The next superintendent for the Broward County Public Schools district has been decided.
By a 7-2 vote Thursday, the Broward School Board approved Dr. Peter Licata as the next person to lead the nation’s sixth-largest school district.
Licata is deputy superintendent of Palm Beach County Public Schools. During interviews Wednesday as one of the three finalists, he said he is committed to raising teacher salaries.
“Broward County is currently a B, Palm Beach is an A, it’s a buyer’s market for teachers, what separates Broward from the other counties is that someone who is interested in being a teacher, why would they come to the county Broward?” Licata said.
One parent asked him, “How are you going to protect educators and their livelihoods from politically motivated attacks on your instructional practice?”
“Schools are not places for political attacks,” Licata responded. “They shouldn’t be, we are here to educate, we are educators, we are not lawyers, we are not politicians.”
But when asked by another parent how he would defend the Parents’ Bill of Rights law, which allows any parent to object to a book, which, as we’ve seen, can lead to the removal of books for all children, Licata said the district he would uphold the law if he were superintendent.
“I’ve read it probably 300 times, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, I think it’s just parents wanting to be involved in their children’s education.” Licata said.
Licata was approved over Luis Solana, an administrator in the Detroit public school system, and Dr. Sito Narcisse, the current superintendent of schools in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
