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A Dec. 22, 2025, email shows Florida Education Department General Counsel David Chappell confirming the state would cover Duval Schools\u2019 legal fees in cases brought by two teachers. | City of Jacksonville, screenshot<\/p>\n
City of Jacksonville spokesperson Melissa Ross tells Jacksonville Today that Duval Schools received the offer of free representation from the Florida Department of Education. The city\u2019s Office of General Counsel, which represents Duval Schools under the city\u2019s consolidated government structure, approved the plan. <\/p>\n
Neither a Duval Schools spokesperson nor Education Department General Counsel David Chappell provided details on how the offer was initiated. Education department spokesperson Nathalia Medina also declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the first suit, brought by Douglas Anderson art history teacher Hope McMath, court filings show Lawson Huck Gonzalez will represent Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, the Florida Department of Education, Duval Schools and each of five named school board members: Charlotte Joyce, April Carney, Reggie Blount, Melody Bolduc and Tony Ricardo. <\/p>\n
Jacksonville trial attorney Andrew Bonderud, who is not connected to the cases, says selecting one firm to represent multiple \u201cmunicipal and individual\u201d defendants can help keep costs down. He says it\u2019s not common, though, to see state and city agencies hire shared outside counsel because they have a \u201cpretty deep bench of civil litigators in both offices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moms for Liberty and Moms for Liberty Duval, also named in McMath\u2019s suit, have retained a high-profile conservative firm, Liberty Counsel, which represented Kentucky Court Clerk Kim Davis, who served jail time for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.<\/p>\n
Duval Schools is the only named defendant in the second suit, filed by Bartlett, an Oak Hill Academy paraprofessional. <\/p>\n
The free-speech suits<\/p>\n
Bartlett and McMath both say their 1st and 14th Amendment rights were violated<\/a> after they posted to their personal social media accounts following conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s Sept. 10 murder. Both educators\u2019 attorney is John Phillips, who has represented high-profile clients including Omarosa Manigault-Newman<\/a> when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump sued her for violating a non-disclosure agreement. <\/p>\n McMath\u2019s lawsuit details the events of the school board\u2019s Oct. 7 meeting<\/a>, where she became a topic of discussion.<\/p>\n That evening, board members\u00a0Joyce, Carney, Bolduc and Ricardo wore \u201cThis is the Turning Point\u201d T-shirts<\/a>, which Joyce said was to \u201cremember\u201d Kirk, who had been killed the month prior.<\/p>\n Carney also read aloud an email from a \u201cDCPS parent who could not be here tonight.\u201d The letter didn\u2019t name McMath but made specific, critical references to her. The author later posted it to a public Facebook group and identified herself as \u201cthe woman who started all three chapters of Moms for Liberty in NE Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe First Amendment forbids the Defendants from unreasonably regulating speech or discriminating against speech on the basis of viewpoint during Board meetings,\u201d McMath\u2019s suit reads. \u201cThis was clear by the actions of wearing Turning Point shirts, evoking Charlie Kirk as a martyr, restricting speech while disobeying those restrictions and accusing McMath of wrongdoing, incitement and crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n State\u2019s involvement raises questions<\/p>\n Duval Schools says it opened misconduct investigations after it received complaints about the teachers\u2019 social media activity. But the timelines and details of the investigations raise questions about the relatively high level of state involvement in the cases. <\/p>\n An anonymous complainant on Sept. 18 alleged Bartlett\u2019s TikTok posts were \u201cspewing hate about politics, about republicans specifically, about Charlie Kirk, and saying things such as my kid better never be a republican (sic).\u201d<\/p>\n The district concluded its investigation in Bartlett in October, deeming the complaint unsubstantiated because her social media posts \u201creflect[ed] personal political views\u201d and didn\u2019t violate district policy, according to documents received under Jacksonville Today\u2018s public records request. <\/p>\n Bartlett wasn\u2019t returned to her classroom until Dec. 15 \u2014 one week after she filed her suit. <\/p>\n Paraprofessionals are teaching aides not licensed by the state, so it\u2019s also unclear why Bartlett\u2019s case was forwarded to the state\u2019s Office of Professional Practices, whose purview is reviewing district investigations that could affect teaching licenses. <\/p>\n In McMath\u2019s case, Duval Schools\u2019 investigation file mentions a Sept. 12 email from Moms for Liberty and includes several pages of screenshots of McMath\u2019s social media posts, including a post in which McMath said \u201ckarma is a b****\u201d following Kirk\u2019s murder. <\/p>\n Moms for Liberty Duval emailed Bernier, State Education Commissioner Kamoutsas and Duval board members Joyce and Carney.