More Hostility Surfaces To Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie
BY BUDDY NEVINS
When Broward School Board members Donna Korn and Laurie Rich Levinson won reelection last month, the results seem to be resounding approval of the public school system.
Not so fast.
Korn and Levinson ran against surprisingly flawed candidates.
And School Superintendent Robert Runcie and the way he runs the schools is still deeply disliked in part of Broward County.
Check this out:
Or this:
I can never remember a school superintendent arousing enough opposition to generate bumper stickers.
A parent must be very angry to paste a bumper sticker on their vehicle calling for the ouster of the school superintendent. Feelings like that don’t evaporate overnight.
So here is Runcie’s scorecard:
There are vocal members of the community calling for his head.
There are several members of the School Board would vote tomorrow to dump him. Those anti-Runcie members are not yet a majority. Yet.
So why does Runcie stick around?
Maybe Runcie isn’t what his supporters proclaim: One of the greatest superintendents in the country.
If he was so great, couldn’t get another job where his support is more solid?
Runcie has gotten away for years with his Donald Trump act. He never takes responsibility for mistakes. It is always somebody else’s fault. Or better yet, it never happened.
Sounds like Trump to me.
But Runcie’s opposition isn’t going away.
Runcie worked hard and prayed for passage of both the $800 million referendum four years ago and the recent sales tax hike.
Hey, Robert Runcie. Haven’t you heard this one: “When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers?”
Every delay in the $800 bond program is another nail in his coffin.
And the sales tax? He will bury himself in that coffin if he doesn’t fulfill the promises made during the campaign.
September 12th, 2018 at 10:22 am
First i think Levinson ran a very nasty campaign.No need for that.Mr.Runcie got lucky with this latest voter approval for additional taxes( charges).However, people in the know think the majority have the stand he should be gone yesterday.What is in Runcie favor the again majority of the residents have no clue, understanding etc how he has mismanaged that over 800 mill he received the last voter green light to spend, spend, spend.Speaking of spending etc.Ft.Lau and the comm.recent aporoval of the budget.Im getting heart burn in regards to the cutting of the EMS station for Rio Vista etc.Fine.Take the 500 thou given to the Nova Art museum and allocate that 500 thou back to the EMS for Rio Vista.Then cut fat from other projects.Same thing here.And the Boat Show with your request from Mayor Trantalis for a million dollars.Kick rocks.Hold steady Mayor.The money they make they can do with what they have.They will never leave Ft.Lau.Kick rocks with the million.They will go no where.Trust me…
September 12th, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Seems like in all your bashing of the Super you never talk about the advances being made in the District scholastically or otherwise. Such an opinion is myopic and not well founded if it does not consider the positives gains amidst the criticisms.
September 12th, 2018 at 11:21 pm
….and if that wasn’t enough, he has approved the worst health insurance plan coverage for employees. He has completely destroyed the little coverage we had. The School Board gives employees a $20.00 raise per paycheck and approves an Aetna plan that makes us pay hundreds per year, they barely cover anything. It is extremely frustrating when you go for a test and they tell you that you have to pay all of it from your pocket. A test that last year was one hundred percent covered. Our paychecks are shrinking by the minute. He has also taken away the days off we had for winter break and Easter week. Plus we are paying for our pension. We accepted those jobs years ago because we were offered that, as part of the benefits package. I know this last was governor Scott’s doing, but still it adds up to what it is being taken from us….😕
September 13th, 2018 at 3:36 am
You lost my attention when you threw Trump in the mix, nice going asshole reporter 🖕🏿🖕🏿
September 13th, 2018 at 2:59 pm
Where can we get one for myself?
September 13th, 2018 at 3:00 pm
The School Board is very weak and scared of Runcie. They need to get spines.
September 13th, 2018 at 3:22 pm
Donna Korn and Laurie Rich Levinson are beyond flawed and dangerous. They ran on establishment support, and had been organizing since their last elections. Petty and Mendelson,(who was not flawed, he has a Doctors degree and was even part of the planning committee at MSD when they built the building where the shooting took place. When he complained to the admin about the building’s safety flaws- long halls, easy access to classrooms- he was called an ‘alarmist’) organized their campaigns in months, not years like the BTU pay-to-pay board members.
Donna Korn and Laurie Rich Levinson ran nasty, NASTY DISGUSTING campaigns. I was at the libraries for early voting and the BTU “hired help” were spreading lies about guns and teacher pay.
Was anyone else alarmed that Runcie sent out a mass text to all public school parents, which I assume is used for emergencies only, on election day to ask parents to approve the property tax increase? That was disgusting. And how he used the tragedy at MSD to lobby for higher teacher pay??!!
The people in this county that defend Runcie are either fed from the same hand that feeds him or are blinded by…well something I won’t say as to not be called a name that is thrown around to frequently these days.
What I am referring to is the same thing that keeps a disgraced ex-judge in the US Congress…
September 13th, 2018 at 4:26 pm
We could be so lucky to have Trump running our schools.
Make Education Great Again.
