STATE OF FLORIDA
DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Petitioner, vs. BLUCHER MENELAS, Respondent. / | Case No. 19-6566TTS |
RECOMMENDED ORDER
This case came before Administrative Law Judge John G.
Van Laningham, Division of Administrative Hearings (“DOAH”), for final hearing by Zoom teleconference on June 5, 2020, at sites in Tallahassee and Miami, Florida.
APPEARANCES
For Petitioner: Christopher J. La Piano, Esquire
Miami-Dade County School Board 1450 Northeast 2nd Avenue, Suite 430
Miami, Florida 33132
For Respondent: Branden M. Vicari, Esquire
Herdman & Sakellarides, P.A.
29605 U.S. Highway 19 North, Suite 110
Clearwater, Florida 33761
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE
The issue in this unusual case is whether the district school board has just cause to dismiss Respondent from his position as a teacher for administering corporal discipline to his own child in the child’s classroom, where
Respondent was acting at all relevant times in his personal, nonprofessional capacity as a parent.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
At a meeting on November 20, 2019, Petitioner Miami-Dade County School Board voted to suspend Respondent Blucher Menelas (“Menelas”) without pay and to commence dismissal proceedings against him. Petitioner alleges that Menelas, a high-school teacher, violated the applicable corporal punishment policy, and committed other disciplinable offenses, by administering a spanking to his son, a sixth-grade student, in his son’s middle-school classroom, during class, in the presence of the boy’s teacher and peers.
Menelas timely requested a formal administrative hearing by letter dated November 25, 2019. Petitioner referred the matter to DOAH for further proceedings, and this file was opened on December 10, 2019. Upon assignment, the undersigned set the final hearing, which eventually took place on June 5, 2020.
At the final hearing, Petitioner presented the testimony of Patricia Costa and offered Petitioner’s Exhibits 1 through 9, which were received in evidence. Menelas testified on his own behalf, and Respondent’s Exhibits 1 through 3 were admitted as well.
The final hearing transcript was filed on July 24, 2020. Each party timely filed a Proposed Recommended Order (“PRO”) on August 10, 2020. The parties’ PROs have been considered in the preparation of this Recommended Order.
Unless otherwise indicated, citations to the official statute law of the state of Florida refer to Florida Statutes 2019.
FINDINGS OF FACT
The Miami-Dade County School Board (“School Board” or the “district”), Petitioner in this case, is the constitutional entity authorized to operate, control, and supervise the Miami-Dade County Public School System.
At all times relevant to this matter, including specifically the 2018- 2019 school year, Menelas was employed as a chemistry teacher at Dr. Michael Krop Senior High School pursuant to an annual contract.
The incident at issue in this case occurred on February 15, 2019, at Madie Ives K-8 Academy in the classroom of Patricia Costa. Ms. Costa has been a teacher for more than 20 years in Miami-Dade County. During that time, she has taught multiple subjects and held leadership positions at her school. In 2018-2019, Ms. Costa taught sixth-grade U.S. History. One of her students that year was Menelas’s son, T.M.
T.M. has been a disruptive and poorly behaved student from preschool onward, despite repeated interventions. Menelas has taken his son to numerous professionals for counseling and other forms of treatment, including medication, to no avail. T.M.’s behavioral issues have caused Menelas substantial emotional distress over the years.
T.M. had been in Ms. Costa’s fourth-grade class two years earlier. As a result, Ms. Costa not only had experience with T.M.’s disruptive behavior, but she knew Menelas as well, through parent-teacher communications. There is no direct evidence in the record, however, bearing on whether
Ms. Costa knew that Menelas was a fellow teacher. Neither she nor Menelas was asked about that at hearing.
As an experienced teacher, Ms. Costa possessed the skills to deal with T.M.’s misbehavior, most of the time. If Ms. Costa called T.M.’s parents, therefore, as she sometimes did, it was because she was at her wit’s end. So,
when Ms. Costa phoned T.M.’s mother on February 13, 2019, to request assistance in bringing T.M. under control, it was a sign that the child’s behavior had been especially bad recently. Whatever measures T.M.’s mom took in response to Ms. Costa’s call, however, failed to have the desired effect.
