FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A mother of a transgender athlete is at risk of termination as new details emerge from the school district’s investigation.
Jessica Norton’s job with Broward County Public Schools is in jeopardy.
A district spokesman said one of the reasons Norton can be terminated is for violating the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
Norton worked for Monarch High School in Coconut Creek as an information management specialist and is also the mother of a transgender student-athlete who played on the school’s girls’ volleyball team, even though her child was born a boy, which violates state law.
“I was on a team, I played with her, and I think that everyone who thinks that they have this opinion on her but don’t even know her,” said a student on the girl’s volleyball team.
After an investigation, several employees including Principal James Cecil were cleared of any wrongdoing.
Investigators released new documents stating Cecil had been told one of Norton’s children was transitioning.
“Principal Cecil always believed JS (the initials used for the transgendered student) was a female and had no idea JS was a biological male. Principal Cecil added, ‘In fact, I was waiting for her to become a boy. I was under the impression that she would eventually be transitioning to become a boy.”
And when asked to describe the student’s physical appearance Cecil describe JS as “A girl. She’s got long hair, she’s frail, and she looks like a girl to me. I don’t know how to explain that.”
The transcripts also include an interview with Norton, who stated her child exhibited a desire to be a girl as early as age three.
“(JS’s mother) admitted that while she was PTA President at (redacted) Elementary, she asked an unnamed female employee in the front office to change the ‘sex’ in the district’s terms student demographics from male to female.”
In the transcript, the decision by Norton was “…without any supporting documentation and in direct violation of the District’s policy.”
But Norton said during an LGBTQ round table with former Superintendent Robert Runcie the two “discussed what could be changed in the system as far as demographics for transgendered children and he stated that we could change her sex in the system.”
Her child also has an amended birth certificate that shows her as a female. But investigators said that’s not the one in her school file.
Investigators said most of the parents who had children on the volleyball team wouldn’t allow them to be interviewed, but one player who did speak to them said she didn’t know her fellow athlete was transgender until she saw it on the news.
A spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign that is representing the Norton family states an individual can not violate the Act and a violation would have to be on the school system.
A school board meeting is scheduled later in June to discuss more on the investigation and if Norton will be terminated.
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