Teachers union: Remove Palm Beach County superintendent

Claim Donald Fennoy has botched the return to school

Next week when students return to school campuses in Palm Beach County for the first time in six months, they’ll come back to an environment charged with fear, anger and confusion among frustrated teachers and staff.

Superintendent Donald Fennoy faced calls for his removal as he tried to explain how the return to school will look for teachers, students and staff. District administrators set those policies in the last few weeks, not over the entire summer, according to the Palm Beach County teachers union.

In-person classes are set to begin on Sept. 21.

The school district has faced significant criticism from both teachers and the school board ahead of next week’s reopening. In-person instruction was initially slated to resume one week after Palm Beach County entered Phase 2, which began on Sept. 8. The district, however, was given a one-week extension after Fennoy told Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner they wouldn’t be ready to open on

Sept. 14.

In a presentation to the School Board on Wednesday night, Fennoy said that students and teachers must wear facial coverings and practice social distancing at all times. The district will provide students with five washable face masks.

Physical education classes will be taught from a textbook for the first month, and when students start the strenuous physical activity portions of class, they must maintain social distancing in order to remove masks, he said.

When enough students return to school, they will receive instruction in overflow classrooms on a rotating basis. Students with COVID-19 symptoms will be isolated during screening by school nurses.

The union has “lost all faith and now have zero confidence that a righting of this rudderless ship is possible without immediate change,” Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association president Justin Katz said in an email to union members. He also called for the removal of Gonzalo La Cava, the district’s human resources director.

The union called for the school board to terminate Fennoy during Wednesday night’s meeting. Katz complained that teachers were misled about whether they would be permitted to work at home. They were initially told they could if they were uncomfortable returning to school, only to have the district do an about-face.

“In the past few months, our employees have been deceived, our students have been deceived, and even you on the school board have been deceived,” Katz said.

He criticized the district for claiming it didn’t have enough time to prepare.

“I reject this narrative. We did have time. The reality is the district frittered it away over the summer,” he said. It wasn’t until the problems were brought to light publicly in the last two to three weeks that the district addressed them, Katz said.

Katz complained that some schools in Palm Beach County won’t have the proper safety equipment, such as protective plexiglass barriers, in place by Monday.

“We sat last week and joked about how we wished the school reopening plan was as detailed as the athletic reopening plan,” Katz said. “It is a shame we know more about how best to utilize football field space than square footage in our classrooms.”

The school district said in a statement that “Dr. Fennoy, and the entire administration, are focused on the continued work at hand, reopening campuses as safely as possible and ensuring that students receive excellence in education whether it be through distance learning or in-person instruction.”

Earlier this month, school board members voiced their frustrations as the district scrambled to finalize policies that some said should have been in place months ago.

“In regards to reports of preparations being incomplete, like many of you I’m sad, angry, disappointed. We have got to do better,” said School Board member Debra Robinson.

She stressed the need for six feet of social distancing, rather than only three feet — a policy that Fennoy did not address beyond saying schools would follow CDC guidelines.

Robinson said she empathized with the staff members who keep schools running, such as bus drivers, nurses, janitors, teachers and principals. She urged the school district to match up teachers and students who prefer virtual instruction and to create another hotline for employees to report issues as schools reopen.

“We cannot control everything, but we must control what we can,” she said. “They are the ones who turn on the lights, who put the key in the ignition on the bus, they unlock the office and they teach the children. They run this place. We are their support … We must support them.”