Consequently, on the afternoon of February 14, 2020, Ms. Costa sent an email to Menelas in which she wrote:
Hope all is well. I have been able to handle [T.M.] without having to involve you this year. However, his behavior lately has gotten out of control. Yesterday, he was disrespectful towards me and I spoke to mom on the phone. That had no affect [sic] on his behavior today. Constant talking during class to the point where I sent him to another teacher and gave him a detention. Secondly, he continues to make a loud clicking sound in other students’ ears and has been asked various times to stop, but he doesn’t.
Please have a stern conversation with him regarding his behavior. It is disruptive to the class and hinders the other students’ learning.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Menelas replied to this email the following day and might have spoken with Ms. Costa on the telephone as well.2 There is no dispute regarding the substance of their communication, which consisted of Menelas’s request to
1 In light of the circumstances, Ms. Costa’s request that Menelas “have a stern conversation” with T.M. could reasonably be understood as a plea for Menelas to use harsher methods in punishing T.M. than either she (the experienced teacher) or the boy’s mom had been able to employ. Whether Ms. Costa was euphemistically suggesting that Menelas give his son a spanking is unknown, and the undersigned is not inferring that such was her communicative intent. However, the subtext of the email is reasonably clear: teacher and mother have tried, and failed, to subdue T.M., and they now want dad to lower the boom.
2 He does not remember the phone call, and she does not remember the email. Menelas read the reply email out loud at hearing during his testimony, but the writing is not in evidence.
observe T.M. at school in Ms. Costa’s classroom that afternoon, and Ms. Costa’s consent to this request.
The district asserts that Menelas “used his position as a teacher to convince his colleague [Ms. Costa] to allow him to observe her classroom.”3 The evidence, however, does not support such a finding. As mentioned,
Ms. Costa did not testify that she even knew Menelas was a teacher, much less that she had given him preferential treatment for this reason. But even if she were aware of Menelas’s occupation, there is no evidence that Ms.
Costa allowed Menelas to visit her classroom as a professional courtesy. In her testimony, Ms. Costa referred to Menelas as “dad,” never as a colleague or fellow teacher; she neither stated, nor implied, that she treated Menelas differently from any other parent.
After finishing work on February 15, 2020, Menelas left his school and drove to T.M.’s school, where he checked in at the main office, and then proceeded to Ms. Costa’s classroom. Arriving at 2:45 p.m., which was
15 minutes before the bell, Menelas immediately walked to the front of the class and began addressing the students.
Menelas introduced himself as T.M.’s father (not as a teacher) and spoke to the class in that capacity only. There is no evidence that any student in Ms. Costa’s classroom (besides T.M., of course) knew that Menelas was a teacher. Also, while there is no evidence that Menelas sought Ms. Costa’s permission to address her class, Ms. Costa did not interrupt him or ask him to stop. At a minimum, Ms. Costa acquiesced to Menelas’s taking the floor, and it is not unreasonable to infer that she welcomed this, as it soon would have been apparent that Menelas’s plan was to have a “stern conversation” with T.M. for misbehaving in class.
In his remarks to the class, Menelas apologized for his son’s disruptive behavior, which, he told the students, had long been an embarrassment to Menelas, and which he taken many steps to correct, without success.
3 Pet.’s Prop. Rec. Order at 5.
Addressing his son, Menelas told T.M. that because he had caused his father embarrassment and refused to listen, T.M. would now be embarrassed by Menelas in front of his peers. Menelas directed T.M. to stand before the class, remove—and hand over—his belt, and drop his pants. T.M. complied.4 Menelas instructed T.M. to count to ten, and, as the boy did so, Menelas spanked him with the belt, one strike per number, for a total of ten blows.
Ms. Costa did not physically intervene in Menelas’s chastisement of
T.M. or verbally object to what she was witnessing; she merely watched.5 There is no evidence that the students reacted to the spectacle in ways that would suggest they were either frightened of Menelas or thought T.M. was in danger; no one screamed or fled, for example. Some students, in fact, actually laughed.
Putting aside for now the question of whether Menelas’s act constitutes just cause for termination, there is no dispute that T.M. was not injured by the spanking. Menelas testified that that he had no intention of physically harming his son, and this testimony, being consistent with the objective facts and otherwise credible, is credited as truthful. The manifest objective of this discipline was to embarrass T.M.
