VIERA — On Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., while most parents are dropping kids at school or heading to work, the Brevard County School Board will vote on whether to forgive Superintendent Mark Rendell of every claim the district could ever bring against him, including claims the agreement describes as “known or unknown, fixed or contingent,” and to promise in writing that the School Board “will never institute a legal proceeding, lawsuit or action against or relating to Dr. Rendell.”

One week later, on Nov. 17, two of the five members casting that vote leave office. The voters replaced them. Neither replacement campaigned against Rendell or called for a new superintendent.

There is no deadline forcing a vote before then. Rendell’s resignation date in the agreement is Nov. 27. The new board could vote on the same document at the regularly scheduled Nov. 17 meeting and nothing would change. The only thing a Nov. 10 vote accomplishes is making sure the board that hired Rendell, extended him, and bonused him is the one that signs his release, before the board the public just elected has a say.

The document is titled a “Mutual Separation Agreement.” There is nothing mutual about it. On Oct. 27 this board gave Rendell a performance evaluation of 93.96 percent, including a perfect 5 of 5 on recruitment and retention, and voted him a $10,000 bonus on top of a salary above $300,000. Nine days later, before the next regular meeting could be held, he quit. The board did not want him to leave. He wanted to go, and calling it mutual is what lets the board waive the 90 days’ notice his contract required and release him from every claim it might have. What this actually is: the leader of the largest employer in the county walking out in the middle of a school year, with no replacement named, no chief financial officer in place, $100 million in short-term borrowing on the books, and an independent investigation he himself announced into a child who died in one of his classrooms. And the board that just rated his leadership excellent is holding a special meeting to help him do it faster.

The students, the teachers, and the taxpayers of Brevard County are entitled to ask how any of this serves them.

The meeting is at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the board room at 2700 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera. Public comment is allowed on this item. You must sign up in person before public comment begins. If you cannot attend, contact the three members who will still be on the board after Nov. 17, Chair Matt Susin, Megan Wright and John Thomas, through the district website or the board office at 321-633-1000, and ask them why this cannot wait a week.

No record he told the board before the deal was done

Rendell’s employment contract, signed May 9, 2023 by Rendell and Board Chair Matt Susin, contains a disclosure requirement in Section 5: “In the event the Superintendent intends to apply for and/or enters negotiations to consider alternative employment, the Superintendent shall notify the Board of such intent to apply and/or intent to enter into negotiations within three (3) business days of said action.”

The clock starts when he applies or begins talking, not when he accepts. For Rendell to have complied without telling the board anything before his Nov. 5 email, he would have had to apply for a newly created vice president position, interview, negotiate, have the position approved, and accept it, all between Monday, Nov. 2 and Thursday, Nov. 5. No record has surfaced of Rendell giving the board notice under Section 5 before Nov. 5. If one exists, the district can produce it before Tuesday.

The Space Coast Rocket has been told the district’s position is that Section 5 was never triggered because Rendell did not apply for the job; EFSC approached him. EFSC’s own release calls this a “newly expanded leadership role.” The college’s employment page lists roughly 30 open positions, down to groundskeepers and security officers, and the vice presidency Rendell received is not among them and never was. So a public college created a six-figure executive position, never advertised it, built it around one man, and handed it to him, and the district’s explanation is that none of that involved any communication, discussion, or negotiation with Rendell that he was obligated to disclose.

The clause does not say “apply.” It says “intends to apply for and/or enters negotiations.” Being recruited is not a defense to the second half. It is a description of it. Rendell ended up with a title, a salary, and a start date from EFSC President Jim Richey. That does not happen without negotiation. In the release, Rendell thanks Richey “for his faith and trust in me to be a part of the work going forward.” That is not the language of a man who got a phone call on Monday.

The district has also pointed to the first paragraph of Section 15, which allows the contract to end “by mutual agreement,” as what governs here. It does. Section 15 is how the board is letting him leave. Section 5 is what he owed the board while he was looking. One does not cancel the other. The mutual agreement is the mechanism by which the board forgives the breach, not evidence that there was none.

The contract also requires 90 days’ written notice before Rendell can quit. Ninety days from Nov. 5 is February. The agreement waives that too, and lets him walk out on Nov. 27, mid-year, with no interim superintendent named. Under Section 15, a material breach is “cause” for dismissal, which would have let the board pay him only through the date of termination. Tuesday’s agreement throws that right away and replaces it with a release for all claims “known or unknown, fixed or contingent.”

Why the rush?

Rendell does not leave until Nov. 27. The board already has a regular meeting on the calendar before then: the Nov. 17 organizational meeting, where the new members take their oaths and the board elects its chair. The agreement could be adopted there, signed that night, and executed with ten days to spare. Nothing in the document, nothing in his contract, and nothing in state law requires a vote on Nov. 10. The only thing a Nov. 10 vote changes is who is sitting at the dais.

