FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — As Broward County’s newest School Board members were sworn into office Tuesday, they wasted no time showing that major changes would be coming.
The first action of the Republican majority board: electing one of their own as chairman.
Torey Alston — one of five members recently appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (one in May and four last week) — accepted the leadership role after the longer-serving board members lost a 5-4 vote to elect Lori Alhadeff for that role. She was elected vice chair.
Alston, who recently stepped down as county commissioner, is a former student representative on the School Board.
DeSantis appointed Alston and three others — Manuel “Nandy” A. Serrano, Ryan Reiter and Kevin Tynan — on Friday after suspending four School Board members recommended for removal by a statewide grand jury report.
DeSantis also appointed Daniel Foganholi in May to replace Rosalind Osgood, who stepped down to become a state senator.
“This is a new board, a reform board. We all bring solid experiences on governing this school district,” Alston said after being chosen chairman. “Yes, our board looks collectively different from just a few days ago.”
The new board members said improving student achievement and addressing problems identified by the grand jury would be a key focus, including lingering safety issues in the wake of the Parkland shooting and the problematic $800 million SMART bond to renovate schools.
The grand jury completed its report in April 2021, but it was sealed for 16 months while those mentioned negatively fought its release in court. Superintendent Vickie Cartwright agreed to hold a workshop next week to go over the grand jury recommendations and discuss what issues have already been fixed.
“When looking at the report myself, at least in the areas of school safety, I think you will be pleasantly surprised,” Cartwright told the new board members. “You would have thought I had a copy of the grand jury report, which I didn’t. These are areas myself and staff recognized early on as areas that needed to be shored up.”
Cartwright started in August 2021, four months after the report was completed. The grand jury indicted her predecessor, Robert Runcie, on a perjury charge. Runcie is now the interim leader of Chiefs for Change, a national superintendent advocacy group.
The grand jury recommended the School Board remove board members Patti Good, Donna Korn, Laurie Rich Levinson, Ann Murray and Rosalind Osgood, saying they failed to hold Runcie accountable for failures. DeSantis removed all but Osgood, who resigned in March to successfully run for the state Senate.
The DeSantis-appointed majority will only last for three months. While Alston will stay for two years to fill out the remaining term of Good, the terms of the other three appointees and Foganholi expire in November, and they’ll be replaced by the winners of four runoffs to be held Nov. 8.
The three short-term board members say their skills and experience can help the school district during the transition to a more permanent board.
Reiter, who was an aide to LaMarca when LaMarca was a member of the Broward County commission, is currently the director of government relations at Kaufman Lynn Construction.
“What I bring to the table is a background in construction and legislative affairs and understanding the issues with the SMART program, which is something I’m going to really dive into,” Reiter said.
Tynan, former chairman of the Broward Republican Party, said normally it would be hard to get much done in two months. But the School Board approves both the capital and operating budgets in September, so he said the board’s actions will be consequential.
This is his second time on the School Board. He was appointed by former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in 2009 to fill a seat held by Beverly Gallagher, who was arrested and later convicted on federal corruption charges.
The fourth member, Serrano, is the founder and CEO of the financial company Clubhouse Private Wealth. He also was a star baseball player at Florida State University.
“Baseball is a team sport,” he said. “And I look at this board to be the same. We cannot win alone.”
He said his focus will be on improving safety and student achievement.
“I’m looking for real and effective change,” he said.
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