After spanking T.M., Menelas directed the boy to apologize to Ms. Costa, which he did. In her reply to T.M., Ms. Costa said something to the effect that “it shouldn’t have come to this.” Although there is some disagreement as to Ms. Costa’s exact words, it is undisputed that she did not admonish Menelas or question the propriety of his conduct.
4 T.M. was wearing boxer shorts and thus was not exposed by pulling down his pants. The incident, in other words, did not involve any nudity, and no charge to that effect was brought against Menelas.
5 At hearing, Ms. Costa testified that she tried to call Menelas’s name, as if to stop him, but he became extremely angry and started to yell. The undersigned rejects this testimony, which conflicts with other evidence in the record. The undersigned notes, as well, that in the “Summary of Conference-for-the-Record” dated September 11, 2019, the following statement is included in the allegations against Menelas: “Teacher [i.e., Ms. Costa] did not intervene in the incident.”
T.M. returned to his seat, and Menelas left the classroom without incident. The entire episode, from Menelas’s arrival until his departure, lasted approximately five minutes.
It is reasonable to infer, and the undersigned finds, that the spanking itself likely took no more than about 15 seconds, assuming that T.M. probably counted off at one-second intervals. Some time would have been taken up, as well, by T.M.’s removing his belt and dropping his pants, and by T.M.’s post- spanking apology to Ms. Costa. Subtracting the few minutes (at most) that these matters would have taken from the five minutes comprising the whole incident leads to the conclusion that Menelas must have spoken to the class for at least a couple of minutes before carrying out the physical discipline. This strongly implies, and it is found, that the spanking was not a sudden and unexpected outburst, but the foreseeable culmination of a series of deliberately unfolding actions pointing towards such an outcome. Any reasonable observer should have seen it coming.
The point is that Ms. Costa had reasonable opportunities to take protective measures, and yet she did nothing. If anyone in that classroom had a clear duty to protect the students from potential harm, moreover, assuming there was a genuine threat, it was Ms. Costa. At hearing, Ms. Costa explained her inaction as the result of being shocked by the unusual situation, the likes of which she had never encountered. The undersigned does not disbelieve Ms. Costa’s testimony in this regard, but she does, clearly, have an obvious personal interest in playing up the “shocking” nature of Menelas’s conduct.6
The undersigned is unable to find that Ms. Costa, a veteran teacher whose performance has been exemplary, as far as the record shows, would stand by and allow her students to be placed in harm’s way by an unarmed parent visiting her classroom. The more reasonable inference is that, in the
6 Ms. Costa’s bias arises from that fact that she, herself, could be charged with misconduct in office, for failing to take reasonable measures to protect her students.
event, Ms. Costa did not regard Menelas as a real danger to the students, including T.M., because she realized that he was using shame, not violence, as a means of bringing T.M. to heel, which was a common goal of them both.
After class, Ms. Costa reported the incident to her assistant principal. In due course, reports were made to the Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) and to the police. Given the absence of any injury to T.M., it is not surprising that, after being informed of the incident, DCF would not take the case, and the state attorney’s office declined to prosecute. It is found as an ultimate fact that Menelas’s spanking of T.M. constituted reasonable corporal punishment of the kind parents are privileged to administer in the state of Florida.
Menelas continued teaching without problems for the remainder of the 2018-2019 school year. He received an annual contract for the following school year and remained on the job until his suspension on November 20, 2019. There is no evidence that the incident in Ms. Costa’s classroom had any adverse effects on Menelas’s effectiveness as a teacher.
Menelas has no record of prior discipline relating to his employment with the district.
DETERMINATIONS OF ULTIMATE FACT
The district has failed to prove its allegations against Menelas by a preponderance of the evidence.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
DOAH has personal and subject matter jurisdiction in this proceeding pursuant to sections 1012.33(6)(a)2., 120.569, and 120.57(1), Florida Statutes.
A district school board employee against whom a disciplinary proceeding has been initiated must be given written notice of the specific charges prior to the hearing. Although the notice “need not be set forth with the technical nicety or formal exactness required of pleadings in court,” it should “specify the [statute,] rule, [regulation, policy, or collective bargaining provision] the [school board] alleges has been violated and the conduct which
occasioned [said] violation.” Jacker v. Sch. Bd. of Dade Cty., 426 So. 2d 1149, 1151 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983) (Jorgenson, J. concurring).
