The superintendent of Florida’s second largest school district was fired following a late-night motion brought up by a board member appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis following a grand jury report into the Parkland school massacre.
The board voted 5-4 to fire Broward Schools superintendent Vickie Cartwright, who did not hold the post at the time of the 2018 shooting, after Broward school board member Daniel Foganholi brought up the surprise motion on Monday night.
All five board members voting against Ms Cartwright in Florida’s most Democratic-leaning county were appointed by Mr DeSantis, a Republican. Four of those appointees will be gone next week when they will be replaced by board members who won elections last week.
Ms Cartwright did not comment about the firing.
The dissenting school board members included Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter was killed in the shooting and Debra Hixon, whose husband was also fatally shot in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“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,” Torey Alston, who was elected last week, said in a statement. “Based on recent systemic issues, the Board decided to go in a different direction.”
Ms Cartwright replaced Robert Runcie, who resigned in 2021 after perjury charges were brought against him.
“There are some great people who work for this organisation, but toxic behaviour continues to happen,” Mr Foganholi said in making the motion. “This is about accountability.”
Some school board members said the motion was unfair since they had asked Ms Cartwright on October 25 to address a long list of concerns.
The board called a special meeting on Tuesday to address hiring an interim replacement.
Ms Cartwright was named interim superintendent in last August and was hired permanently in February. Her contract, which went to late 2024, requires her to be given 60 days’ notice. She is also entitled to about 134,600 dollars ($113,000) in severance pay.
The motion to fire her came at the end of the board’s discussion of two audits criticising the district’s practices.
Former Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz, 24, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to the massacre in 2021.
Broward’s school district is the nation’s sixth-largest, with more than 270,000 students at 333 campuses and an annual budget of four billion dollars (£3.36 billion).
