The Inspector General for the Florida Department of Education released a response regarding the NAACP’s complaints against the Suwannee County School System, stating the school district “adequately addressed the questions posed by the Suwannee County Branch of the NAACP,” according to Inspector General Mike Blackburn.

The duty of the Inspector General’s Office is to review the evidence and determine if the school district performed an adequate investigation.

Lesley White, president of the Suwannee County branch of the NAACP, submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on March 11, 2013 addressing an extensive list of complaints.

In White’s letter of complaints, he wrote, “There has been a grave injustice done to our students here in Suwannee County. Especially minority and special needs students. We as officers and members of the Suwannee County Branch of the NAACP refuse to sit by idly and allow this injustice to continue. The Superintendent (Jerry Scarborough), the Human Resource Manager (Bill Brothers) and the Director of Curriculum (Dawn Lamb) should resign immediately and allow this school district to get on the road to a correct recovery.”

On May 21, 2013, Director of Human Resources Bill Brothers submitted a letter to the school board’s attorney with the school district’s response to the allegations by the NAACP. The evidence was then submitted to the Inspector General’s office on May 24, 2013.

Below is a list of allegations submitted by the NAACP along with the School District’s response.

No ESOL certifications

Allegation: In the letter, White said his group obtained an official list of school staff from Suwannee School District. According to White, the list contained 18 elementary teachers whose records show no English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) certifications or endorsements.

In the school board’s response, Brothers provided certificate numbers, along with a copy of each certificate for each teacher listed in the NAACP’s complaint and their justification for being hired.

Response: “The NAACP is correct in their assessment that 18 teachers do not have the ESOL certification or endorsement,” Brothers said. “However, under the Modification to the Consent Decree in the League of United Latin American Citizens et al. v. the State Board of Education, and the Florida Department of Education’s Technical Assistance provided thereof, only Category I teachers are required to attain the ESOL endorsement or coverage area.”

Brothers said for a person to know if a teacher is qualified, one must know the ESOL requirements and timeframes are not only different for various categories of teachers, but are different based on other factors, such as teacher’s hire date, teaching experience, teaching assignment, the combination of training and the assessment of subject matter content, and the date an ESOL student was first assigned to the teacher.

“In order to determine that a teacher is in compliance, the researcher would need to have these data available. Unfortunately, the NAACP did not request this information, and had no way of evaluating the level of compliance based on the data they had available,” Brothers said.

Teachers lacking certificate numbers

Allegation: According to White, 13 teachers did not have a certificate number.

Response: “This is also a factual statement,” Brothers said. “However, three of the teachers are on the list simply due to a delay in data entry. These teachers had renewed their teaching certificate prior to the generation of the list, but the new number had not been entered into payroll.”

As for the remaining 10 teachers, Brothers said the district employs four non-certified teachers annually in the Allied Health programs at the Career and Technical Education Center. These programs include Surg Tech, CNA, and LPN adult education programs. The instructors have professional licensures which qualify them for teaching within their respective program areas. Another Allied Health teacher was recently hired and holds a district issued certificate.

Brothers said four employees who did not have a certificate number with their payroll record include two NJROTC instructors who are qualified Naval Science instructors. Their credentials are verified by Chief of Naval Education and Training. Two employees are occupational therapists who are licensed as such, and a Parent Liaison who is a master level social worker. The latter two are not teachers and do not have students assigned to them and are coded as teachers primarily for salary purposes.

Teacher’s names or certificate numbers not appearing in FDOE records

Allegation: White said 14 teachers’ names or certificate numbers are not shown in the Florida DOE records, or who are shown teaching in other counties.

Response: “In summary, all of these teachers are certified,” Brothers said. “The NAACP researchers could not verify the validity of the data due to several factors such as limitations of the Educator Certification Lookup tool, data entry by the researcher or district. Four of the teachers are District certified teachers (district certificates would not be available on lookup tool) and six worked for the District as a substitute prior to receiving their teaching certification. Their old numbers were still in the payroll fields but have since been corrected. One teacher had a name change, two have addresses not listed as Suwannee County, and one principal’s name was misspelled by the researcher.”

White said in his letter of complaint there may be 13 “teachers who may be teaching out of field.”

Brothers said this purported issue is another example of the need for additional data to make an evaluation of the District’s level of compliance.

According to Brothers, each employee is given a job code that most closely matches their job assignment.

For example, Traci Green does not have students assigned to her. She is a reading resource teacher who is certified in English 5-9 and she holds the reading endorsement, which is most appropriate for her job assignment.

Uncertified substitute teachers

Allegation: White said there were nine substitute teachers with certificate numbers, none of whom are certified to teach any type of high school math or science class.

Response: According to Brothers, there is no requirement for substitute teachers to be certified in math, science, or any other certification area. Individuals who have no prior classroom training are required to complete a training program that includes classroom management skills and instructional strategies. The District conducts a training program to comply with this requirement.

White’s next complaint is 212 substitute teachers do not have a certification number on file with the school district or with FDOE.

“According to our research, all Florida school districts require a substitute teaching endorsement or a valid Department of Education Teaching Certificate,” White said.

In the District’s response, Brothers said the District discontinued the practice of issuing District Substitute Teaching Certificates, following new legislation that required districts to develop a substitute teaching program.

“There is no law or requirement that we are aware of requiring districts to issue a certificate to substitute teachers,” Brothers said.

White said, “In reviewing the list, we (NAACP) noticed that many teachers have the same last names. We point this out because it supports allegations that fair employment policies in Suwannee Public Schools are distorted by widespread nepotism.”

He added, “A computer research shows 418 administrative and faculty (not substitute) positions in Suwannee County Schools, filled by people with only 300 different last names.”

Brothers responded, “It is difficult to discern if this is an anomaly in the data, or if it is typical of most community based schools. The Suwannee County School Board remains the second largest employer in the county; and considering that less than 10 percent of our workforce holds Bachelor’s degrees or higher, this could be an indication of strong kinship. We do have many “dual spouse” employees and many families where education is a popular choice. However, nepotism is something entirely different.”

Minority recruitment

Allegation: Lastly, White stated the Suwannee County School District has steadily reduced minority hiring over the past decade.

Response: Brothers said there has been a major emphasis on recruiting minority teachers. Despite their efforts, the District has not been able to replace minority teachers at the rate they have been retiring or resigning.

“The District remains committed to actively recruiting minority teachers and has developed a clear plan of action,” Brothers said.

“Our certification specialist, Becky Daniel, and I have reviewed the issues and allegations posited by the NAACP-Suwannee Branch in their letter to the Inspector General, dated March 11, 2013. Upon our review, we find clear and convincing evidence that the District is in compliance with the issues that the NAACP-Suwannee Branch has asked to be reviewed,” Brothers said.

On June 25, 2013, Inspector General Mike Blackburn submitted a letter to the Suwannee County School Board regarding their investigation.

“Our review determined that you (Suwannee County) have adequately addressed the questions posed by the Suwannee County Branch of the NAACP,” Blackburn said.

“Suwannee teachers are among the top in the State,” Brothers said in response to the Inspector General’s findings. “The most recent data from the Department of Education shows that 99 percent of our teachers are highly qualified and are teaching in field.”

“According to Florida Statutes, their (Inspector General’s Office) authority is to determine if the school district performed an adequate investigation,” said FDOE Press Secretary Cheryl Etters. “It’s up to the NAACP if they wish to pursue it further.”

Efforts to reach White for comments were unsuccessful.