Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday excoriated the Broward School District for a “laundry list of failures” and suggested it’s been so impervious to reform that placing it in receivership might be an option to fix it.
“Honestly, it’s been a disaster. Let’s just be honest, it’s been a disaster in many different ways. It is really run more to benefit the entrenched interests, particularly the school unions, rather than the parents and the students,” DeSantis said at a news conference.
DeSantis said the School District is an entity that is impervious to reform efforts, and raised the possibility of drastic action by the state.
“But there’s a handful of spots around the state where, you know, maybe thrusting some of these entities into receivership may be the best way going forward. I think you could work things out pretty quickly, but I tell you it’s tough. It’s been really tough. And when people want to reform, you end up having, running into a brick wall. It’s been very difficult,” DeSantis said.
The governor made his comments in response to a question at a news conference at Broward College in Davie, where he and his appointees appeared to tout what they described as reductions in insurance premiums that would benefit homeowners.
The question ran through a host of controversies and crises involving the School District. DeSantis’ response: “I think you did a good job of the laundry list of failures in the Broward School District.”
And, DeSantis was asked if it was time for the state or some other outside body to take over the School District to fix it.
He said state Education Commissioner Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas would need to determine “what authorities are there under current law for them to go in and do, could they do, or would the Legislature need to do things to be able to authorize” before raising the notion of receivership.
Kamoutsas was picked by DeSantis for the education commissioner job, and hired by the state Board of Education last year, after serving as the governor’s deputy chief of staff.
Broward School Board Chair Sarah Leonardi cited positives in the School District’s performance.
“I’m proud of the hard work of all of the educators in Broward County Public Schools that has earned us back-to-back ‘A’ ratings from the state for the first time in over 10 years. I’m proud that for the first time ever we have no D or F schools. We are excelling at our core mission of educating students and I’m glad that the state has recognized that,” Leonardi said Monday via text.
Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, didn’t immediately respond to messages on Monday.
Broward schools have been plagued by declining enrollment, financial problems and missteps in recent months.
Enrollment has declined by 11,000 students in the last year and the district has at least 50,000 more seats than students.
The School District has been looking to make more than $100 million in cuts, with plans to close seven schools and eliminate about 1,000 positions. It has enacted a hiring freeze and is no longer using substitute teachers, instead directing other employees to cover teacher absences.
At the same time, the district has faced criticism for some recent management missteps, including:
— Entering into a $2.6 million five-year lease with a nonprofit group to house a few dozen facilities employees when the district has plenty of empty space in low-enrolled schools. The School Board voted in November to terminate that lease and has been sued over it.
— District facilities and procurement staff botched a solicitation for a management company to oversee district construction, prompting the School Board to reject all bids. Since the contract with the current management company expires Jan. 17, the School Board is taking emergency actions to select a vendor. Two high-level administrators and a third procurement employee are under investigation related to that.
— Giving its highest-paid employees, except for the superintendent, annual bonuses of up to $14,000 from money that voters approved in a 2022 referendum to boost the pay of teachers and lower-paid staff. School Board members said they were unaware of these payments and voted last week to stop them.
In 2022, DeSantis suspended four Democratic members of the School Board and replaced them with Republicans after a statewide grand jury found incompetence, neglect of duty and misuse of authority. They weren’t criminally charged, but DeSantis said he was removing them, writing in his order that “due to their malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, and incompetence (they could) … no longer demonstrate the qualifications necessary to meet their duties in office.”
Two appointees who sought to retain those seats were unsuccessful, losing in the 2024 elections.
Last year, DeSantis appointed Adam Cervera to fill a vacancy on the board. Cervera, like DeSantis, is a Republican. The other eight School Board members are Democrats.
On Monday, Cervera said he would hold a news conference on Tuesday to address what his media advisory described as “a series of alarming financial and oversight failures within Broward County Public Schools.”
“These problems are not isolated, they reflect a pattern of long-standing financial mismanagement while our District is cutting programs, freezing hiring, and considering closing schools,” Cervera said in a written statement. “Our students, parents, and teachers deserve better than this. Taxpayers deserve better than this. Broward families expect transparency and accountability, not waste.”
Cervera has filed paperwork indicating he plans to run to retain the seat in the August 2026 School Board elections. Three other candidates have filed similar paperwork.
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.