Just
September 13th, 2018 at 5:16 pm
@Disappointed and upset
Just curious if you have seen how much funding the state has taken from the public education system and been given to the charter (for profit) system? When the state gives you less and less money to run your organization it makes it significantly more difficult to provide more for your employees. As for the bond, all of the projects that have to be completed must go through a formal bidding processes etc. These are things the for profit charters do not have to do when they spend money from the state. I am not defending all of his actions since I am not keenly aware of everything done or not done but these are 2 key issues.
FROM BUDDY:
It is true that the Florida Legislature has failed to adequately pay for the public school systems…forever. I covered the Legislature under Democratic rule and there were many of the same complaints about inadequate education funding. That said, the Republicans have made as a goal transferring state money from the traditional public school system to charter and parochial schools.
However, and this is a big one, tens of thousands of students now go to charters in Broward County. If these students weren’t going to charters (and parochial) schools, Runcie’s school system would have to hire more teachers and build many new schools.This is something the opponents of charters seldom publicly consider. Can you imagine Runcie and his crew handling the construction of many new schools? Runcie and his bureaucrats have been criticized for being unable to handle the $800 million in renovations of older schools already planned.
September 14th, 2018 at 7:27 am
Trump’s name has no business in an article about Runcie. However, if Trump were handed $800 million dollars four years ago to rebuild and/or repair dilapidated schools such as Northeast High School, the rebuilding and repairs would have been completed at least two years ago within budget and ahead of schedule.
Runcie is an anathema to the educational well being of Broward County students, teachers, and school staff.
September 14th, 2018 at 5:54 pm
I agree Big Jeff. Trump would straighten this s— out.
September 14th, 2018 at 8:37 pm
The problem with imagining Runcie building more real public schools or wisely spending the bond money (both of which help strengthen traditional public schools) is that he can more accurately be described as rather helpful to charters, including among other things sitting on a “task force” for the legislature. There has never been an intention to expand traditional schools. When a fox guards the hen house, the foxes are taken care of. Check out: https://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/02/breaking-herd-charter-schools/#more-33201 and https://leaders.edweek.org/profile/robert-runcie/
September 15th, 2018 at 11:43 am
Communication skills are essential for a productive school board. No one seems to want to initiate “a thoughtful conversation” about that.
“We need to come together as one…
” We need to pool our resources”
” In my heart…”
I’m starting to feel like…”
We need to have a conversation…”
Zero substance. All histrionics. Useless. Couldn’t care less about what’s in your heart. Save it.
The Superintendent and stone-faced counterparts of the school board are well practiced as they wait patiently and confidently knowing that the point of a disorganized and digressive front porch worthy rant will never come. There is no point. It’s a cyclical spewing of off base and off topic ” I heard it somewhere,and will try it out” fragments followed by irrelevant streaming nonsense. The third “In lieu of….” when the obvious context would be: “In addition to…” is embarrassing to most; with the exception of the speaker; who has no clue of the intended place and PURPOSE on this board -surrounded by the worst of humanity with regard to the issue of… racism.
So what is this all about? You already know the answer to that. All of the “over the river and through the woods” as we wait, serves as nothing more than a forcefield to run out the meeting’s clock. Nothing gets accomplished. THAT is their goal.
The inaudible:” Go ahead, try it bitch” hence, the cold stare of contempt from the slickest of the board, has successfully “bitchslapped” advocates for the disabled; begging for school safety, yet again,using another to do their dirty work.
Who is to blame? Is it a condescending Jewish influence using African Americans as their puppets and pawns to stay in power? Is it the Black community of Broward; where in every nook and cranny there are champions for youth,competent leaders who have not yet stepped up to the challenge? Individuals with command of the English language, dynamic communication skills-Men and women with compassion and empathy. Are they being squashed by Mt. Olive and the Westside Gazette? Not an assumption; just a question.
We certainly do need to have a conversation. It needs to be about our failure as a community to establish STANDARDS.
We know everything about what’s wrong with the school board.
What’s wrong with US?
September 18th, 2018 at 5:51 am
What are these bumper sticker parents teaching children?
How to be negative and bitter?
How to blame someone for the actions of others?
How to demonize a person for attempting a program to help youth?
The shool board members act like these bitter incapable of moving forward people
October 10th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
As an honored teacher with forty-seven years of experience, I can tell you that the problem is overt racism. When jobs are given to one particular ethnicity whether or not they are capable of performing said jobs, chaos ensues. I have worked with “literacy coaches” who cannot utter a sentence that is grammatically correct, however, this is the norm for Broward County Schools. I have a friend who is a veteran teacher and she labels Broward schools as “mediocre at best”.The superintendent is in such a rush to be “politically correct” that our students are robbed of an education. Why are our schools laden with teachers who cannot pass the teacher equivalency test? I believe the Sun Sentinel quoted the number as over one hundred who have not mastered these tests. In many cases they are made into substitute teachers although they should have been let go! A job was left open last year in my school because the teacher couldn’t pass the test. He finally did pass, however, where else in society is employment kept open until someone finally masters the skills? Is this who you want teaching your children? I am devoted to my students, however, every year it becomes harder and harder to see our schools mismanaged with no real thought for the children.