A principal and two staff members were reassigned during a controversy over a transgender student-athlete who played on a girl’s sports team at a Florida high school resume their duties County public schools officials said Tuesday after an investigation cleared them.
Broward County Public Schools spokeswoman Kayla Concepcion said in a statement that Principal James Cecil of Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, along with Assistant Principal Kenneth May and Athletic Director Dione Hester, will resume their duties Wednesday.
Concepcion said the district’s Special Investigations Unit cleared them of “allegations” but said “an investigation into other aspects is ongoing.”
Cecil and his staff had been assigned to out-of-school sites In November, an investigation was launched in connection with the allegations of inappropriate participation of students in sports.
It was after school reprimanded and fined after state officials said a transgender student-athlete was allowed to play on the girls softball team for two seasons in violation of Florida law.
Florida state law says that athletic teams or sports designated for girls, women, or girls are not open to male students, and that “a statement of the student’s biological sex on the student’s official birth certificate shall be deemed to correctly state the student’s biological sex. birth if the application was filed at or around the time of the student’s birth.”
The school was fined $16,500 and placed on administrative probation for a full calendar year.
The fine is $500 for each of the 33 softball contests a transgender athlete plays for the Monarchs during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons.
School appealed the fine earlier this year.
Some Monarch High students protested the staff change and they held marches and demonstrations in support of the student-athlete.