Newly appointed Baldwin High principal reassigned after loaded gun found in his vehicle on school campus: DCPS<\/a><\/p>\nCommunity reacts<\/p>\n
District officials opened the doors for parents and community members to share their thoughts and concerns on Tuesday, including input on the search for an interim or permanent principal.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot very well, not at all,\u201d one parent said when asked how the situation made them feel about their student\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to check their backgrounds more than they\u2019ve been doing,\u201d another said.<\/p>\n
Officials say the situation did not appear to involve an intent to cause harm, but firearms are prohibited on school campuses. <\/p>\n
Smith was issued a criminal citation for weapons on school property, a misdemeanor charge that requires a court appearance. He was released at the scene.<\/p>\n
A school already shaken<\/p>\n
The issue involving Smith comes just months after a scandal involving the previous principal rocked the school. <\/p>\n
Principal Michael Townsend was arrested in June and accused of failing to report child abuse.<\/p>\n
Townsend\u2019s arrest was linked to the arrest of teacher James Mulvey, who was accused of a felony charge involving a student.<\/p>\n
According to reporting from News4JAX\u2019s news partners at Jacksonville Today, Smith previously faced multiple complaints alleging inappropriate conduct toward students dating back to 2016 when he was an assistant principal at Atlantic Coast High.<\/p>\n
District reviews hiring process<\/p>\n
In a news conference Tuesday, Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said the district is now reviewing its hiring process, including how hiring managers work with human resources and the professional standards department.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s some healing that has to happen around the entire hiring process with today\u2019s outcome and we expect to do that work over the next several days and into next week,\u201d Bernier said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Bernier says three people will be operating the school himself, the Deputy Superintendent and the Regional Superintendent.<\/p>\n
News4JAX reached out to the school district by email with several questions including how the district plans to change its hiring process moving forward and what information officials heard from parents.<\/p>\n
The district responded, saying it does not have any additional information to share at this time. <\/p>\n
While on campus speaking to families, News4JAX spotted Dr. Bernier outside and attempted to get a comment, but he eventually turned and walked back inside without responding.<\/p>\n
Officials say both investigations remain active and that some information cannot be released at this time.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A new principal at Baldwin Middle-Senior High School is off the job after a loaded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1040,113,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-402418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-dcps","tag-education","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}