Ex-Brevard School Board member threatens lawsuit over ‘retaliatory hiring practices’

Former School Board member Jennifer Jenkins says she plans to sue the Brevard County School District for refusing to rehire her for a short-term position at a local elementary school.

Jenkins, who last month ended a four-year stint as the only Democratic member of the Republican-majority School Board, claims she was turned down for political reasons. She’s accusing the District of “discrimination and retaliatory hiring practices.”

Superintendent Mark Rendell, whom Jenkins clashed with during her tenure on the panel, maintains that the District is not obligated to employ her.

Their dispute centers on a licensed speech-language pathologist job that Jenkins, a licensed speech-language pathologist, applied for on Nov. 19 at Sea Park Elementary.

The job was set to begin on Feb. 13 and end on May 8. It’s still shown on the School District’s website as vacant as of late Friday afternoon.

Jenkins said she was the only person who applied for the job. Documents and emails Florida Politics obtained show Sea Park’s principal, Stephanie Hall, agreed to hire Jenkins following a recommendation by the school’s vice principal, Angie Lizek.

But that plan was shot down by Rendell, who directed Assistant Superintendent Ryan Dufrain to deny her work.

In a Thursday letter to Jenkins that the District provided to Florida Politics, Rendell said the speech-language pathologist position is a “critical and permanent role intended to meet the long-term needs of our students,” not a short-term position.

He added that Jenkins sought to work just 30 days in the job and that her “stated availability does not meet the requirements of this role.”

The position Jenkins applied is advertised as being for 84 days, not counting weekends and holidays.

In a separate communication Thursday, Dufrain told Jenkins that the District decided not to hire her for the position based on what it determined was necessary “to best serve the needs of students and the district.”

Dufrain added that she had “no entitlement to employment.”

Rendell offered her a substitute teaching position paying far less than the rate she’d be paid in the role she sought. She turned it down.

Jenkins, who worked in the district for six years as a speech-language pathologist before winning election to the School Board, said an unnamed member of the Board told her that Rendell brought up her application to the panel weeks after Hall offered her the job.

During that alleged conversation, she said, Rendell discussed Jenkins’ “‘negative’ actions as a school board member.”

Jenkins won election to the School Board in August 2020, upsetting incumbent Tina Descovich, a co-founder of the Moms for Liberty activist group. Her policy positions on LGBTQ inclusion and COVID safety measures frequently put her at odds with the Board’s other members and GOP officials from the county.

That included Palm Bay Sen. Randy Fine, whom she accused of cyberstalking in a since-dismissed injunction. She also filed an ethics complaint against Fine over his threat to pull Special Olympics funding.

She also sued School Board member Matt Susin last year, alleging he withheld public records of communications between him and Fine.

Florida law prohibits employment discrimination based on political opinion or affiliation.

Jenkins declined to seek re-election this year.

She said in a statement that Rendell’s actions evidence a disregard for students’ well-being. She said the district is short-staffed and has 15 fewer speech-language pathologists than it needs.

“The district’s refusal to rehire a highly qualified professional while special education students go without services is unconscionable,” she said. “Parents should be outraged.”

Jenkins has retained the legal counsel of Mark Levine, an attorney representing the local teachers’ union. He told Florida Politics in a brief phone conversation Friday that he has not yet begun work on a lawsuit.

“We certainly believe, based on potential witness testimony, that there is a political concern about hiring Ms. Jenkins,” he said, adding that denying her employment was counterintuitive considering all District’s vacancies.

“If they’ve got 15 positions available, why not put someone like her, who is qualified, in there, even if it’s for a short term?”