So the board has to explain why it is calling a special meeting to do on Tuesday what it could do at a meeting it already scheduled for the following Tuesday. Special meetings are for things that cannot wait. What about this cannot wait seven days? If the answer is that the new board might ask questions, or want to read the Riviera file first, or want to know whether Section 5 was honored before releasing the claim, those are not reasons to hurry. They are reasons to slow down.

Nothing obligates the board to give him any of this. His contract does not entitle him to a release. No statute requires one. A superintendent who resigns is owed the leave he has accrued and the pay he has earned, and nothing more. A blanket release from a board that has not finished investigating what happened on his watch is a gift, and the board is choosing to give it to a man who quit on them. So the question for every member voting Tuesday is simple: does this action serve the school district and its students, or does it serve one man who walked out and wants protection the district owes him nothing for? If he did nothing wrong, the release costs him nothing to wait for. If he did, it is the only thing standing between him and the consequences, and the board is voting to put it there before anyone looks. The members voting yes should be able to say, on the record, which of those two things they are voting for.

The check he leaves with

There is no severance in the agreement, but there is a payout. Section 4 directs the district to cut Rendell a lump-sum check by Dec. 31 for approximately 178 hours of unused vacation and 1,094.7 hours of unused sick leave, roughly 137 days of sick time. Valued at his current salary, the sick leave alone would be worth roughly $160,000. Because most of those hours were likely earned years ago at a principal’s or teacher’s pay rate, which the agreement says will be used for those hours, the actual figure is probably lower, but the district has not said what it is. Combined with the vacation payout, Rendell is likely leaving with a check in the low six figures.

The agreement also commits the board, in Section 20, never to assert any “set-off” or “defense” against that payment. So even if the state, or a review of the Riviera incident, or the Rocket’s reporting on unreported misconduct turned up a reason to withhold any of it, the board will have already promised in writing that it won’t.

How does a separation agreement get written in 24 hours?

Here is the timeline. Thursday at 2:01 p.m., Rendell emailed every district employee that he “has been offered a position” at EFSC. Minutes later, EFSC published a press release announcing a newly created vice president position for him, complete with prepared quotes from State Sen. Debbie Mayfield and the head of the Economic Development Commission. By Friday morning, a complete, multi-page “Mutual Separation Agreement” was posted to the agenda of a special meeting called by Susin.

A public college does not create a vice president position overnight. A press release with quotes from a state senator does not get written in an afternoon. Somebody on the district’s side knew before Thursday. The question is who, and when, and who they told.

Susin is the board member whose name is on the agreement’s signature line. He is the member who called the special meeting. He is the member who, as chair, negotiated Rendell’s original contract in 2023, and he was among the votes to extend it to 2028 and award a $10,000 bonus last October, with the board’s own amendment admitting the bonus came “despite the School Board not specifically setting any goals.”

Florida’s Sunshine Law, Section 286.011, makes it illegal for two or more board members to discuss board business outside a noticed public meeting, including through a go-between. Actions taken in violation of it are void. The Space Coast Rocket is requesting every communication among board members, Rendell, General Counsel Paul Gibbs, and EFSC about this departure. If this agreement was worked out in private before Thursday, the records will show it.

One more name belongs in that timeline. State Sen. Debbie Mayfield, whose district includes Brevard and who sits on the committees that write the state budget funding both institutions, had a prepared endorsement in EFSC’s release and posted it to Facebook 22 minutes after the announcement went public, writing that she looks forward to “continuing our work together.” A sitting senator does not write a tribute in 22 minutes. When was she first told?

The district he is leaving

This is not a superintendent handing off a district in good order. In January, Rendell signed a memo ordering every district department to cut staffing costs by 7 percent, writing that the district’s past practice of absorbing enrollment losses without cutting people “will no longer be the case.” That same month the board voted to close Cape View Elementary. Enrollment has dropped by nearly 2,000 students in a year and nearly $79 million was cut from the budget. The board authorized $100 million in short-term borrowing to cover cash flow. The district was carrying hundreds of vacancies heading into this year, and a 1-in-1,000-year rainstorm closed every school in the county for three days this week.

Rendell got a $10,000 bonus and a two-year extension in October 2025, and on Oct. 27 of this year a 93.96 percent evaluation with a perfect score on recruitment and retention and another $10,000 bonus, from a district that ordered 7 percent staffing cuts in January. Now he is leaving on three weeks’ notice, in the middle of the school year, with no interim superintendent named, and the board that rewarded him wants to vote him a clean release before the people who replaced two of its members can ask a single question.

What they are voting to bury

This is not an abstract release. There are two unresolved matters in which Rendell’s own conduct is directly in question, and the board is voting to forgive him on both before either is resolved.

