“The School Board Has My Back”

D.N. To Broward School Board 2017

While District officials claimed ignorance about the status of a Broward transgender high school student, REDBROWARD obtained a video of a public meeting in 2017 when the same student praised Broward School Board members for keeping her safe at school. Last month, the principal at Coconut Creek’s Monarch High School and other officials were reassigned after Superintendent Peter Licata learned the transgender student played on the girls volleyball team. As first reported by REDBROWARD, in June 2021 the student and her family filed a lawsuit against the Broward School Board, the Florida Board of Education and Governor Ron DeSantis over a 2021 law which prohibits males and transgender females from playing on women’s sports teams.

In June 2021, D.N., an eighth grader, and her parents filed a lawsuit for injunctive relief from the Fairness In Women’s Sport Act which would take effect on July 1, 2021. Signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, the act prevents biological males from playing on female sports teams. According to the lawsuit, D.N. played on the girls soccer team at her middle school. The lawsuit stated she planned on participating in volleyball as well.

On November 6, 2023, the Judge granted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit by the remaining plaintiffs-Florida Commissioner Of Education Manny Diaz and the Florida State Board of Education.

Two weeks later, Broward School Superintendent Peter Licata said a “constituent” alerted him that a transgender volleyball player was a member of the Monarch High School team.

Licata immediately reassigned Monarch High principal James Cecil, Monarch High assistant principal Kenneth May and three other school employees.

THE BLAME GAME

While investigating the 2021 lawsuits, several individuals tied to the Broward School District told REDBROWARD they were unsure when the District learned the student was violating the law by playing for Monarch High. Yet they all mentioned that the Florida Board of Education was aware since March 2023.

According to their reasoning, since the Broward School Board was dropped from the lawsuit in 2022, they never saw a March 2023 filing where lawyers for the student admitted she played volleyball for Monarch.

On Saturday, the Sun-Sentinel repeated the District’s attempt to shift the blame. According to the report:

It’s unclear who at the Broward school district may have known the student was playing on the girls’ team. The district was named in the original lawsuit in 2021, but was one of several parties dismissed from it in February 2022, leaving Education Commissioner Manny Diaz and the State Board of Education as the sole defendants.

THE SCHOOL BOARD HAS MY BACK

During a late 2017 Broward School Board meeting, the District’s LGBTQ co-ordinator introduced three transgender students and their families to the Board, District officials and members of the public. One student was in high school while the other two were both ten years old.

The first student to address the Board was D.N.

(While D.N. used her name, REDBROWARD has decided not to publish her first or last name).

D.N. told Board members she was ten years but she began transitioning when she was just eight years old. She said she was having “the best time of my life.”

“Living in Broward County has given me the sense of safety knowing that the School Board has my back and makes my safety important,” she said.

Other speakers included then-School Board Members Rosalind Osgood and Laurie Rich Levinson.

After the students spoke, Levinson introduced Michaellle “Mickey” Pope, the chief of Student Support Initiatives and the driving force behind the controversial “PROMISE” program.

Pope admitted the District aimed to protect civil rights and help students “live, work and learn in an environment that is safe and inclusive.”

When a transitioning student comes “forward,” Pope said her staff and their community partners “sit with school teams, the principals, the support staff and they get to understand the child, they get to understand the true work.”

Then, Pope asked the team assisting the other transgender ten year old to stand up and take a bow.

Was the support for a transitioning student was so comprehensive to include hiring a student’s parent?

In 2017, D.N.‘s mother told the Sun-Sentinel she was hired as a teacher at her daughter’s school. The mother told the Sun-Sentinel, “To negate as much bullying as possible, [the mother] joined the PTA board at [D.N.’s] school and eventually became the president. She has recently been hired at the same school as a teacher and will work with staff and educators to bring awareness of transgender students’ needs and rights.”

The mother moved to a position at Monarch High School when D.N. started attending the school.

Pope retired in 2019. But according to Pope’s own words, the District staff and community partners on D.N.’s team should have been well aware of her academic and athletic status.

According to Pope’s policy, school staff should have been made aware of D.N. at every step of her academic career.

So why is the District so surprised by the entire matter?

Did someone in administration keep new Superintendent Peter Licata in the dark?

Did someone at the District urge D.N. to file the lawsuit?

If administrators were so aware of D.N. why were the Monarch principal and four other employees the only ones reassigned?

If they really had her back, why didn’t the School Board join D.N. in suing the State of Florida?