INVESTIGATES: Fla. Education Commissioner says DCPS teacher “terminated”, her classroom “memorialized to Black Lives Matter”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Duval County teacher who was taken out of the classroom and reassigned following an alleged misconduct violation believes she now has been terminated.

Over the weekend, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran mentioned the case involving Amy Donofrio during a forum in Ohio.

He spoke about how teachers cannot indoctrinate students on things that are not based on the Florida education standards.

“I have fired or terminated numerous teachers for doing that. I’m getting sued right now in Duval County, which is Jacksonville, because there was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure that she was terminated.”

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Amy Donofrio, the Duval County teacher he was speaking about, tells Action News Jax she was devastated.

She says, “Quite honestly, in the commissioner statement there was more information there than in the entire time I’ve been under investigation and removed from my classroom.”

We reached out to Duval County Public Schools to find out if that was in fact true.

DCPS says in part, “The employee referenced remains in a paid, non-teaching position.”

Donofrio’s lawyer, Cathleen Scott, explains, “We’re anxiously awaiting to hear from the district to give us some instruction as to what the next steps are.”

In a statement to Action News Jax, the Department of Education says, “In referring to the Jacksonville case, he used ‘terminate’ to indicate the decision to terminate the teacher from classroom instruction. This was done by the district and the Commissioner was in agreement.”

Scott says nothing about what Donofrio did should be a cause for termination.

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“This isn’t about indoctrination this is about Black Lives Matter student lives matter having the security of walking into school and go this is my school and be proud of it.”

Donofrio and her lawyer tell us they’ve reached out to DCPS to find out what her status is as an employee.

Donofrio’s plan is not to show up to work until she’s given further instructions.

DCPS says tells us it cannot comment further on pending litigation.

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