A dead child at Riviera Elementary. A Riviera Elementary student died Oct. 7 when a video display board fell in a classroom. The Rocket has obtained an email the teacher sent to the district’s IT department two days earlier asking that the board be secured. On Oct. 27, at the same meeting where the board rated his performance 93.96 percent and awarded him a bonus, Rendell told the board the district “has retained outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation into the incident,” that the Palm Bay Police Department’s investigation was continuing, and that the district was still awaiting the final inspection report. “While the investigations are ongoing,” he said, “it would be inappropriate to speculate about causes or conclusions.” Nine days later he accepted the EFSC job. All three of those investigations remain open. Rendell’s contract says the district does not have to defend him if he acted with “wanton or willful disregard of human rights, safety, or property.” Tuesday’s agreement extends his indemnification to “any case subsequently filed against Dr. Rendell resulting from his official duties,” and it does not say what happens if the independent investigation he announced finds he was responsible. The board will have promised never to act.

Put his own words next to the board’s. On Oct. 27, Rendell told the board that while the Riviera investigations are ongoing, “it would be inappropriate to speculate about causes or conclusions.” Nine days later he took another job. On Tuesday the board will decide that it is appropriate to release him from any accountability for those conclusions before anyone has reached them.

This is not a case where nobody could have known. The district had written notice. Two days before the board fell, the classroom teacher emailed the district’s IT department asking that it be secured. The Rocket has that email, and the 911 audio from the day it fell. The Rocket is seeking the district’s other communications about that classroom and that board. Who received the teacher’s warning, what they did with it, and whether it reached anyone above the school are the questions the independent investigation exists to answer. The board is being asked to release the superintendent before it asks them.

Failure to report misconduct to the state. Florida law, Section 1012.796, requires a superintendent to report to the Department of Education any instance of educator misconduct that affects the health, safety, or welfare of a student. The penalty for a superintendent who knowingly fails to do so is spelled out in the statute: forfeiture of his salary for one year. In 2023, Florida’s education commissioner invoked that penalty against the Duval County superintendent over a single unreported case. At Rendell’s pay, that is more than $300,000.

On Sept. 23, six weeks before Rendell announced his departure, The Space Coast Rocket filed a public records request with the district for every report, referral, or notification the superintendent sent to the state’s Office of Professional Practices Services concerning three people, along with any record showing the district decided a report was not required. The three:

Elizabeth Hill-Brodigan, the former Roosevelt Elementary principal who hosted a house party where more than 100 minors had access to alcohol. She was arrested in January 2025 and charged with felony child neglect. In February 2026 she pled and was sentenced to two years’ probation. As of Saturday, the state’s certification database shows her Florida educator certificate is active through June 2027 with no disciplinary notation, and she still holds the School Principal endorsement. Nothing on her record would stop another district from hiring her to run a school.

Karly Anderson, the Roosevelt teacher arrested at the same party. The district rehired her in April 2025 and put her back in a classroom at Saturn Elementary, then pulled her out a day later when bodycam footage surfaced. Rendell himself said in a release that her actions “were unacceptable” and “warrant further investigation.” She was convicted on two misdemeanors in May 2025. Her certificate shows “expired” as of June 2026, not revoked, suspended, or surrendered, and no disciplinary notation.

Gene Trent, the sitting board member. Trent was board chair when the party happened. Asked about the arrests, he told Fox 35: “This isn’t anything new. When we have thousands of employees, things happen.” He said he had read the police report and “it seems that it was a teenage party,” and that he did not think the arrests should be making headlines. Trent’s own file is on the same list. In October 2022, while he was a candidate for the board and a teacher at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High, the Rocket reported that he had answered “no” on his BPS employment application when asked whether he had ever been arrested, despite a 1999 battery arrest in Illinois. The district’s HR office said at the time that false information on an application “could result in immediate termination.” A district investigation by outside counsel, completed in December 2022 and confirmed by a second firm in April 2023, found the allegation founded. Trent resigned his teaching position rather than face termination, which under district policy ended the district’s ability to fire him. He kept his seat on the board. The timing matters. The second firm confirmed the finding on April 4, 2023. Four weeks later, on May 2, the board selected Rendell as superintendent on a 3-2 vote. Trent, who had taught under Rendell at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High, was his most vocal backer on the board. Rendell took office June 1. The one founded misconduct finding waiting for the new superintendent concerned the board member who had just put him there. His certificate is active through June 2030 with no disciplinary notation.

By contrast, when teacher Melissa Calhoun called a student by a preferred name, the district referred her to the state. The state opened a case, and she received a reprimand, probation, and a fine. Calhoun’s case appears in the state’s public discipline database. Nothing appears there for the principal who hosted the party, the teacher convicted at it, or the board member found to have lied on his application. That database shows only cases that reached a final order, so its silence does not by itself prove no report was filed. What the public record does show, as of Saturday, is that no action of any kind has been taken against any of the three certificates. The Rocket’s records request to the district, which would show whether reports were ever sent, remains pending.

