A Message From The Publisher
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
“I am not going for the okay doke!” Board chair Torey Alston had had enough of what he considered to be playing politics.
As I sat in the audience at the Broward Schools Board meeting on yesterday as they discussed the approved termination of superintendent Vicky Cartwright, at one time I thought that I was at a dress rehearsal of a stage play called “what went wrong with the attorney.” If you have been following the news and the saga surrounding the BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, you know that the superintendent has been criticized and rightfully so for her incompetency in her leadership ability as overseen in managing herself and others.
She has demoted competent staff and promoted incompetency in key staff positions. However, what happen today begs the question, “who does the attorney for the BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD work for and if she can keep that job. She, to me and others, showed that her intentions were for the “other” side as she noticeably argues in favor of the other side.
For those who have attended or been in any position of leadership or served on a board has some understanding of Robert Rules of Order. It was obvious that the attorney blatantly disregarded any decorum of those rules as well as some of the old “Blind Nine board members.
Let me call it like it is: the newly appointed board members who were correct concerning the misbehaviors of the old board members plainly stood head and shoulder above them (old board) in understanding and conducting themselves by Roberts Rules of Order, yet the old board members had no clue. So here we are with a fired, rehired and fired again superintendent.
Cartwright was fired Monday night with a 5-4 vote, a shocking motion made by Daniel Foganholi.
Board chair Torey Alston, Manuel Serrano, Ryan Reiter, and Kevin Tynan sided with Foganholi; it just so happens that Alston will be the only one of the group to remain on the Board.
“Dr. Vickie Cartwright is a wonderful individual but leading the nation’s sixth-largest school district requires a hands-on leader and someone that will make real change,” Alston said in a statement. “Based on recent systemic issues, the Board decided to go in a different direction.”
Cartwright was hired as interim superintendent in July 2021 and was named permanent superintendent in February, despite the rules saying that she could not become superintendent.
“There are some great people who work for this organization, but toxic behavior continues to happen,” Foganholi said in making the motion. “This is about accountability.”
“This action is impulsive and inappropriate at this moment, and I cannot support this,” one of the old board members, Sarah Leonardi, said.
It is reported that when he first mentioned the motion, Foganholi didn’t have enough votes to removed Cartwright.
After two audits criticizing the district’s practices, the motion to fire her came.
Broward’s school district is Florida’s second largest and the nation’s sixth largest, with more than 270,000 students at 333 campuses and an annual budget of $4 billion.
This appropriate decision to terminate Cartwright as superintendent was needed no matter if the five board members voting in opposition to her were appointed by DeSantis, a Republican. We can’t place the blame on that. What’s right is right.
I don’t believe that if a person wearing a Klan’s hooded suit was drowning and a Black, a Jewish, or a Muslim came by and threw them a life preserve they wouldn’t refuse it.
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