A mother/coach let her daughter play volleyball. She’ll be suspended for 10 days now.

Broward County Public Schools employee Jessica Norton was suspended for ten days, but not fired, for letting her transgender daughter play on girls’ volleyball.

“I mean, obviously I don’t want to get fired from my job, I love my job, but I don’t think the decision for any suspension was correct,” she said after the meeting.

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The school board voted 5-4 to suspend her after taking several weeks to investigate prior instances of employees violating the law to determine the punishment that best suited the scenario. They settled on a ten-day suspension for her instead of firing her. The state fined the school $16,500 for Norton’s daughter’s participation.

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Norton is an information specialist and JV volleyball coach at Monarch High School. Her daughter previously attended the school district but is now in online school.

Superintendent Howard Hepburn had pushed to fire Norton. However, the school board ultimately rejected his suggestion in a meeting two weeks ago.

Letting transgender girls play on girls’ sports teams is illegal in Florida after the Gov. Ron DeSantis-backed Fairness in Women’s Sports Act was passed in 2021. The Norton family is currently challenging this law in court.

There was a debate on the floor to decide whether to suspend or terminate Norton.

School board member Brenda Fam said, “I think what happened is criminal in my opinion.”

“Ms. Norton did not abuse a child, she did not harm a child, she did what she thought was in the best interest of her daughter,” said school board member Sarah Leonardi.

“And if we do not terminate, then others would then be left to believe that they can, too, break the law, and I have a problem with that,” said Lori Alhadeff, school board chair.

“The child has suffered enough, and so has this family, I think we need to move forward,” school board member Jeff Holness said.

Norton responded by saying, “He’s right, nobody can understand what we’ve been through. We’ve been through death threats, harassing phone calls, letters sent to our house, and this was all because of something that they did, it wasn’t something that I did. I was protecting my child, again, I did nothing wrong.”

Broward County Public Schools is the nation’s fifth-largest school district, comprising over 200,000 students.

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