‘Unimaginable stress’: Broward Schools employee, mother of trans student athlete speaks out
The mother of a transgender student at the center of a sports scandal that has been rocking Broward Public Schools since late last year spoke out for the first time about the issue on Tuesday — protesting unjust treatment from the school district and describing the past six months for her family as filled with “unimaginable stress.”
“For 203 days, I have been forthright and honest and have not been treated with a shred of respect or simple decency,” Jessica Norton told Broward School Board members at their regular meeting during the public comment section.
“District leadership tried to ruin my life, but instead destroyed the life of an innocent 16-year-old girl. They destroyed her high school career and her lifelong memories and experiences,” Norton added as her voice broke. Her husband Gary Norton stood by her.
Last November, then-Superintendent Peter Licata launched an investigation into the principal of Monarch High School and other staff members for “allegations of improper student participation in sports.” The investigation started because Daniel Foganholi, a School Board member, received an anonymous tip that a transgender girl had been playing on the girl’s volleyball team at Monarch. District officials looked into it because a state law, known as “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” prohibits female students who were born male from playing on female sports teams.
READ MORE: Growing up transgender in DeSantis’ Florida: How this Broward teen’s life was upended
Norton, the mother of the student athlete in question, works as an information management specialist at Monarch High and was one of the employees that the district singled out for its investigation. In addition to working in IT, Norton was also a junior varsity volleyball coach at Monarch.
Now, six months after the investigation began, Norton faces termination. But on Tuesday, she told the School Board that she wasn’t there to “beg” for her job.
“The decision to make a political example out of me was made long before the anonymous tip that launched the disastrous investigation was reported,” she said.
“We are here to speak for our family and tell you how careless actions by the district’s leadership have affected our daughter and our family. For 203 days we have lived in a constant state of limbo and uncertainty. It feels never-ending.”
Investigators mistreated her daughter, Norton says
While the school district’s Special Investigative Unit probed, then-Superintendent Licata reassigned the Monarch employees to non-school sites.
District officials broke their own policy during that time by forcing her to “perform manual and janitorial services for over three months, rather than being assigned clerical work” similar to her job, Norton said.
They also broke her collective bargaining agreement as a member of the Federation of Public Employees because they took longer than 30 days to complete the investigation.
She said district detectives repeatedly referred to her daughter as her son in an interview, “refusing to use her legal name, her legal gender” even though her lawyers asked them otherwise.
She also complained that in some documents she saw related to the investigation, the detectives used identifying information that could out her daughter. They used “he” and “him” pronouns for her daughter, and, she said, even spoke of her as “it.”
“I have complied with the requirements of the investigation at every step. I have been direct and truthful, but the district officials have not afforded me the same respect,” she said. “I have been disregarded by the district both as a parent and a dedicated employee.”
Meanwhile, Norton said, her daughter stopped going to Monarch and enrolled in Broward virtual school instead. None of the Monarch or district employees checked on her daughter’s well being.
Her daughter was “flourishing” at Monarch as a volleyball player, student government member and homecoming princess. Then, Norton said, the light in her daughter’s eyes dimmed.
“The senior leaders of the district should be embarrassed that they’re in charge of the lives of children, seeing as they had no problem destroying mine. But you know what? It’s OK if I’m the villain in their story because I’m the hero in my daughter’s story.”
Broward School Board to decide Norton’s future in July
In late May, the school district’s Special Investigative Unit cleared all employees at Monarch except for Norton, because they concluded the employees didn’t know the student was transgender. Employees at Lyons Creek Middle, where the trans student played soccer at before, were also investigated and cleared then, the Sun Sentinel reported.
It’s unclear when the investigation officially ended. Norton said Tuesday she still hasn’t received a final report.
According to district policy, once the district wraps up an investigation, if an employee isn’t cleared, the case gets forwarded to a Professional Standards Committee, made up of seven principals and administrators appointed by the superintendent. The committee helps the superintendent decide on a punishment by recommending one, but ultimately, the superintendent chooses what to do.
In Norton’s case, the Sentinel reported in early June that the committee voted in late March to recommend a 10-day suspension for Norton. But both then-Superintendent Licata and now-Superintendent Howard Hepburn overruled that, and chose to recommend termination to the School Board instead.
The School Board was supposed to decide whether to fire Norton or not during its Tuesday meeting, but the school district pulled the agenda item late last week and postponed it until next month’s meeting instead.
“The district has yet to notify me or my attorneys of that decision, why it was made or what will happen next,” Norton said Tuesday.
During a discussion of other personnel moves on Tuesday, a School Board member, Torey Alston, asked Hepburn why he pushed the Norton decision until July.
“Because we had some items that required a lot of discussion, and I know we want to stay within our eight-hour time frame (for the meeting),” Hepburn replied.
