Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Another shock to the Broward school system
Dr. Peter Licata announced “with great sadness” Tuesday that a medical condition will force him to leave the job he loves as Broward Superintendent of Schools after only 10 months on the job.
“It is best that I retire from this incredible role as an educator after 30-plus years,” Licata told the School Board that hired him last June. A nationwide search for stability and strong leadership ended up in, of all places, Palm Beach County, where Licata had been a principal and senior educator for decades.
He was off to a flying start, and just like that, it’s over.
Licata arrived in Broward last June with the fervent hope that he would provide the stability that the school district so desperately needed. Instead, the nation’s sixth-largest school district will now have its fourth superintendent in the past four years.
Unexpected and sad
This was stunning news, to say the least, and it caught the public completely unaware, though board members have known for months that Licata faced a serious health challenge.
Most of all, the news was sad.
At age 59, Licata is much too young to be retiring from anything, and he’s a high-energy, driven person.
His surprise announcement was yet another reminder to all of us that each day is a gift, and we should make the most out of the limited time each of us has.
Licata knows about mortality especially well. His own father, Tony, died of cancer at 59 after a long career as an algebra teacher and successful girls’ basketball coach at Broward’s Cardinal Gibbons High and Pope John Paul II in Boca Raton. Licata’s own health issue has not been disclosed.
Licata made a very big impact in a very short period of time, and that’s not easy to pull off in Broward County.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board was with him last August on the first day of school, when he strode into Bennett Elementary in Fort Lauderdale, beaming with pride as the leader chosen to revive the district and restore its coveted A-rated status.
A love of children
More than most former Broward superintendents — and members of this board recall superintendents all the way back to Dr. William McFatter in the early 1980s — Licata was a capable communicator whose love for children shined through.
He was a Broward leader who made friends easily and was approaching the top of this fractured community’s often-treacherous political learning curve.
He was mastering the political side of the job. He had won over the board that hired him, school principals, teachers and community members, even though his work running the district had barely begun.
The handling of Licata’s departure requires some deft negotiating, in recognition that his health comes first.
If he resigned as superintendent, he would have had to give the district 60 days’ notice. But if he is terminated, he can leave immediately and is entitled to 20 weeks of severance pay under his contract.
School Board Chairman Lori Alhadeff will negotiate terms of Licata’s exit, which still requires full board approval.
A quick termination eases the transition to the new superintendent, Dr. Howard Hepburn, who was recruited by Licata from Palm Beach County and who until Tuesday held the title of Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning.
No more chaos, please
Unable to return to “the crazy carousel of chaos,” as School Board member Nora Rupert said, the board made the right decision to appoint Hepburn as superintendent for three years, to reassure the public that the district is in capable, stable hands.
To make that happen, Licata has to step aside quickly — what School Board member Allen Zeman called “a selfless act,” made with the best long-term interests of the system in mind.
Broward cannot afford to lose Hepburn, too, and it’s well-known that he’s being recruited by other school districts in Florida and beyond.
Hepburn inherits the district’s precarious financial situation, its politically fraught fight with the state over charter school funding, and the uncharted and politically volatile territory of having to close and consolidate schools due to under-enrollment.
Licata’s departure was more than enough drama for one school board meeting, so it made perfect sense for board members Torey Alston and Daniel Foganholi to withdraw their politically charged proposals to rescind a teacher union contract and fire the school district’s attorney.
It would be hard to believe that the cumulative stress from all those issues, and many others, did not contribute in some way to Licata’s decision.
But Broward schools are nothing if not resilient, and the district and the wider community need to unite behind Hepburn, their unexpected new leader.