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I originally submitted an opinion piece titled “The Melanie Fishman Affair: A Case Study in How the System Protects Itself” to the Miami Herald.
The Herald has had information about this story for months. Throughout the controversy surrounding the former principal of North Beach Elementary, I provided updates, raised concerns and repeatedly called attention to questions involving the investigation, the teachers union, PTA funds, after-school programs and the private company involved in charging for the use of public-school facilities.
A new school year has begun. The former principal is gone. The underlying practices remain. Yet the larger story still has not received the scrutiny it deserves.
I am not waiting any longer.
Whatever the Miami Herald ultimately publishes, or does not publish, is between them, their integrity and their advertisers. I am giving the Miami Independent the fuller story.
This is not simply about one principal. It is about whether public institutions solve systemic problems or find someone to blame while allowing the system to continue untouched.
The controversy involved North Beach Elementary’s Homework Club, paid tutoring, after-school programming, PTA fundraising and the use of public-school facilities, including significant fees charged for access to the very public school these parents and taxpayers already support.
Parents have described those charges to me as approaching a “mafia-level vig”: raise private money for your children, then surrender a substantial portion for the privilege of using their public school. Whatever terminology one prefers, the amount, destination and justification for those fees deserve scrutiny.
According to a highly placed education source with direct knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation, teachers were charging for tutoring on school property in a manner the District alleged violated School Board policy. Rather than addressing the larger system, the investigation ultimately focused on the former principal.
Let me be clear: I am not attacking teachers or tutoring. Quite the opposite.
Teachers are trying to supplement their incomes while providing students additional academic support. Perhaps School Board members should spend less time scrutinizing teachers trying to earn extra money and more time addressing why so many teachers need that extra income in the first place.
And here is the contradiction: I have been informed that the same underlying tutoring arrangements continued after the former principal’s removal and continue under the new administration.
If those arrangements were serious enough to become part of an investigation surrounding the former principal, why were they allowed to continue after she was gone? And why are teachers and school organizations still facing fees associated with using public-school facilities?
Then there is Facilitron.
Facilitron is a California-based private company whose system Miami-Dade County Public Schools uses to manage reservations and fees for public-school facilities. This issue extends beyond North Beach. PTAs at North Beach Elementary and South Pointe Elementary have dealt with this system.
Parents pay taxes to fund their schools. They voluntarily raise additional private money through their PTAs. Miami Beach taxpayers provide additional local resources. Then these same school communities can face another bill to use public-school property for programs benefiting their own students.
How many times should the same family have to pay?
And where does the money go?
How much has been collected from PTAs and teachers? How much stays with the schools? How much goes to the District? How much goes to Facilitron? What services are provided in return? What exemptions exist, and who receives them?
I have checked Florida lobbying records and found no registered Florida lobbyist for Facilitron. So who is advocating for this company’s interests?
When parents and teachers challenge these charges and nothing changes, are establishment School Board members, including the member representing my district, effectively acting as Facilitron’s unofficial lobbyists instead of challenging the system on behalf of parents, teachers and taxpayers?
It is a provocative question. It is intentionally so. Public officials should be able to answer it.
And where are Miami Beach’s elected officials? The City commits municipal taxpayer resources to programs connected with our schools. Residents have every right to ask why their elected officials are not demanding an accounting.
Against this backdrop came the lengthy District investigation that removed North Beach Elementary’s former principal from campus for much of the prior school year.
Parents received limited information while rumors filled the vacuum. I attended PTA meetings, spoke with parents, reviewed documents and repeatedly sought transparency.
What I received in return was extraordinary: an overwhelming volume of positive correspondence and character references from parents, teachers and community members describing a principal they loved, respected and believed had served their children well.
I supported the former principal then, and I support her now.
Legitimate allegations should be investigated. But investigators are not exempt from accountability simply because they are doing the investigating.
My concerns became serious enough that I requested state-level scrutiny of the District’s handling of the matter. I was not asking for another investigation of the former principal.
I was asking for an investigation of the investigation.
Eventually, the former principal was cleared and invited to return.
Yet she never returned.
Multiple independent sources with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional repercussions, have confirmed to me that a private meeting took place involving School Board Member Joe Geller, Miami-Dade School Board Attorney Walter Harvey and the former principal concerning her situation. (The Miami Independent verified these sources. We asked Mr. Geller for comment and did not receive a response)
That raises a serious question about who was influencing this personnel matter and under what authority.
Florida law deliberately distinguishes between the School Board acting collectively and the administration of individual personnel matters. Section 1001.42, Florida Statutes, provides for the district school board to exercise its powers “acting as a board,” while Section 1012.27 places responsibility for directing district personnel with the superintendent.
So what happened in that private meeting? In what capacity was Geller participating? Was the former principal’s return discussed? Did he advocate for or against it? And did an individual School Board member attempt to influence a personnel decision assigned by law to the Board collectively or the superintendent?
And the personnel shuffling apparently did not end with the principal.
I have now learned that José Bueno, who served as Chief of Staff to the former superintendent, has been moved out of that role and into facilities. He remains employed by the District.
If confirmed by the District’s personnel records, it is another example of precisely what frustrates taxpayers about large bureaucracies: accountability too often means moving people from one taxpayer-funded position to another until public attention moves somewhere else.
Meanwhile, the underlying system remains.
The former principal left North Beach. The tutoring continued. Facilitron remains. PTA and facility charges remain. The bureaucracy remains.
The principal did not.
That is the real story.
Teachers deserve fair treatment and better compensation. Parents deserve transparency. Taxpayers deserve to know how public property and money are being managed. Students deserve stability. And administrators deserve investigations free from political, union or institutional pressure.
The principal is gone. That cannot become an excuse to forget what happened.
Who benefits from these facility charges? Why are teachers and PTAs still paying them? Why did the underlying arrangements continue after the former principal’s removal? What role did the union play? What happened in the private meeting involving Geller, the School Board Attorney and the former principal? If she was cleared and invited to return, why didn’t she? And why does accountability within this bureaucracy so often seem to involve moving people rather than answering questions?
North Beach Elementary has begun a new year. The former principal has begun a new chapter.
The public is still waiting for its answers.
And this time, I am not waiting for someone else to decide whether you are allowed to hear the questions.
