FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – In a shock transfer Tuesday, Broward County Faculty Board member Brenda Fam, elected in 2022, introduced her resignation efficient Might 1.
In a letter to Superintendent Howard Hepburn obtained by Florida’s Voice, Fam wrote that she steadily encountered a “poisonous atmosphere.”
She mentioned she “can not, with a very good conscience, serve a faculty district that lacks full transparency, that doesn’t stay as much as the best ethical and academic requirements for college kids, mother and father, and educators, nor lives as much as its fiscal tasks.”
Fam, an lawyer with greater than 30 years of authorized expertise, served as an assistant state lawyer and had been serving on the college board since 2022.
She was the final remaining conservative on the Broward County faculty board.
Gov. Ron DeSantis beforehand overhauled the board in 2022 and appointed new conservative-leaning board members, nevertheless, three reportedly misplaced their election bids in 2024.
Fam wrote in her letter that she encountered the “identical expertise” as Alec Bogdanoff, chair of the Superintendent’s Oversight Committee Job Drive, who lately resigned.
Bogdanoff’s resignation e-mail, despatched on April 11 was obtained by Florida’s Voice, mentioned the duty power “has been hampered by entrenched resistance, hostility to new views, and a tradition that too typically rewards management over progress.”
Bogdanoff wrote it was “deeply disappointing—and truthfully, unhappy—that as an alternative of focusing our vitality on creating extra success tales, a lot time is spent on infighting, exclusion, and defending turf.”
He mentioned probably the most “disheartening” half was a collection of “private assaults and the obvious coordinated effort to discredit and undermine anybody for merely asking laborious questions and providing a contemporary perspective.”
Fam mentioned she encountered the “identical hostility and private assaults [as Bogdanoff] for attempting to enhance the college local weather and enhance parental inclusivity of fogeys.”
“I additionally noticed that if a person doesn’t agree with the present district tradition of prioritizing social justice over teachers, the present acknowledged ‘quid professional quo,’ then they’re focused, dismissed and ridiculed,” Fam wrote.
“It’s time for me to maneuver ahead to the place my contribution is welcomed, and my background and data can result in an efficient and optimistic change,” she mentioned.
Fam wrote that she beforehand stood as much as her fellow faculty board members and the lecturers union, which she mentioned “adamantly opposed faculty alternative.”
“The Broward County Faculty District was so afraid of faculty alternative that the present chair, Debra Hixon, inquired publicly if I could possibly be faraway from my board seat for supporting college students and fogeys to pick out the perfect faculty would match their little one’s wants,” Fam wrote.
She mentioned she takes “nice solace” in realizing that she helped “save college students that had been being bullied and college students that had been suicidal to switch to their most popular faculty” through faculty alternative vouchers and the Hope Scholarship.
Moreover, she mentioned the district all the time seems to be in monetary disaster, “begging residents to select up the tab,” and mentioned the district “shouldn’t be regularly seeking to residents to complement their price range.”
She thanked supporters and mentioned she will probably be “perpetually indebted on your loyalty, dedication and sacrifice.”
“That is additionally what mother and father have gone by”
Broward County dad or mum and parental rights advocate Deidre Ruth, who has beforehand spoken at college board conferences, instructed Florida’s Voice she is “unhappy to see a board member that has stood for the kids and folks depart.”
“Ms. Fam went by exhausting ranges of ridicule, bullying, and makes an attempt of being silenced by the district,” Ruth mentioned.
“That is additionally what mother and father have gone by within the district that has differing viewpoints. When mother and father arise for his or her kids’s finest pursuits sure board members have known as feedback ‘hateful’ and ‘bigoted’ all as a result of mother and father don’t help a board member’s private politics and activism,” she mentioned.
Ruth thanked Fam for “standing her floor, giving us mother and father a voice and by no means morally wavering underneath such hostile situations.”
Broward’s historical past of controversy, limiting 1st Modification rights
In an interview with Florida’s Voice, Fam – an outspoken critic of sexually specific books in Broward faculties – mentioned her First Modification rights had been restricted in 2024 when she tried to learn from these books throughout faculty board conferences.
She mentioned she was knowledgeable that solely mother and father had been permitted to learn the books to the board, as said in a February 2024 memo from BCPS’s basic counsel.
On March 18, she shared her expertise of being barred from studying the books in a sworn statement earlier than a Florida Senate committee.
In Might 2024, Fam publicly said at a city corridor that she had additionally been requested to go away ebook committee public conferences previously.
Fam beforehand expressed opposition in Florida’s Voice relating to an Anti-Defamation League program in Broward faculties, saying grant funding must be returned and that the group has “misled everyone” about its packages.
A Florida’s Voice investigation revealed the ADL is offering faculties throughout Florida with a program that features controversial lesson plans overlaying matters like gender identification, racism, social justice, political occasions, and educating kids tips on how to be “activists.”
In June 2023, the Florida Division of Training known as a Broward County Public Faculties video inappropriate after a faculty board member used it to advertise Delight Month and criticize “anti-LGBTQ+ payments” in state legislatures.
In August 2023, the Broward County Faculty Board handed a decision adopting a Nationwide Day of Silence for the LGBT neighborhood on April 12, 2024.
In September 2024, the Broward County Faculty Board voted 6-3 in favor of a controversial decision in help of “LGBTQIA2S+ Historical past Month”, regardless of pushback from mother and father.
In October 2024, a Broward County faculty marching band carried out at a political rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, that includes Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
These are just some of the controversies Broward County Public Faculties have confronted since Fam was appointed.
