{"id":405001,"date":"2026-09-20T00:20:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/405001\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T00:20:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:20:06","slug":"judge-recommends-charges-dropped-for-douglas-anderson-teacher-over-charlie-kirk-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/405001\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge recommends charges dropped for Douglas Anderson teacher over Charlie Kirk post"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida judge recommends dropping administrative charges against Hope McMath over controversial social media posts, yet the final decision is pending.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Florida administrative law judge is recommending the state drop all charges against a Jacksonville teacher who faces possible suspension or revocation of her teaching certificate over a social media post made after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

Judge Garnett W. Chisenhall of the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings issued a recommended order Thursday, Sept. 17 in the case against Hope McMath, an art teacher who worked at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/p>\n


\n This story continues below. <\/p>\n

Chisenhall recommended that the Florida Education Practices Commission issue a final order dismissing the charges against McMath.<\/p>\n

The recommendation is not yet a final decision. The parties have 15 days from the date of the order to submit written exceptions to the Florida Education Practices Commission, who will issue the final order.<\/p>\n

“More on Monday, but for now we can move forward from a place of strength,” McMath said in a Facebook post<\/a> the day after the order was filed. “For today, at least, art won, free speech [won], truth [won]. And justice is getting closer.”<\/p>\n


\nWhat the state accused McMath of <\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Education filed an administrative complaint against McMath on Oct. 8, 2025, alleging five misconduct violations stemming from posts on her Facebook account.<\/p>\n

The state alleged McMath committed gross immorality, engaged in personal conduct that seriously reduced her effectiveness as a district employee and violated Florida’s Principles of Professional Conduct for educators.<\/p>\n

The allegations centered on two social media posts.<\/p>\n

On the day Kirk was killed in September 2025, McMath posted, “Karma\u2019s a b**** \u2013 and she heard all your speeches when you proudly proclaimed that you didn’t give a s*** about other people’s lives.”<\/p>\n

She also shared an image depicting author E. Jean Carroll holding what appeared to be the severed head of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

McMath said she was not celebrating Kirk’s death, adding that the image of Carroll holding Trump’s severed head had symbolic significance related to women overcoming abuse.<\/p>\n

McMath was removed from her classroom and reassigned to the district’s Art Resource Center, where she had no teaching duties.<\/p>\n

The order says DCPS investigated the matter and determined the allegations were substantiated, resulting in a verbal warning, coaching and counseling and the temporary reassignment. Chisenhall wrote in the order that McMath’s conduct did not rise to the level of “gross immorality.”<\/p>\n

McMath is set to speak out in a press conference on Monday, Sept. 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida judge recommends dropping administrative charges against Hope McMath over controversial social media posts, yet the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-405001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405001","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=405001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}