The declaration lists a series of principles such as parents being the primary educators of their children and public education money always following the children.
The principles also call for:
— Schools to be fully transparent with parents.
— Schools to prioritize proven teaching methods “rooted in foundational subjects over fads or experimental teaching methods.”
— Education to be “grounded in objective truth, free from ideological fads,” while also being focused on “America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions.”
— Students to be prepared for challenges and responsibilities of adulthood and taught “the whole truth about America — its merits and failings — without obscuring that America is a great source of good in the world.”
Also Thursday, the board approved new standards tied to a 2024 law (SB 1264) that requires instruction on the history of communism.
Among other things, students will be asked to compare the Communist Manifesto and the Bill of Rights; communist and socialist thought; the effects of anti-communists on American communism between 1917 and 1956; the harm done by communist espionage; and the roles of anti-communist politicians, including the late President Harry Truman, the late President Richard Nixon, the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, and the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
While at the Freedom Tower in Miami last Friday to mark Victims of Communism Day, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that while America won the Cold War, the communist ideology hasn’t gone away.
“It comes back and it’s repackaged, and they try to do it under various different banners. And so you have to understand what’s at stake here,” DeSantis said.
“I think it’s important to talk about it in a very clear eyed way, the destruction, the lives of 100 million dead at the hands of Marxism, Leninism,” DeSantis said. “But I think it’s also important that we just recognize the whole absurdity of it all, of the whole idea of communism and Marxism, Leninism.”
With state Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas vowing to prevent her from teaching again, an Alachua County teacher is fighting a disciplinary case that includes allegations she presented a certificate to a student that said he was the most likely to “become a dictator.”
Teacher Lauren Watts’ challenge went this week to the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, where a judge will be assigned to consider it. Watts’ attorneys disputed the state’s allegations, which also included that the teacher’s “conduct embarrassed and disparaged” the student.
“Each of these statements is false, intentionally misleading and not supported by the ‘investigation’ and are, therefore, in dispute,” Watts’ attorneys wrote in a Sept. 12 document known as an “election of rights,” which led to the Department of Education sending the case to the Division of Administrative Hearings on Wednesday.
The Sept. 12 document also took issue with the department’s handling of the case, contending that no “actual investigation was conducted, and no witnesses were sought or interviewed” and that an administrative complaint against Watts was “disseminated publicly via X.com prior to Ms. Watts receiving formal notice of the complaint, investigation, or probable cause determination.”
Kamoutsas issued the administrative complaint Aug. 21, after the student’s mother raised concerns at a State Board of Education meeting. The administrative complaint said that during the 2022-2023 school year, Watts, a social-studies teacher at Gainesville High School, allowed the student to be disparaged by other students when they suggested he was a “Hitler sympathizer.”
The administrative complaint alleged that Watts presented a certificate to the student in front of his peers “proclaiming (the student) the most likely member of the class to become a dictator, based on comments made by (the student) that respondent (Watts) interpreted to be conservative in nature. Respondent’s conduct embarrassed and disparaged (the student).”
The student’s name is redacted in the administrative complaint.
Kamoutsas said during a Sept. 24 State Board of Education meeting that he will “take every necessary action to ensure that this teacher never teaches again.”
Kamoutsas and the Board of Education have clashed with Alachua County school officials on a number of issues, including allegations that the local board has violated First Amendment and parental rights during meetings. During the Sept. 24 State Board of Education meeting, Kamoutsas said state education officials continue “to be concerned about the toxic culture that has infiltrated school board meetings in Alachua County as parents have been targeted simply for voicing their conservative opinions.”
In addition to disputing the allegations, Watts’ attorneys in the Sept. 12 document took issue with Kamoutsas, saying that a statement he made about Watts being prevented from teaching again furthered a “clear unwillingness for the department to provide Ms. Watts the process and impartiality required by law.”
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas has found probable cause that a Clay County teacher displayed “gross immorality” in posting about Charlie Kirk’s death, he announced Monday as Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a tip line to report “violent extremism.”
The teacher, left nameless by Kamoutsas, could lose her teaching license after she posted to social media, “This may not be the obituary. [sic] We were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me,” News 4 Jax reported. Kamoutsas said the post included an article about Kirk’s assassination, which occurred at a college in Utah.
In keeping with his promise two weeks ago to investigate teachers making “despicable comments” about Kirk’s death, Kamoutsas said he found probable cause on four Education Code violations. Either the teacher can forfeit her license, or she can be tried in front of department’s Education Practices Commission or the Department of Administrative Hearings.
The commissioner is seeking the revocation of the teacher’s license.
“As these posts continue to circulate, more and more students are exposed to the dangerous and false idea that violence is an acceptable response to differing beliefs, an idea that has no place and will have no place here in Florida schools,” Kamoutsas said.
The four standards Kamoutsas alleges the teacher breached are gross immorality, failure to protect the health, safety and welfare of students, reduced effectiveness as an educator, and failing to distinguish her personal views from the school’s.
“Holding educators accountable for speech that celebrates violence in schools is not a violation of free speech, it is a necessary step to uphold the standards of the teaching profession and the safety of our schools,” Kamoutsas said.
Last week, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar told the Phoenix that the commissioner’s letter to superintendents vowing investigations sends a “chilling effect throughout the profession.”
“For the commissioner to say there’s no longer a second-chance mentality in education and that he’s going to personally investigate and essentially be the investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge and jury in all of these cases is quite concerning,” Spar said.
New portal for complaints
On a broader scope, Uthmeier’s office opened the “Combatting Violent Extremism Portal” “where people will be able to report anything they observe or hear that is a call for violence or a threat for violence against other individuals,” he said.
