The Duval County School Board will pay a $300,000 to settle a lawsuit from earlier this year.
Amy Donofrio, a former Riverside High School (then Lee High) teacher, said she was unfairly removed from her teaching position in March. She made national news, saying administrators told her to take down the Black Lives Matter flag that had been hanging over her doorway. After she refused, the district temporarily reassigned her to warehouse operations and said she was being investigated for 鈥渟everal matters.鈥�
The Southern Poverty Law Center 鈥� who represented Donofrio 鈥� said the reassignment was an effort on the school district鈥檚 behalf to 鈥渞etaliate鈥� against the teacher and also violated her right to free speech.
This month, the Duval School Board voted to that would prevent the case from a years-long court process that could potentially cost millions of dollars.
鈥淭hough we know we haven鈥檛 done anything wrong, these are taxpayer dollars,鈥� board member Warren Jones said at the time.
Separately, Donofrio鈥檚 teaching contract was not renewed with Duval Schools.
Now, new details from a public records request show that the school board agreed to pay a $300,000 settlement with $240,000 going to Donofrio and the remaining $60,000 to her attorneys.
As part of the agreement, Donofrio cannot apply for reemployment within Duval Schools. According to the document, the school board had not concluded its disciplinary investigation into Donofrio. Now that the case has been settled, the investigation will not be concluded. The Times-Union has requested initial findings from the investigation.
Donofrio said she is 鈥渄evastated鈥� to not be able to return to the classroom. She鈥檚 been teaching for over a decade and was well known for her work with the 鈥� a group she co-founded that works primarily with at-risk students.
