Put Levinson back on the School Board

The performance of Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie is a recurring and divisive issue in the School Board elections this year.

Of the five contested races voters will decide on Aug. 28, the campaign for District 6, which includes Weston, Cooper City and Davie, best highlights the wildly different opinions candidates have about Runcie’s work.

Incumbent Laurie Rich Levinson says Runcie is doing an excellent job; challenger Richard Mendelson thinks he should be fired.

Both candidates make strong arguments for and against the superintendent. Both are smart and articulate. But voters should do the school district’s 274,000 students a favor and re-elect Levinson.

There is great value in keeping institutional memory on the board, and Levinson has been a hard-working member since 2010.

Levinson, 55, understands the complexities of running the nation’s sixth largest school district, particularly in a state where she said “the Legislature does not value public education and does not fund it properly.”

“Student achievement has never been greater” than since Runcie joined the district in 2011, Levinson said in her endorsement questionnaire. She said Runcie and the board have done a good job under difficult circumstances.

Mendelson is a former teacher and wrestling coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. The Parkland killings and their aftermath spurred him to seek a seat on the school board.

He said one of his best friends since childhood was Aaron Feis, the assistant football coach who was murdered while shielding a student during the attack.

“It was the most avoidable school shooting in history,” Mendelson said. “And the response from the district – from the inability to perform the most basic courtesies of calling parents to the blame shifting and evasion of any responsibility, not to mention the repeated lies and halftruths – has motivated me to step forward.”

A professor at Keiser University, Mendelson, 40, agrees the state doesn’t provide the district with enough money to fund its mandates, but he also said many of the district’s problems stem from “mismanagement and inappropriate spending.”

Mendelson said Runcie and the board manipulate data and mislead residents about the district’s academic performance and the status of its $800 million construction bond issue, which voters approved in 2014.

During the endorsement interview, Levinson was grumpy from the time she entered the room. Mendelson’s criticisms clearly irked her. She is unhappy with the Sun Sentinel, too.

“Every article written is negative,” she said. “There’s never anything positive written about what’s happening in this district.

“In the past seven years since Mr. Runcie has joined us, we have our highest graduation rates ever, the highest third-grade reading scores since the FSA was introduced three years ago … I just found out from the state that we are the No. 1 district in closing the achievement gap this year. These are just a few of the measures to show the positive trajectory.”

As for the bond, she acknowledged that school renovation projects are behind schedule, but that early dollars delivered the promised computers, band instruments, pottery kilns, sprinkler systems, weight rooms, athletic tracks and more.

Levinson hopes taxpayers will approve a four-year property tax increase in November that will raise $93 million. The money will enable the district to give raises to teachers and other employees, and help pay for all the school guards the Legislature is requiring.

Mendelson said that until the district is reformed, he won’t support the tax hike. “We have fractured trust,” he said.

Levinson