Once the school board, in its notice of specific charges, has delineated the offenses alleged to justify termination, those are the only grounds upon which dismissal may be predicated. See Lusskin v. Ag. for Health Care Admin., 731 So. 2d 67, 69 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Cottrill v. Dep’t of Ins.,
685 So. 2d 1371, 1372 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996); Klein v. Dep’t of Bus. & Prof’l Reg., 625 So. 2d 1237, 1238-39 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993); Delk v. Dep’t of Prof’l Reg., 595 So. 2d 966, 967 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992); Willner v. Dep’t of Prof’l Reg., Bd. of Med., 563 So. 2d 805, 806 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990), rev. den., 576 So. 2d 295
(Fla. 1991).
In an administrative proceeding to suspend or dismiss a member of the instructional staff, the school board, as the charging party, bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, each element of the charged offense(s). See McNeill v. Pinellas Cty. Sch. Bd., 678 So. 2d 476, 477 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996); Sublett v. Sumter Cty. Sch. Bd., 664 So. 2d 1178, 1179 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995); MacMillan v. Nassau Cty. Sch. Bd., 629 So. 2d 226 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993).
The instructional staff member’s guilt or innocence is a question of ultimate fact to be decided in the context of each alleged violation. McKinney
v. Castor, 667 So. 2d 387, 389 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995); Langston v. Jamerson, 653 So. 2d 489, 491 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995).
The Miami-Dade County Public Schools Police (“M-DCPSP”) investigated Menelas on the allegation that he had violated the district’s policy regarding the use of corporal punishment, which is “strictly prohibited.” School Board Policy 5630 provides:
Teachers or other designated members of the staff are authorized to control students assigned to them and shall keep order in the classroom.
Corporal punishment is strictly prohibited. Comprehensive programs for alternative discipline include, but are not limited to, counseling, timeout rooms, in-school suspension centers, student mediation and conflict resolution, parental involvement, alternative education programs, and other forms of positive reinforcement.
Violation of a school board policy is one type of act that constitutes the disciplinable offense of “misconduct in office.” Fla. Admin. Code. R. 6A- 5.056(2)(c).
After the M-DCPSP investigators determined that there was sufficient evidence to support the allegation that Menelas had violated School Board Policy 5630, Menelas was notified at a Conference-for-the-Record (“CFR”) that probable cause existed to charge him with misconduct in office based upon the spanking of T.M. In this proceeding, the district has added new charges to include other types of misconduct in office, at the bottom of which are allegations that Menelas endangered the mental and physical health and safety of T.M. and his classmates, and intentionally exposed T.M. to unnecessary embarrassment.
The material historical facts are largely undisputed. If Menelas had done to one of his students what everyone agrees he did to his son, this would be an open-and-shut case. Spanking a student is a clear violation of the district’s unambiguous corporal punishment policy when it is done by a teacher as a means of controlling classroom behavior. The corporal punishment policy does not, however, specifically prohibit a teacher from spanking his or her own child in a parental capacity, even if the child happens to be a student in a district school.
The district rejects the teacher/parent distinction as irrelevant, arguing that teachers have been disciplined for off-duty conduct, as well as conduct which involves their own children in some way. The district is correct that such cases exist. These cases may be distinguished, however, on the
grounds that the misconduct alleged therein was specifically disciplinable for one reason or another.
To be clear, no one is suggesting that Menelas could not be disciplined for committing an act of child abuse;7 for perpetrating a fraud to obtain a McKay scholarship;8 or for sexually assaulting a middle-school student,9 merely because the wrongful act occurred off campus or after working hours, or was motivated primarily by parental rather than professional interests. All these acts—child abuse, fraud, and sexual assault—are criminal or immoral regardless of whether the perpetrator is acting as a teacher or as a parent, and the disciplinary standards proscribe criminal and immoral acts.
