the recount not to happen.
But a recount would likely not change...
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...
Former UF President Ben Sasse stepped down unexpectedly in July, citing concerns about his wife’s health. But nine current and former administrators and top donors say there was more to the story.
After 17 months on the job, his working relationship with the UF Board of Trustees chairman, Morteza “Mori” Hosseini, became untenable, they say. Hosseini, a strong-willed top political appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis and a developer, has served as head of the school’s board of trustees since 2018.
Out of public view, tensions escalated to a breaking point between Hosseini and Sasse, the former Republican...
A Monarch High employee accused of allowing her transgender daughter to play girls sports in violation of state law will be suspended for 10 days and moved to a different job, a divided Broward School Board decided Tuesday.
Jessica Norton, 50, an information management specialist and coach at the Coconut Creek school, was one of at least eight district employees investigated, but the only one to face discipline. An investigation concluded that her child, now 16, played volleyball for two years at Monarch, as well as soccer and volleyball at nearby Lyons Creek Middle.
A committee of district...