“Let me be clear, we respect the First Amendment more than anybody. We’re not going to be the cancel culture that we’ve seen from so long from the Left. We’re not going to believe in silencing individuals. But there’s a big difference when it comes to a threat of violence, a call for violence. That is not protected by the First Amendment,” Uthmeier said.
Since Kirk’s death, people nationwide have lost jobs for speaking about Kirk’s death in a manner their employer views as disfavored, such as late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Teachers are held to higher standards than many other professions, the state officials said.
“It’s never been more important for people to speak up, for us to have safe academic environments where people feel confident to engage in discussion, free from attack, free from violence,” Uthmeier said.
The portal, not exclusive to education settings, allows people to submit screenshots, videos, or other evidence of threatened violence to Uthmeier’s office, anonymously if they want to.
“We must protect before people are shot, before explosives go off,” Uthmeier said.
Warning against abusing the portal, Uthmeier said, “We’re going to take everything seriously and, if you abuse this, if you provide something in a dishonest fashion to law enforcement, we’ll hold you accountable as well.”
The campaign in-part mimics the Office of Parental Rights Uthmeier added to his office earlier this year to field complaints alleging violation of parental-rights laws.
“The First Amendment does not protect speech that is likely and intended to provoke immediate acts of violence, or speech that expresses a serious intent to commit a specific act of violence, but it does protect robust free expression, which includes criticism of the past words and actions of prominent public figures,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said in an online statement last week following the state’s announcement it would investigate teachers.
“Dissent, disagreement, and counterspeech that criticizes political views should not be confused with condoning or encouraging violence,” the ACLU said, and retaliation for such speech “feeds hostility and division.”
After Kirk was killed, the ACLU continued, “Most people likely encountered speech they found despicable no matter where they fall on the political spectrum — that is the nature of a democracy where free speech is protected. While calling for further violence or condoning what happened to Charlie Kirk is wrong, many of the posts being cited for retaliation constitute core protected speech.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
AG James Uthmeier joins Education Commissioner Kamoutsas at Valencia College in Orlando to Announce New Tool to Combat Violent Extremism. https://t.co/g7Fc2boBAu
Florida’s Department of Education commissioner Thursday warned public educators to watch what they say online about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — or else prepare for an investigation into their professional conduct.
“It has been brought to my attention that some Florida educators have posted despicable comments on social media regarding the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk,” commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, a right-wing appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, wrote in a memo emailed to Florida’s school superintendents Thursday.
“These few are not a reflection of the great, high-quality teachers who make up the vast majority of Florida’s educators,” he continued. “Nevertheless, I will be conducting an investigation of every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior.”
The threat of investigation came less than a day after the on-campus fatal shooting of Turning Point USA founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The shooting, believed to be politically motivated, is currently under investigation by the FBI.
Commissioner Kamoutsas did not share examples in his memo to school superintendents of any teachers who have shared “despicable comments” about Kirk following his murder. The Florida Department of Education, when reached for comment, similarly declined to offer examples.
“The Commissioner intends to conduct an investigation of every educator who engages in misconduct and posts vile inappropriate messages about this current situation,” Department of Education press secretary Nathalia Medina told Orlando Weekly in an email. “If an investigation determines that these teachers should not be [in a] classroom based on their behavior, the Commissioner will use all of his power to hold these educators responsible up to and including revoking their educator certificate.”
Kamoutsas acknowledged in his memo that, while Florida educators do have free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution, “these rights do not extend without limit into their professional duties.” What an educator posts online publicly, he added, “may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve.”
The memo states that Florida law allows Florida’s education commissioner “to find probable cause to discipline an educator who, ‘upon investigation, has been found guilty of personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.’”
The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers union representing more than 120,000 public school teachers and school staff, shared in response to the memo that the union “is here to support the rights of every educator across the state, and we will not stand quiet while educators are tried in the court of public opinion instead of receiving the due process they deserve.”
“Allowing threats and threatening those in our public school communities is counterproductive,” the union shared in a statement. “As a union, we have always, and will always, stand for bringing people together. Now is the time to unite for safer, stronger communities for every American.”
The statement did not mention Kirk or Kamoutsas by name, referencing only “recent social media discourse.” The union and Florida’s education commissioner have sparred or otherwise been at odds over several issues, including teacher pay, instructional materials used by teachers in classrooms and COVID-19 precautions.
“Florida’s school union has fought against parental rights at every step — from supporting sexually explicit materials in classrooms to endorsing discrimination based on race. They even sued us to prevent schools from reopening after Covid,” Kamoutsas wrote in a post on X earlier this month, quote-tweeting FEA President Andrew Spar. “Despite their efforts, Florida remains the nation’s leader in parents’ rights. The union is led by political hacks who no one takes seriously,” Kamoutsas said.
According to Florida’s Voice, a right-wing news organization, a teacher in Clay County has already been suspended over allegedly celebrating the death of Kirk in a social media post. The post, however, no longer appears to be public and thus is not verifiable by Weekly staff.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a lawsuit against textbook publishers on Tuesday. DeSantis said the lawsuit was filed against McGraw-Hill LLC and Savvas Learning Company LLC. They were accused of systematically overcharging Florida school districts for instructional materials in violation of state law. DeSantis was joined by Attorney General James Uthmeier and Anastasios Kamoutsas, Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education. >> The story will be updated.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a lawsuit against textbook publishers on Tuesday.
DeSantis said the lawsuit was filed against McGraw-Hill LLC and Savvas Learning Company LLC.
They were accused of systematically overcharging Florida school districts for instructional materials in violation of state law.
DeSantis was joined by Attorney General James Uthmeier and Anastasios Kamoutsas, Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education.