In contrast, the common law and statutes authorize the use of physical punishment (unless excessive) as a parental prerogative; as a matter of law, in other words, regardless of one’s personal opinions on the subject, a reasonable parental spanking is neither criminal nor immoral. See, e.g., Morris v. State, 228 So. 3d 670, 673 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) (“Parents in Florida may discipline their children using reasonable physical punishments.”); G.C.
v. R.S., 71 So. 3d 164, 165 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011); A.A. v. Dep’t of Child. & Fams., 908 So. 2d 585, 587 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) (“Long ago, the Florida courts recognized the common law principle, which remains with us to the present day, that parents may administer corporal discipline to their children; provided, however, that the discipline is reasonable.”); see also § 39.01(2), Fla. Stat. (“Corporal discipline of a child by a parent or legal custodian for disciplinary purposes does not in itself constitute abuse when it does not result in harm to the child.”).
7 Lee Cty. Sch. Bd. v. Allen, 2015 WL 5098243 (Fla. DOAH Aug. 25, 2015).
8 Miami-Dade Cty. Sch. Bd. v. Swirsky-Nunez, 2012 WL 1828883 (Fla. DOAH May 16, 2012).
9 Broward Cty. Sch. Bd. v. Pittman, 2010 WL 5272945 (Fla. DOAH Dec. 22, 2010).
As mentioned, the district does not have a policy that prohibits a teacher qua parent from spanking his own child.10 If Menelas had spanked his son in the same manner in the aisle of a Walmart store, the district would not have jurisdiction to discipline him for such conduct—not, at least, under the charges that have been brought against Menelas in this case. If Menelas were, e.g., an accountant instead of a teacher, the district likewise would be without authority to impose discipline for violating the corporal punishment policy. Yet, there is no basis in the record for the undersigned to make a finding that Menelas would have acted any differently under the circumstances if he were an accountant. Indeed, the evidence shows overwhelmingly that Menelas’s occupation was entirely irrelevant to his conduct in this situation; he was clearly present in Ms. Costa’s classroom that day as T.M.’s father, not as anyone’s teacher.
The unique facts at hand compel the undersigned to conclude that Menelas—who was neither on duty nor at his worksite during the subject incident, and who, as a parent, had been invited by his son’s teacher to observe his son in her class—cannot be disciplined for violating the corporal punishment policy. The district must treat him no differently than it would treat any other parent who engaged in the same legally sanctioned conduct.11
After the CFR, the district added additional charges to the corporal punishment allegation that had been investigated by the M-DCPSP, namely
10 A different issue would be presented if a teacher’s child were a student in that teacher’s class, and the teacher spanked the child in class. Such issue need not be decided here.
Another similar, but distinguishable, situation would arise if, while on duty, a teacher spanked his own son who happened to attend the same school where the teacher was employed, but who was not one of his father’s students. The question of whether such conduct would be disciplinable need not be decided in this case. No doubt there are other imaginable fact patterns which might give rise to the question of whether the employee acted in the capacity of a parent rather than that of a teacher. This Recommended Order is intended to reach no farther than the particular facts of this case.
11 The district is not without recourse. It could, for example, direct Menelas not to enter upon the campus of his son’s school, pursuant to section 810.097, Florida Statutes.
violations of the Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida, which among other things, require that a teacher:
Shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning and/or to the student’s mental and/or physical health and/or safety.
* * *
Shall not intentionally expose a student to unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement.
Shall not intentionally violate or deny a student’s legal rights.
Fla. Admin. Code R. 6A-10.081(2)(a). A violation of any of these principles constitutes misconduct in office. Fla. Admin. Code R. 6A-5.056(2)(b).
Whether a teacher may be disciplined for violating one of these principles while acting in a parental, as opposed to a professional, capacity at the time of the alleged offense is a closer question than the previous one concerning the corporal punishment policy. This is because the common law right of a parent to administer corporal discipline to his child does not give the parent who is also a teacher a license to violate otherwise applicable Principles of Professional Conduct while spanking his child.
Ordinarily, of course, a teacher would not also potentially violate any of the Principles of Professional Conduct by spanking his own child because ordinarily such parental discipline would not be administered to the child in the child’s classroom while school is in session. The bizarre aspect of this case is that Menelas engaged in the lawful parental act of administering reasonable corporal punishment to his son in a public-school classroom, in the presence of other students. Under these unusual circumstances, the undersigned concludes that a violation of the Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession is possible, even if the parental act of
spanking, per se, is not disciplinable as a violation of the corporal punishment policy.
