Broward County School Board Reprimands Superintendent

The Broward County School Board took roughly half of Tuesday to decide that district Superintendent Vickie Cartwright should receive a written reprimand and 90 days to form a plan that addresses concerns of board members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Cartwright had faced the possibility of losing her job going into what was expected to to be a 30-minute meeting that turned into a 12-hour marathon.

“This reform board, we want the culture of yes, not the culture of no. Not the culture of, you’ve got to ask the right question to get the right answer,” board Chairman Torey Alston, who was appointed by DeSantis, said.

Alston described what he called a “well-coordinated strategy” by Cartwright to “placate” five DeSantis appointees on the nine-member board until the Nov. 8 elections.

Board members offered several complaints about Cartwright’s performance, such as district academic performance, “judgment and political acumen,” communication with the board and business operations.

DeSantis in August suspended four board members in the Democratic-stronghold county, following the recommendation of a scathing grand-jury report that detailed district leaders’ actions leading up to and after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In addition to appointing four replacements, he had previously appointed one board member.

The grand jury report, in part, targeted failures of board members and former Superintendent Robert Runcie. Runcie resigned amid a corruption probe in 2021, leading to Cartwright being named interim superintendent. She was appointed in February as superintendent.

“We brought accountability for those families (of the shooting victims) when no one else would,” DeSantis said Monday during a gubernatorial debate with Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.

Cartwright, who submitted a series of written responses to the criticisms, disputed the board’s assertion that she had failed to show leadership.

Cartwright wrote that she has led the district while “utilizing empathy, grace and decisiveness” and has continued “to serve and fulfill board member requests, regardless of who is in the seat.”

“The organization is experiencing high anxiety due to the past five years and recent changes due to the grand jury report,” Cartwright wrote. “The level of anxiety has a significant impact on people’s ability to perform their duties at a high level. Individuals are looking for potential stability where they perceive instability in board functions.”

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Hurricane Ian created $165 million in negative news that the state’s tourism-marketing agency is trying to offset in a campaign seeded with $2.7 million, Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young recently told the travel website TravelPulse.

“Unfortunately, my team and I are quite adept at handling crisis communication,” Young said.

Young added that her staff understands the “balancing act” in promoting the state after crises, which over the past several years have included multiple virus outbreaks, toxic water algae blooms and mass shootings at an Orlando nightclub and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The “Sun’s Shining in Florida” campaign highlights that it’s business as usual in the tourism-dependent state, outside of Southwest Florida.

A Nielsen Co. study commissioned by Visit Florida calculated the negative media coverage from Sept. 28, when the storm made landfall in Southwest Florida, through Oct. 14.

In 2018, Visit Florida estimated that Hurricane Michael’s battering of a swath of the Panhandle resulted in the equivalent of $35 million in negative media, while reports of red-tide and algae outbreaks in Southeast Florida and Southwest Florida around the same time led to an estimated $22 million in negative media.

GO FAST, PLEASE

Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political-prognostication site from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, is more interested in Florida elections officials getting out vote tallies quickly, rather than debate about the state being toss-up “purple” or Republican “red.”

“Florida has earned a reputation as being among the fastest-counting states for voting, and it would be great if we could look to the state for some early signs about the 2022 (U.S.) House picture,” the prognosticators wrote. “Unfortunately, the state’s GOP gerrymander means there really are not any highly competitive races in the state.”

After the Legislature approved a congressional redistricting map proposed by DeSantis, Sabato’s Crystal Ball doesn’t list any of Florida’s 28 U.S. House races as a “toss-up” or “leaning.”

The closest contest the prognosticators see is in the revamped District 27, where Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is being challenged by state Sen. Annette Taddeo, D-Miami.

“This is still a likely Republican race — if Taddeo won, it would be a signifier of a significantly better night for Democrats in the House than we currently expect,” the Crystal Ball posted.

SO … THERE’S A CHANCE

DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports-betting giant, says the odds are growing for a second term of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“It appears he’ll have a bigger margin of victory than the 0.4 percent he squeaked out a win with in 2018 to campaign on in Iowa and New Hampshire,” DraftKings said online Tuesday, referring to speculation about DeSantis running in 2024 for the White House.

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates polling data, put DeSantis at a 96 in 100 chance of winning.

Ryan Dailey and Jim Turner report for the News Service of Florida.

Copyright 2022 News Service of Florida. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.