5 things to know about Lubby Navarro, the arrested ex-Miami-Dade School Board member
Who is Lubby Navarro, the former Miami-Dade School Board vice chair who was arrested Thursday morning on charges accusing of using her school district credit card to ring up charges of about $100,000 in personal expenses?
Navarro, 49, was born in Havana in Oct. 9, 1974. She arrived in Miami in the Mariel Boatlift in September 1980, when she was not yet 6. She attended South Hialeah Elementary School, Miami Springs Middle School and graduated from Miami Springs Senior High School. She earned a political science degree from Florida International University.
Here are some of Navarro’s School Board career details:
How Navarro got on the School Board
Navarro was appointed to the Miami-Dade School Board by then-Republican Gov. Rick Scott in February 2015. She had been executive director of intergovernmental affairs for the school district at the time. The District 7 seat, which covers Kendall, Redland and parts of southwest Miami-Dade, was left open after former board member Carlos Curbelo was elected to Congress.
She was elected to the board in 2016 and 2020.
In a 5-4 vote in November 2022, she was elected the board’s vice chair over incumbent vice chair Steve Gallon III, with a supporting vote from board chair Mari Tere Rojas — sister-in-law of GOP U.S. House member and former Miami-Dade mayor, Carlos Gimenez. Navarro, who voted for herself, also received votes from Monica Colucci, Danny Espino and Roberto Alonso, who had either been endorsed or appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
A month later, Navarro resigned.
READ MORE: From refrigerators to 56 lemon pies — here’s what Lubby Navarro bought, investigators say
The ‘Jesus is one creator’ controversy
During a Miami-Dade School Board resolution calling for a National Day of Prayer in schools, a move Navarro supported in April 2022, and which passed, Navarro sent a message directed at school administrators. Navarro suggested that school children use the power of prayer to seek God’s help, “instead of saying ‘go home’ or instead of saying, ‘Let’s send you to your counselor.’”
That comment led a 17-year-old Muslim senior from the School for Advanced Studies in Homestead to balk at the “notion that a School Board member would suggest students pray away their sadness” because it “could hinder them from seeking therapeutic services that could help them,” the Miami Herald reported.
But it was Navarro’s final comments that angered some parents of different faiths when she said recognizing a day of prayer will “send a message to our community that we have one creator, one creator, and that is God and Jesus Christ.”
That led Gallon, then the board’s vice chair, to apologize for comments made by board members “that could have been perceived as offensive and divisive,” the Herald reported.
Unmask at schools
In a week in which Florida was setting daily records for COVID hospitalizations and new daily cases were approaching 25,000 during the delta wave in mid-August 2021, Navarro was the sole board member to vote against mask mandates in Miami-Dade schools for the start of the 2021-22 school year.
The nine-member School Board voted 7-1 to make masks mandatory (board member Christi Fraga was absent).
Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent at the time, was strongly behind the mask mandate, saying he fully supported the district’s COVID task force, made up of medical professionals and others, who recommended the mandate.
Miami-Dade joined the Broward School Board and about eight other boards across the state that opposed Gov. DeSantis’ executive order forbidding school districts from requiring masks without giving parents a choice to opt out.
“My constituents of District 7 never elected me to violate state law,” Navarro said during the board meeting.
Navarro’s vote for superintendent
In January 2002, the School Board voted 6-3 to hire José Dotres as the next superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools to replace Carvalho, who had announced he was leaving Miami to lead the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The three School Board members who voted against Dotres, a 2013 Miami Dade College alumni Hall of Fame inductee? Marta Pérez, Fraga and Navarro.
They opted for Miami-born Jacob Oliva, then senior chancellor in the Florida Department of Education, who was appointed secretary for the Arkansas Department of Education by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in January 2023.
Among their concerns: Dotres’ enrollment in DROP, the deferred retirement option program, and his decision to continue living in Broward County.
Why Navarro resigned
Navarro resigned her District 7 seat on Dec. 30, 2022, a day before a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis prohibited elected officials from working as lobbyists went into effect.
Navarro opted to remain a registered lobbyist for the South Broward Hospital District, which includes the Memorial Healthcare System hospitals in Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Miramar and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. That lobbyist salary paid her just over $220,000. The School Board position paid $46,000.
Navarro was placed on unpaid administrative leave, the South Broward Hospital District said Thursday night.