Whether Rendell made those referrals is a question the district can answer with a single document. Until it does, the board on Tuesday will be voting to release him from every claim it might have, including that one, and Trent, whose own case is on that list, will be casting one of the votes.

And if any employee comes forward next month with a complaint about Rendell of any kind, harassment, retaliation, anything, the board will have already signed away its ability to do anything about it.

The state is not bound by this release. The Department of Education and the Commission on Ethics can still act. The only body that gives up its rights Tuesday is the Brevard County School Board, on behalf of the taxpayers it represents.

He has done this before, almost move for move

In 2018, a primary election changed the makeup of the Indian River County School Board that employed Rendell as superintendent. He later said on the radio that he began “preparing for this” that August and started looking for another job once the board’s makeup changed. By early 2019, the board and Rendell were at odds over district finances and his contract. In March 2019 he emailed the board that he was seeking other employment and reminded them his contract required only 30 days’ notice. The board chair called for his resignation, saying the district could not be left exposed to a superintendent who could walk out on 30 days’ notice.

What he did not tell them was that he had already applied for, and would soon accept, the principal’s job at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School. On April 9, 2019, the board voted not to renew him. Within a day he offered to resign in exchange for $62,545 and a promise that board members would never say anything “disparaging” about him. On April 16, a special meeting was convened to take up his offer. Under Florida law only the chair or a board majority can call one. Neither had. The board’s secretary refused to tell members who had requested it. It turned out to be Vice Chair Tiffany Justice, Rendell’s closest ally on the board, who used the meeting to urge her colleagues to accept his deal. Questions were raised at the time about whether the meeting was lawfully called.

April 16 was also the day the Brevard County School Board posted its agenda for Rendell’s hiring at Cocoa Beach. He had already taken the Brevard job while the Indian River board was still waiting on his answer to its counteroffer. The Indian River board refused to pay him or sign the gag clause. He resigned with 30 days’ notice and started in Brevard on June 3, as the Rocket reported when Susin’s board made him superintendent four years later.

Line it up. An election goes against him. The district is in a fight over its finances. He quietly secures the next job without telling the board. A loyal board member arranges a hastily called meeting to approve his exit terms, including a release. In Indian River it was a board at odds with him over money. In Brevard it is a $100 million short-term loan, a $79 million budget cut, 7 percent staffing cuts he ordered himself, a closed elementary school, and no chief financial officer. The difference is that in 2019 the rest of the board said no. On Nov. 3, Gene Trent lost his seat. On Nov. 5, Rendell’s new job was announced. On Nov. 10, a special meeting called by the chair will vote on a release. This time the board that hired him anyway is the one being asked to say yes.

Here is what makes it stranger. Nobody was coming for him. Neither Kyle Savage nor Michele McCormack said a word about Rendell during their campaigns. Savage ran on teacher pay, earlier notice before school closures, and filling the district’s vacant CFO job. McCormack ran on retention, services for students with disabilities, and keeping politics out of classrooms. No candidate called for a new superintendent. So Rendell is not fleeing a board that wanted him gone. He is leaving a board that was no longer his, on three weeks’ notice, with a release in hand for claims nobody has made yet. If the new board was not a threat to his job, the question is what he and the people arranging his exit believe it was a threat to.

Who is voting, and who answers for it

Gene Trent lost his seat Tuesday to Kyle Savage, 55 percent to 45. Katye Campbell’s seat goes to Michele McCormack. Both new members are sworn in Nov. 17. Trent and Campbell will cast votes Tuesday on an agreement whose consequences they will never have to answer for.

Susin, Wright and Thomas are staying. Susin called the meeting and his name is on the signature line. Wright and Thomas have not said publicly how they will vote. Any one of the three can move to postpone to Nov. 17 and force a recorded vote on whether the new board gets a say.

Any member can ask Gibbs on the record whether Rendell complied with the three-day clause before the board votes to forgive it. Any member can ask Trent whether he should abstain from releasing claims against the man whose handling of Trent’s own case is under review. Each of those motions produces a recorded vote.

The Space Coast Rocket asked Susin on Saturday why the vote cannot wait until Nov. 17, when he first learned Rendell was in talks with EFSC and whether the board received the notice his contract required, why the board is releasing claims while the Riviera investigation is open, and who drafted the agreement. His response, if one comes, will be published. The Rocket is putting the same questions to the other four members.

If you want a say in who answers for what happened at Riviera Elementary, for what was and was not reported to the state, and for whether a contract means anything in this district, be in the board room at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Sign up to speak. And before then, ask Susin, Wright and Thomas which of those two things they are voting for: the district, or the man who quit on it.