Broward teacher accused of making sexual comments hired and then fired in Palm Beach County
A Broward teacher investigated for allegedly making sexual comments to female students was later hired at a public charter school in Palm Beach County, only to be fired in May after the school discovered inappropriate pictures on his school-issued iPad.
Willie Holmes Jr., formerly a language arts teacher at Stranahan High in Fort Lauderdale, was hired as a language arts teacher by Somerset Academy Canyons, a public charter school in Boynton Beach, in October 2022, according to his personnel file, only months after his disciplinary case was brought before the Broward School Board.
Holmes was investigated by the Broward School District after multiple allegations of inappropriate conduct from female students. While at Stranahan, he allegedly unzipped a student’s jacket, glanced at her breasts and warned her she would get in trouble, according to a Broward School District report.
In a separate encounter, Holmes passed a note to another student to tell her she’s “been looking good lately,” according to the report. The student said he asked for her number and sent her several text messages, at one point asking her to download WhatsApp “if you want to see something really big.”
Following the investigation, the district recommended a five-day suspension of Holmes.
The suspension came before the Broward School Board at a July meeting, but the board postponed making any decision. By the time the issue came before the board, Holmes was no longer employed by the district because his teacher’s certification had expired, which added to their confusion over how to discipline him or whether they could.
Holmes’ current teacher’s certificate expires in June 2027, according to the Florida Department of Education. But Broward did not reappoint him for the 2022-23 school year because he did not have certification at the time, the school district said.
“I do not understand why we continue to see these issues come to us recommending a suspension,” School Board Member Sarah Leonardi said at the July meeting. “In my time here, we have expressly said we want to look at more intense discipline when it comes to these kinds of allegations.”
Marylin Batista, the school district’s general counsel, recommended that the board vote for the suspension if they wanted to ensure that Holmes wouldn’t escape the allegations against him entirely.
Avoiding suspensions by leaving the district is something teachers have purposely done in the past, former School Board Member Donna Korn pointed out during the meeting.
At the August meeting, school district staff withdrew the item about Holmes’ suspension.
“The withdrawal is to provide staff additional time for further review of this matter,” Jeff Moquin, the district’s former chief of staff, wrote to the board in the memo to withdraw. Holmes’ name did not come up in any agendas after that.
“Since he was no longer a District employee, the disciplinary matter did not move forward before the School Board,” a district spokesperson said in an email Wednesday. “The allegations of misconduct were reported to the Florida Department of Education Office of Professional Practices Services.”
The DOE’s Office of Professional Practices Services investigates allegations of misconduct against educators and takes disciplinary action against their certificates if they are found guilty. No action has been taken against Holmes’ certificate, according to the DOE website.
The Office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Broward School District did provide Somerset Academy Canyons with an employee verification report, which includes his dates of employment and the positions he held. Holmes began working for the district in 2016 as a substitute teacher at Stranahan, according to the report. His last full year was listed as the 2021-22 school year. For the 2022-23 school year, the report lists Holmes’ position as “withdrawn: disciplinary termination.”
None of the unredacted portions of Holmes’ personnel file, provided to the Sun Sentinel by Somerset Academy Canyons, include the allegations against him during his time at Stranahan.
Broward School Board Member Sarah Leonardi told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday that she met with district staff in September about Holmes specifically because the issue upset her so much. They assured her that he would not be able to get a job at another public school in Florida.
She was told, she said, that “if he tried to get another teaching job anywhere else in state of Florida, that this would follow him and the school district would notify them that this had happened.”
On Oct. 12, a month after Leonardi met with district staff, Somerset Academy Canyons offered Holmes a position as a language arts teacher.
“A month later,” Leonardi said. “That’s infuriating.”
On May 17, an IT worker at Somerset Academy Canyons asked Holmes for the iPads that the school had loaned him, according to a letter from George Groezinger, the school principal. Holmes kept the one he had been using and began deleting items. The worker told the teacher that he needed the device right away.
The school discovered inappropriate and “in some cases, pornographic” pictures on the iPad, the letter said. Groezinger recommended that Holmes be terminated immediately. His last day was May 23, according to a school record of termination.
It is unclear if law enforcement is investigating the incident. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions Wednesday.
Allison Mingo’s son is a rising junior at Somerset. The fact that the school hired Holmes is “scary,” she said.
“It’s disappointing to me that the school doesn’t have a better process for hiring, that they would hire somebody like this, who clearly, if they had looked, they would have found his background information,” she said. “They have a duty of care to the kids in their school to keep them safe to take care of them.”
