Florida school superintendent who criticized DeSantis could lose job

Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized the governor, Ron DeSantis.

A revocation by the state education department could allow DeSantis to remove the Leon county superintendent, Rocky Hanna, from his elected office.

The Republican governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.

The Leon county district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.

He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group.

The threatened revocation was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.

Hanna can have a hearing before an administrative judge, attempt to negotiate a settlement or surrender his license. He said he had not decided what to do.

Hanna received a letter from the education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr, earlier this month saying an investigation found probable cause he violated a 2021 directive barring districts from mandating that students wear masks.

Hanna required students to wear masks after a Leon third-grader died of Covid. The fight went on for several months until Leon and other districts had their legal challenge rejected.