The district, however, failed to prove the alleged violations. The evidence does not show that Menelas endangered the health or safety of T.M. or T.M.’s classmates. T.M. was the one who received the spanking, and it is undisputed that he was not injured. None of the students testified, so there is no direct evidence of how the incident might have affected any of them, if at all. Ms. Costa testified that one student (out of approximately two dozen) had said she was scared, but this hearsay, even if admissible,12 is unpersuasive. Moreover, T.M. had been creating conditions harmful to learning through constant misbehavior. By administering corporal discipline to T.M., Menelas was making an effort—albeit an unconventional one13—to protect the other students from his son’s disruptive behavior.
The evidence plainly establishes that Menelas intended to embarrass T.M., which was, after all, the goal of the spanking. The question, however, is whether the embarrassment was unnecessary. Given that any embarrassment T.M. suffered was part and parcel of an otherwise lawful parental spanking, and in further view of the fact that T.M.’s disruptive behavior had brought Ms. Costa to her wit’s end, causing her to ask Menelas to do something to bring T.M. under control, the undersigned finds and concludes that the embarrassment of T.M. was not unnecessary.14 There is no persuasive evidence, moreover, that any other student or students were personally embarrassed.
12 See § 90.803(3), Fla. Stat.
13 This Recommended Order is not meant as an endorsement of Menelas’s methods, which in the undersigned’s view reflect a lapse of judgment caused by an emotional buildup that was years in the making. Menelas has been candid in admitting that, upon reflection, his public spanking of T.M. was ill-conceived and is something which he deeply regrets.
14 This is not to say, however, that the public spanking of T.M. in front of his classmates was necessary in the sense that no other disciplinary measures would have succeeded. Rather, the embarrassment of T.M. was a necessary component of the corrective action that Menelas took.
Finally, the district has not proved that Menelas violated the legal rights of any student. At a minimum, to establish this offense, the district must identify the specific legal right or rights in question. The district has not done so. As for the act of corporal discipline itself, the law permits a parent to administer a reasonable spanking to his child, and thus a child’s legal rights cannot be violated by a spanking that is both reasonable and administered by his parent.
Based on the foregoing Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, it is RECOMMENDED that the Miami-Dade County School Board enter a final order exonerating Blucher Menelas of all charges brought against him in this proceeding, reinstating Menelas to his pre-dismissal position, and awarding Menelas back salary as required under section 1012.33(6)(a).
DONE AND ENTERED this 28th day of August, 2020, in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida.
S
JOHN G. VAN LANINGHAM
Administrative Law Judge
Division of Administrative Hearings The DeSoto Building
1230 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3060
(850) 488-9675
Fax Filing (850) 921-6847 www.doah.state.fl.us
Filed with the Clerk of the
Division of Administrative Hearings this 28th day of August, 2020.
COPIES FURNISHED:
Christopher J. La Piano, Esquire Miami-Dade County School Board 1450 Northeast 2nd Avenue, Suite 430
Miami, Florida 33132 (eServed)
Branden M. Vicari, Esquire Herdman & Sakellarides, P.A.
29605 U.S. Highway 19 North, Suite 110
Clearwater, Florida 33761 (eServed)
Alberto M. Carvalho, Superintendent Miami-Dade County School Board
1450 Northeast Second Avenue, Suite 912
Miami, Florida 33132
Matthew Mears, General Counsel Department of Education Turlington Building, Suite 1244 325 West Gaines Street Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400 (eServed)
Richard Corcoran, Commissioner of Education Department of Education
Turlington Building, Suite 1514 325 West Gaines Street Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400 (eServed)
NOTICE OF RIGHT TO SUBMIT EXCEPTIONS
All parties have the right to submit written exceptions within 15 days from the date of this Recommended Order. Any exceptions to this Recommended Order should be filed with the agency that will issue the Final Order in this case.
| Issue Date | Document | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Jan. 21, 2021 | Agency Final Order | |
| Aug. 28, 2020 | Recommended Order | The district school board does not have just cause to dismiss Respondent from his position as a teacher for administering corporal discipline, as a parent, to his own child in the child?s classroom. |
