Susin Says Rendell Told Him About the Job Early. Wright Says She Found Out With Everyone Else. The Board Voted Yes Anyway.
VIERA, Fla. – The Brevard County School Board voted 3-1 Tuesday morning to approve a separation agreement for Superintendent Mark Rendell that pays out roughly 1,095 hours of unused sick leave, releases him from every claim the district holds against him “known or unknown,” and commits the district to pay him by the hour if investigators need his testimony. The vote came after more than 90 minutes of public comment in which 34 speakers signed up and all but two asked the board to vote no, strip the agreement down, or wait one week for the two newly elected members to take their seats.
Board Chair Matt Susin, Vice Chair Megan Wright and Katye Campbell, who leaves the board next Tuesday, voted yes. John Thomas voted no. Gene Trent, who lost his seat in the Nov. 3 election, did not attend.
The agreement approved was not the one the public had seen. Rendell himself announced the changes at the top of the meeting: a “typo” on page two that “referenced the wrong paragraph in the original contract,” and a new end date. “After talking with Mr. Susin last night and kind of ascertaining the white noise that’s going on and all the controversy and all the stuff,” Rendell said, “rather than wait till November 27th, we’ve amended the agreement to end this Friday, November 13th.”
The paragraph error was one The Space Coast Rocket reported before the meeting: the draft cited “Section 4.3” of Rendell’s contract for retirement payments. His contract has no Section 4.3. The 2022 Mark Mullins separation agreement, from which Campbell and Susin both confirmed Tuesday the Rendell document was copied, does.
Rendell’s last day is now Friday the 13th. At a work session that afternoon, the board settled on Tara Harris, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, to serve as interim superintendent for the rest of the school year. Harris, a Brevard Public Schools employee since 1997, has said she plans to retire at the end of the year and will not seek the permanent job. Both incoming members, Kyle Savage and McCormack, attended the session and supported the choice. Susin said the search for a permanent superintendent will begin the week of Nov. 16, after the new board is seated.
Thomas tried to split the vote. Nobody seconded.
Before public comment, Thomas moved to divide the agenda into three separate items: Rendell’s resignation, the separation agreement, and the appointment of an interim superintendent. The motion would have let the board accept the resignation on its own, without the package attached. It drew no second. Susin said the other items could be discussed “at the end.” They were not. After the vote, Susin asked whether anyone had anything else to say, Campbell said she was “very much opposed” to discussing the interim at that meeting, and the board adjourned.
Thomas explained his no vote by citing the board’s own lawyer. “Our school board attorney has confirmed Dr. Rendell’s contract stands on its own,” Thomas said. “The attorney has also confirmed that this board is under no legal obligation to enter into an agreement and that there is no legal requirement to approve it today.” He said the two incoming members “deserve an opportunity to participate in this decision” and that “just because we have the authority to approve this agreement today does not mean we have an obligation to do so today.”
Board Attorney Paul Gibbs did not dispute that characterization. He spoke twice during the board’s deliberation, both times in answer to a direct question. When Wright asked whether the district’s past practice of paying out sick leave to departing superintendents and cabinet members could expose it to a lawsuit if it refused Rendell, Gibbs answered: “We can be sued for anything. So it’s potential for an argument.” When Susin asked whether any lawsuit currently names Rendell as a defendant, Gibbs answered: “Not in his personal capacity.” At no point was he asked, and at no point did he state, whether the agreement was in the district’s best interest.
Susin: “He told me. Now I’m the board chair.”
Section 5 of Rendell’s contract requires him to notify “the Board” in writing within three business days of applying for or entering negotiations for another job. Speaker after speaker asked whether he had. Pamela Castellano read the clause aloud and said, “I don’t think anybody here is naive enough to think that Eastern Florida created a position, reached out to somebody, and had that position done within 72 hours.”
Susin answered at the end of the meeting. “Dr. Rendell routinely has told me as chair, and he may have done it for past chairs, anytime he’s offered a position, he always lets me know,” Susin said. “And he had already let me know about this prior to this even happening. So, just so you guys know, it’s always a conversation where he says, ‘I’ve been offered a job.’ And I say, ‘Okay, thank you.’ He told me and it was well within the three days. Now I’m the board chair.” It should be noted that Susin has been found to frequently make verifiably false claims from the dais on the record.
