On his first day as the principal of Monarch High School at the start of the 2022-23 school year, James Cecil stood outside, greeting every student.

He soon launched a monthly series called “Coffee with the Principal,” a space for parents to share their concerns directly with the new administrator, and he reinstated the Parent Teacher Student Association. According to Jana Coelho, whose son attends Monarch, Principal Cecil attended all but one of the group’s meetings — the date happened to coincide with when he had to take his own child to college.

That’s why when Coelho heard the news that the Broward County school board removed Cecil from the Coconut Creek campus, she immediately wondered: “What could Mr. (James) Cecil possibly have done?”

“The more details I heard, the angrier I got,” she told the Miami Herald, explaining she admired Cecil and did not agree with his reassignment. “I was appalled. I was speechless and very upset.”

The school district reassigned him, along with four other Monarch High employees on Nov. 27, for allegedly allowing a transgender female student to play on the girls volleyball team.

On Tuesday, the Florida High School Athletic Association responded to the allegations, serving the school with a one-year administrative probation and a penalty of $16,500 for violating the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which went into effect in 2021 and prohibits trans girls from playing on female sports, and a FHSAA bylaw that mandates the same. (The FHSAA punishment made no mention of consequences for the reassigned school faculty.)

The employees’ departure has since caused a serious disruption at the high school, according community members like Coelho.

Perhaps the clearest example of the disruption was the students’ decision to stage a peaceful, half-hour walkout in support of the employees and the student at the center of the issue less than 24 hours after the district’s decision to investigate the school’s employees for allegedly breaking the law.

After spreading across the football field, students shouted chants including “Let her play,” “trans rights are human rights” and “Free Cecil now.”

The next day, they walked out again.

From Coelho’s perspective, the news was shocking. Cecil, in a little more than a year’s time, had improved the school considerably, she said. He boosted communication and transparency with parents and became a positive presence in students’ everyday lives.

In late November, she penned a three-page letter to Todd LaPace, the director of middle and high school for the North Regional Office at BCPS, and school board member Debra Hixon, who represents Monarch’s district, asking both of them to “fully exonerate” the employees. In it, she said the ordeal “is causing a great deal of stress for most students, staff, and parents.”

‘He does what’s best’

Cecil started his career with Broward County Public Schools in August 1998, after graduating University of Florida with a master’s degree in education.

His first job was as a social studies teacher at Ramblewood Middle School in Coral Springs, his employee file shows. He stayed in that job for six years until August 2004, when he transferred to Margate Middle School as an exceptional student education specialist for a year.

In 2005, he got his first position as an administrator when he returned to Ramblewood as assistant principal, a role he occupied for four years. He then served for two years as the assistant principal at Silverlakes Middle School in North Lauderdale, and then from 2011 to 2022 he was as the principal of Sawgrass Springs Middle School in Coral Springs.

Stakeholders praised his tenure and character in interviews with the Herald. (The Herald was unable to reach Cecil for this story. School Board policy prohibits those under investigation to speak on the issue.)

Anna Fusco, the president of the Broward Teachers Union, said the administrators’ absence hinders students’ ability to be successful at school. Educators often talk about continuity in learning and the importance of consistency. Cecil’s absence, she argued, is yet another distraction students will have to manage.

“When you’re trying to think about your academics and do what you need to do but your mind is wandering, it’s going to be a distraction,” Fusco said.

And the two walkouts students organized is further proof of that, she said.

“It showed that they’re concerned, that they’re stressed and that their school is going to be taken care of,” he said. “It’s human nature to (think about it) when something happens to someone you respect.”

Jim Gard, a teacher at Monarch High who has worked with a handful of principals in his more than 40 years of teaching, echoed Fusco.

“He’s an educator, and that goes a long way. He communicates well, administrates well (and) makes himself available all the time,” Gard said. He’s “knowledgeable, easy to work with, he gets out there with the kids (and) teachers. He does what’s best” for everyone.

One student at the school told the Herald that Cecil was always visible around the school. He ran an Instagram account, where he would promote events at school and “always made an effort to let students know about activities going on at school,” they said.

The Herald is withholding the student’s name because they were afraid of speaking on the ongoing issue publicly.

Students also felt comfortable asking Cecil questions about their work or about graduation, they said. Now, the student said, Cecil’s absence is noticeable. “You just feel it (and) the atmosphere has felt a little more empty.”

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