JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A special meeting of the Duval County School Board has been postponed, as the district continues to investigate misconduct by multiple teachers at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, and how the misconduct is reported to the state.
According to a notice from the school board chair, the meeting was postponed for “pending legal matters.” The notice went out to the public about 30 minutes before the meeting was supposed to begin.
The security was already set up, and members of the public were already filling out cards to speak at the meeting. Dr. Kelly Coker said the postponement was at the request of the Office of General Counsel. The meeting was called to address board members’ concerns about Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.
“There’s got to be some accountability for what has happened,” Coker, Chairwoman of the Duval County School board said. “Our children deserve that, and quite frankly, our community deserves that.”
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On Wednesday, an outside firm was hired to look into DCPS’ process for tracking and reporting misconduct claims.
“Right now, our board is taking all the information in,” Coker said. “We’re trying to dive into it, we’re trying to digest it. And then, we’re going to determine from there, what are our next steps as it relates to multiple levels of personnel.”
Coker also said that the meeting will be rescheduled after the district gets word from the Office of General Council. News4JAX contacted both the OGC and the attorney representing Dr. Diana Greene, and both declined to comment.
Dr. Greene sent a letter to the state today – reiterating that she and her staff are working to determine why 50 cases of misconduct were not reported right away to the state.
She said – she never intentionally failed to report this information.
DCPS Board member, Charlotte Joyce released this statement, The cancellation of today’s special meeting is unfortunate and extremely concerning. This meeting which was supposed to be held at the beginning of the week has been postponed yet again.
To say I am frustrated is an understatement. The situation with Douglas Anderson has been ongoing for over a month and the board still has not had an opportunity to discuss the issues around the reporting and what is being done within the District to remedy the situation. No one has been put on administrative leave and only one individual has been reassigned.
This Board was elected by the taxpayers of Duval County and they deserve to hear a conversation about this issue. More importantly, the students and community of Douglas Anderson deserve better than this. They have been left in the dark and this is completely unacceptable.