A Florida woman may soon be fired from her job with the Broward County School District for allowing her son to play on his high school girls volleyball team.
As The Blaze News previously reported, last November several faculty members at Monarch High School near Fort Lauderdale, including Jessica Norton, were reassigned to “off-campus facilities” after then-Principal Peter Licata discovered that a male student may have played on the school’s girls volleyball team.
“I saw my daughter’s eyes light up with plans for her future, including planning and attending her prom, participating in and leading senior traditions, giving a commencement speech and going on to college.”
The boy turned out to be Norton’s son, but she always called him her “daughter.” She also indicated that his name and gender had both been legally changed. Florida law allows minors to legally change their gender on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses with parental consent. National Center for Transgender Equality.
But another Florida law passed in 2021, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, prohibits biological males, like Norton’s son, from participating in sports teams designed for women or girls. Norton not only violated this law by knowingly allowing her son, now 16, to play on a girls’ team, but also by threatening to sue her son for not playing on a girls’ team. sex Her school records listed her as “female,” and she checked “female” on a form asking for her sex at birth.
Norton is Monarch’s information management expert and Junior Volleyball CoachIt is unclear whether her son played on her team or another volleyball team. She was then transferred to a district facility and assigned cleaning duties, in violation of the district’s collective bargaining agreement, which provides for her to be given administrative duties equivalent to her original position, she alleges.
Meanwhile, an initial district investigation into whether she had violated the FWSA did not clear her of any wrongdoing, and her case was referred to the Professional Standards Commission, which in March recommended that Norton be suspended for 10 days, but then-President Licata and current President Howard Hepburn reversed that decision and recommended that she be fired.
The Broward County School Board was expected to consider firing her. Tuesday MeetingBut the agenda was withdrawn a few days ago, with no explanation given for the last-minute change.
Nonetheless, Norton and her husband, Gary, attended the conference. Norton continued to praise himself.“I don’t need to tell you how much love I have for the Monarch High School community. The public statement of support you have received on my behalf speaks volumes about who I am and what I have meant to the countless students, colleagues and families at Monarch High School,” she gushed.
She also praised herself for handling the investigation into the alleged FWSA breach. “For 203 days I was open and honest,” said the woman, who calls her son a girl. “I received not a shred of respect or civility.”
She cast herself as the “hero” in her son’s transgender drama. “I don’t care if I’m the villain. [the administration’s] “Because I am the protagonist in my daughter’s story, this story becomes mine,” she declared.
Norton also went to great lengths to explain that her son was “thriving” at Monarch High School while disguised as a girl. “I could see her eyes light up with future plans to organize and attend prom, participate in and lead senior year traditions, give a commencement speech, and attend college with the confidence and joy that any student like her would have after a successful high school experience,” she claimed.
Norton claims that “the light went out” when her son was “revealed” as transgender last fall. “No one in the school district cared about her safety or well-being,” she complained. “They say they care about all of their students, but they didn’t care about my child.”
Norton’s fate with the district is set to be considered at a school board meeting next month. Her son, whose identity was not released, is currently attending online classes.
Norton has two older children, whose genders are unknown.
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