A.G. Gancarski
Duval County’s ongoing search for a permanent Superintendent is headed toward the finish line next week, but scrutiny from the Florida Department of Education suggests major questions about how the district is being run now.
Secretary Manny Diaz wrote Interim Superintendent Diana Kriznar with concern about what he called a “lack of progress and action” regarding student safety in the classroom, and a “lack of prioritization for the well-being of students, parents, and educators in the district.”
He detailed the latest offenses from teachers at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, citing Christopher Allen-Black’s arrest for “Exposure of Sexual Organs” and how the algebra instructor continued teaching nonetheless for weeks after the February incident, linking the most recent incident to 73 other collapses of teacher comportment belatedly reported to the state last year.
Diaz wants answers about the district’s inability to regulate its teachers by Tuesday.
The letter came the same day as the School District told media not to report about answers given by Superintendent candidates in a public notice meeting next Monday for two days, breaking the Sunshine Law. And it came a day after the district announced its desire to put Jackson Short, who was a former friend of Kent Stermon and named cryptically in the former political powerbroker’s last letter before his apparently self-inflicted death, atop the school district.
Sen. Clay Yarborough recently raised concerns about the latest issue of teacher comportment in a two-page letter to Kriznar, the School Board and Jacksonville General Counsel Michael Fackler. He was curious about the status of an investigation commissioned by the Office of General Counsel last year.
“For DCPS and the City’s Office of General Counsel to delay the release of the taxpayer-funded investigation report related to the 2023 scandal suggests more wrongdoing is being hidden. Parents are demanding answers and our students deserve better. Where is the transparency,” the Southside Republican asked last month.
However, a representative of Mayor Donna Deegan said the findings, in the possession of an outside legal firm contracted by Jacksonville’s consolidated government, would be shielded from the public as litigation unfolds.
Ironically, that investigative report may have to surface now as part of a response to Tallahassee’s inquiry.
14 comments
Richard D
May 10, 2024 at 1:49 pm
In anything regarding Manny Diaz, it needs to be said that he is a promoter of charter schools and has received substantial funds (“political donations”) from wealthy individuals in the charter school movement. Currently, he’s involved in an attempt to extract a large amount of money from public schools that was originally intended for them but which he claims they owe to charter schools due to a change in the law. Charter schools are privately operated but are supported by taxpayer money channeled away from the public schools. Diaz is an enthusiastic supporter of this privatization scheme, which defunds and undermines public education.
Big Oaf Nate
May 10, 2024 at 2:18 pm
Where’s Nate Monroe to say this beautiful quaint innocent district is just a victim and its parents fault? He’s definitely going to carry their water with this unprecedented two day embargo, right? Why not just take a salary big boy?
MH/Duuuval
May 10, 2024 at 3:55 pm
Manny is meddling to give further impetus to one of the two finalists for the DCSB top job. Do you know which one, Big Oaf?
Duhhhhval
May 10, 2024 at 4:36 pm
I am sorry you are so miserable trying to protect a broken system filled with people regularly being hauled of schools out in handcuffs
MH/Duuuval
May 10, 2024 at 4:52 pm
If it’s broken, and that case can be made, it’s due to an unrelenting assault by right-wingers and evangelical since the late 1990s.
And, if I may say so, much of it stems from white racism since the ire from Tally MAGAs has been directed at the urban districts, which are majority-minority for the most part.
You were saying, dimwit?
Zero
May 10, 2024 at 11:41 pm
Nothing you said was factual or even remotely interesting. You’re just consumed by your own hate and vitriol and have nothing of substance to add here. Particularly funny to accuse a Cuban education commissioner from Hialeah Manny Diaz of white racism aimed at urban districts. You literally don’t even understand the issues you’re talking about. You’re just repeating things you’ve seen other people say somewhere, and have the audacity to think you can declare anyone else a midwit. Public education funding is the highest it’s ever been and look how well Duval is managing it. Keep playing the trumpets on the sinking ship deck while actual serious people are going about the real work
MH/Duuuval
May 11, 2024 at 11:02 pm
Zero
May 10, 2024 at 11:41 pm
“Nothing you said was factual or even remotely interesting.”
You appear ignorant, Zero — or have averted your gaze — from the long-standing racial split in both Cuba and in the Cuban emigre community in Miami.
The first generations of Cuban emigres considered themselves white and, less so, who came from Mariel and afterwards. Manny is from the former — ask him what he puts on his Census form.
State education funding taken over 20 years is today lower than would be otherwise expected if there had been a steady growth with inflation.
Open your eyes: Florida and WV are battling it out for the lowest average teachers salaries in the US.
Richard D
May 10, 2024 at 8:53 pm
Manny Diaz, as Florida Education Commissioner, occupies a state government position similar to the Federal Secretary of Education position that was held by Trump appointee, Betsy DeVos. Diaz and DeVos, both staunch Republicans, share the same desire to turn public education into a system of privately owned, for-profit enterprises consisting of private and charter schools (many private schools make money even though they’re officially tax-exempt non-profits, and their management is usually well-paid).
rick whitaker
May 11, 2024 at 2:11 pm
RICHARDD, you laid out the facts about the florida education goals, but i didn’t hear a critique on it. i am 100% against state gov letting private thieves into the system. de vos is one of my favorite people to really hate, a LOT.
MH/Duuuval
May 11, 2024 at 11:04 pm
In short, Manny is an integral part of the education privatization grift that extends from Dee to Corcoran to Academica and similar for-profit charter chains.
MH/Duuuval
May 12, 2024 at 11:24 pm
from Wiki:
He [Diaz] rejected allegations of conflict of interest when, in 2017, he sponsored, along with Richard Corcoran and Michael Bileca, legislation that directed $140 million of public funds to charter schools. The three men and their wives were involved in the charter school industry.[14]
rick whitaker
May 11, 2024 at 1:20 am
ZERO, you are part of the problem MH was talking about. he is right and you are wrong. what a contemptable ahole you are. duval schools have been ruined by desantis and his gang of right-wing thugs.
Wick Rhitacker
May 11, 2024 at 8:58 am
Thanks for weighing in with that insightful commentary Rick. What are you doing about it to stop these “thugs”? Just eating processed food and posting about how mad you are? Duval was just in amazing shape before DeSantis was elected right? You live there and think that’s actually true? Sounds like a totally rational, intelligent, knowledgeable commentary from on the ground. You definitely don’t sound like a crank at all. Keep up the great work contributing to fighting the thugs and improving a corrupt district. You’re doing amazing brother.
rick whitaker
May 11, 2024 at 2:36 pm
WICK RHITACKER, i guess that was sarcasm by an anonymous poster such as yourself. i use my name, i have nothing to be ashamed of, or no reason to hide behind a fake persona. any way, i am a lifelong vegetarian and don’t eat much processed food. i garden, so i have plenty of canned, dried, and frozen homegrown food to eat. i don’t eat out ever. i did not say, as you did, that duval was in amazing shape before desantis. i did say or imply that someone besides desantis could have done a MUCH better job at fixing problems than desantis did or does. to me there is little doubt this is so.. to you, well you sound like a maga cultist, so i don’t know what you want to hear. i don’t speak maga. and as far as fighting the thugs, well that is the people of florida’s job, not mine. i left florida because i saw it as incorrigible, turned out, i was right. it seems you wasted all that sarcasm on me. what a waste, save it for others. i’m very sarcastic and i waste it on people that are not critical thinkers, so it is wasted. it’s hard to see people as they are, instead of their projections. trump, for example. but after a while it sticks out, badly.