<\/p>\n Minutes after receiving it, public records show, Bernier forwarded it to members of his leadership team with instructions: \u201cPlease add this to the case and advise. Prepare this also for the visit next week.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, he replied, \u201cThank you for your email. This is an ongoing investigation, and I appreciate the additional information and will examine the information immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Days later, state investigators were on site at Douglas Anderson, where McMath taught. <\/p>\n Nothing in the investigation file indicates the district had already received a complaint about McMath, so it\u2019s unclear what \u201congoing investigation\u201d Bernier was referencing. The school district\u2019s investigative report lists Sept. 7 as the date the investigation was opened \u2014\u00a0three days before Kirk was shot. Duval Schools did not respond to a request for clarification before this story\u2019s publication.<\/p>\n Screenshots of McMath\u2019s social media posts in the investigation file, which were relatively recent posts, differed from what was attached to the Moms for Liberty email \u2014 which included posts from before McMath was hired at Douglas Anderson. <\/p>\n On Sept. 18, state investigators visited Douglas Anderson and interviewed students and staff about McMath. The record hints that the state\u2019s head of professional practices, Randy Kosec, personally visited the school; an email from one of McMath\u2019s teaching colleagues refers to questions Kosec had left on the back of his business card.<\/p>\n In December \u2014\u00a0shortly after McMath filed her federal suit \u2014 Duval Schools closed its investigation, issuing McMath a verbal warning for a post that used \u201cprofane language.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n McMath, a visual artist who also runs the Yellow House art gallery, tells Jacksonville Today she was surprised to learn that in the end, her politics weren\u2019t why the complaint against her was substantiated.<\/p>\n \u201cSo all that stuff you put in front of my face during our other meetings \u2014 the transgender stuff, the Gaza stuff, the Charlie Kirk stuff \u2014 that has nothing to do with this?\u201d McMath says she remembers asking investigators. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018No.\u2019 And I said, \u2018So you\u2019ve kept me out of class for 15 weeks and you sent this on to the state that is now investigating me, and now you\u2019re saying it\u2019s because I posted a work of art that had f*** on it?’\u201d<\/p>\n The district hasn\u2019t yet returned McMath to her Douglas Anderson classroom, citing the state\u2019s still-open investigation. <\/p>\n Florida Education Commissioner Kamoutsas\u2019 complaint against her teaching license cites three examples: an instance prior to her employment when D.A. students visited McMath at her art gallery and she distributed artwork that said \u201cGod is Trans\u201d (though Kamoutsas erroneously referred to the print as a book); her \u201ckarma\u201d social media post following Charlie Kirk\u2019s death; and her repost of a political cartoon depicting E. Jean Carroll holding Donald Trump\u2019s head<\/a>.<\/p>\n A state hearing about McMath\u2019s teaching license is scheduled for mid-February.<\/p>\n A Clay County teacher\u2019s suit<\/p>\n The Duval teachers\u2019 cases are proceeding at the same time a Clay County teacher is also alleging her right to free speech was violated when the state education department threatened her teaching license over a social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Filed on Jan. 26, Kelly Brock-Sanchez\u2019s suit claims she was \u201cacting as an ordinary private citizen\u201d when she posted to social media, \u201cThis may not be the obituary we were hoping to wake up to, but his is a close second for me\u201d following Kirk\u2019s murder.\u201d <\/p>\n Clay County Schools immediately suspended Brock-Sanchez, who was a teacher at Ridgeview Elementary. Court filings include documentation from the district alleging Brock-Sanchez\u2019s social media posts created an \u201cextremely high volume of social media notifications, emails and text messages\u201d that disrupted business at the school.<\/p>\n Commissioner Kamoutsas made headlines on Sept. 22 when he announced<\/a> he intended to revoke Brock-Sanchez\u2019s teaching license<\/a>. According to Florida\u2019s online database, her license remains active.\u00a0<\/p>\n Court files also show that Brock-Sanchez was fired Oct. 2; Clay County School Board members voted 4-0<\/a> to accept Superintendent David Broskie\u2019s Sept. 25 recommendation that she be terminated. There was no discussion.\u00a0In addition to her federal lawsuit, Brock-Sanchez has also filed a complaint with the state challenging the legality of Clay County Schools\u2019 decision to fire her. A hearing for that matter is scheduled in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Protesters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/protest.jpg\")
Protesters gather\u00a0before the Oct. 7 board meeting to show support for a Hope McMath, a teacher removed over a social media post.\u00a0| Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-2.png\")
Clay County Schools\u2019 records allege a teacher\u2019s social media post disrupted her school\u2019s functioning. | Middle District of Florida Court Records<\/p>\n