Robert Runcie, the embattled superintendent who’s come under increasing criticism since the Parkland shooting, survived an attempt to topple him from his post Tuesday.
The vote on whether to fire Runcie came at the request of new School Board member Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter was killed in the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, which left 17 people dead. She cited “willful neglect” in his handling of safety, school renovations and other matters. The board voted 6-3 not to fire him.
The debate lasted for nearly seven hours and included comments from about 90 speakers, all but a few of whom spoke wholeheartedly in favor of Runcie, who has been the school district’s leader since 2011. His support came from business leaders, minority groups, principals, PTA representatives, former School Board member Abby Freedman — and from Runcie’s wife.
They praised him as a tireless worker and dynamic leader who cares about students and employees.
“You have a diamond in that seat,” Diana Runcie told the School Board. “It is yours to lose.”
Freedman, a staunch Runcie supporter who decided not to run for re-election after the massacre, told board members, “This is going to be the easiest vote you ever had to give.”
Some Runcie supporters say attempts to fire him are motivated by racism. But opponents, including many Parkland parents, say Runcie’s race has nothing to do with it. They say Runcie mishandled the tragedy and that his biggest failure since then has been a lack of urgency when it comes to fixing problems, especially security.
“I don’t think any of us looking for change care what color he is. It makes me so upset this is what it’s turned into,” said Debbi Hixon, widow of Chris Hixon.
The vote highlighted a deeply divided board. Runcie’s five most consistent supporters — Laurie Rich Levinson, Ann Murray, Patti Good, Donna Korn, and Rosalind Osgood — voted in his favor, while his three most vocal critics — Alhadeff, Nora Rupert and Robin Bartleman — voted to fire him. Bartleman was the only one of the nine board members who chose not to speak about Runcie.
If there was a surprise, it was Chairwoman Heather Brinkworth, a Runcie critic who blasted him for the district’s spotty record of student achievement, its frequent efforts to put a positive spin on problems and the slow progress on renovation work. Still, she sided with the majority.
“I don’t see willful neglect. I do see issues. I see things that need to be addressed,” Brinkworth said.
At her request, the School Board plans to discuss giving Runcie an interim evaluation this spring, something that’s allowed but not required in his contract.
Supporters say Runcie inherited a district mired in a grand jury investigation for corruption and had made changes to overhaul the district’s culture. Few mentioned the new grand jury the Florida Supreme Court has impaneled at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis to investigate possible corruption and mismanagement in the district.
“When the grand jury does its work, there will be no Broward Workshop, no Broward Alliance that will save him,” Runcie critic Natalia Adams of Parkland told the School Board, referring to two business groups that have been among Runcie’s biggest cheerleaders.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel has reported about a number of failures and missteps by the Broward School District. It has reported on a culture of tolerance that allows unruly students to have repeated second chances. The district is now revising its discipline policies and the Promise program, which provides alternatives to arrests for some misdemeanor offenses, to make them less lenient.
The newspaper also identified how school districts in Broward and across the state under-report crimes, making their campuses appear safer than they are. The Sun Sentinel has also reported how the district failed to act on warning signs involving the Parkland killer, botched his special education services, failed to hold administrators accountable for actions related to the tragedy and has regularly hidden information from the public.
Several board members objected to Alhadeff’s reasons for wanting to fire Runcie, including her claim that the district was “spiraling out of control.”
“This has been a very difficult year, a very painful year,” Good said. “Spiraling out of control is exactly what will happen if we leave this district without a superintendent. Mr. Runcie believes in our students and I believe in him.”
Runcie said he was determined to move forward and fix the issues plaguing the district.
“We always need to recognize we’re not perfect,” he said after the vote. “This tragedy could have happened anywhere. But it happened here in Broward County.”
To Parkland families who have grown increasingly frustrated, he said, “ “I hope you realize how much I empathize with you and feel the enormity of the loss every day of my life. I will be forever impacted by this tragedy.”
Alhadeff never expected to win the vote, knowing that Runcie had strong support on the board. She said she was surprised that “two other board members had the courage to vote with [me] for removing Mr. Runcie.”
Max Schachter, whose son Alex was killed during the shooting, said he found the results upsetting.
He said the district continues to provide false information, including inaccurate and misleading data about school grades and graduation rates that appeared in a pro-Runcie opinion piece in the Sun Sentinel written by Fort Lauderdale Alliance President Bob Swindell.
“I think there is this narrative being bandied about that when Runcie got here, the district was in tatters and he turned it around,” Schachter said. “But those numbers are factually incorrect.”
A crowd of hundreds packed the meeting at district headquarters in downtown Fort Lauderdale, with TV news crews and photographers lined up along the back wall. Outside, dozens of Runcie allies filled the hallway.
The school board spent more than four hours hearing from the public. Many were gone by the time the board voted on the motion to fire Runcie.
Before the public comments began shortly after 11 a.m., the noise in the hallway was deafening. As the debate began, a hush came over the crowd in the hall filled with mostly black supporters.
Brenda Snipes, a former elections supervisor who worked for the school system for 39 years, stood in the hallway with dozens of other Runcie supporters. Snipes said she thinks he handled the horror of Parkland as well as anyone could have.
“The parents, I don’t know how they get up to move every day,” she said.
A long line of supporters urged the school board to stand by their superintendent.
“This community suffered a great tragedy,” Holness said. “We all feel the pain. We continue to share the grief and suffering of everyone who lost someone in that tragedy. We ought to be bringing about healing. This will not bring about healing.”
Levinson said Runcie was the best person to lead the district and provide stability.
“It is just wrong to make Superintendent Runcie the scapegoat,” she said.