That account sits uneasily beside two others given at the same table. Wright, in her prepared remarks, said: “Let me be very clear. I received the news the same time as everyone else.” Campbell said Rendell “first told me last Thursday morning,” Nov. 5, the day EFSC announced the hire. Susin did not say when the conversation with Rendell took place, whether anything was put in writing, or whether the other four members were informed. The contract requires notice to the Board, not to its chair.
Susin also offered a different account of why the meeting was called. “The reason that I called this meeting, the reason that I wanted to move is because we have the opportunity to make a recommendation to move on to a new interim superintendent and go out to a search,” he said, adding that he had a candidate in mind “that’s incredible, that’s part of our district.” He said he had asked Rendell to shorten his end date to Friday “so that we could make that move.” The interim appointment was not on the morning agenda. It was handled at the afternoon work session, where Harris emerged as the consensus choice. Her contract goes to the new board for approval Tuesday.
“He’s not retiring, Miss Campbell. He is resigning.”
The sick leave payout drew the sharpest exchanges. Florida law does not entitle any school employee to a sick leave payout; s.1012.61 only permits a board to adopt a policy allowing one, and Brevard’s terminal pay procedure provides it at retirement or death. For an employee who resigns, the procedure says the balance “shall not be paid” and is “held in escrow.”
Campbell acknowledged the distinction. “Usually those kinds of things are done when people retire, that they get their sick pay out,” she said. Her justification was that Rendell could have retired. “Dr. Rendell, I know that you could have retired as of last spring and you had your 30 years in,” she said, thanking him for “sticking around” through the sales tax and millage referendums. She said the Mullins payout in 2022 was “justified considering he was just short of his 30 years, and so that gave him the opportunity to have that in case he didn’t find employment later with an FRS institution, which he ended up finding.”
Rendell is not retiring. He is going to work for Eastern Florida State College, a Florida Retirement System employer, next month. Under FRS rules, a member who takes a job with an FRS employer within six months of leaving has not retired. Speakers had anticipated the argument. “We’re told the sick leave payout is typical because Dr. Rendell could have retired, but he’s taking another job. He’s not retiring,” said Shawn Griffith. “Would an ordinary employee receive benefits based on what they could have done?” Rebecca McAllenan put it more directly: “He’s not retiring, Miss Campbell. He is resigning. It is not the same.”
Kathy Palashi, a retired Brevard teacher of 32 years, told the board about a friend who left the district this year after 22 years, voted teacher of the year at her school. “She had to give up everything, all of her sick time, because she didn’t retire,” Palashi said. “Dr. Rendell, you shouldn’t get that sick time either. It’s not right that you get it and then us teachers don’t.”
Susin and Wright both rested the payout on precedent rather than policy. “Dr. Mullins resigned and he also was given the sick leave,” Susin said. “And you know the reason I know that is because I negotiated his contract. Dr. Mullins was not fired. He resigned.” Wright said the payout “was part of his contract and the precedent has been set by this district with previous separation agreements with other superintendents and leaders. If the board coming on wishes to change that, we can do that. But we do that through policy change and contract changes.”
The 2022 Mullins agreement paid Mullins 20 weeks of salary, the amount his contract specified for a termination without cause, after the board majority elected that November made clear it intended to remove him. Rendell’s contract, at Section 6.6, provides sick leave “in accordance with the maximum allowed by Board policy.” Neither Susin nor Wright identified a policy that pays sick leave to an employee who resigns.
What the public said
The speakers were parents, retired teachers, a retired finance executive, a retired engineer, a retired telephone lineman, the president of the teachers union, and one of the two board members-elect. Thirty-two asked the board to vote no or postpone. Two thanked Rendell for the district’s academic results and asked the board to weigh the agreement carefully.
Michele McCormack, who takes Campbell’s District 5 seat next week, spoke second. “A resignation is not a termination,” she said. “The superintendent voluntarily resigned and accepted another position. Why should taxpayers be required to provide a generous severance package to someone who chose to leave?” She asked three questions: the total dollar amount, why the board would release unknown claims before outstanding questions are resolved, and “what is so urgent that this decision cannot wait seven days.” None was answered.
Sarah Dudash, who described herself as a retired finance executive with 30 years negotiating executive employment contracts, called the Mullins comparison “apples to oranges.” “Dr. Mullins was terminated by this board. Dr. Rendell has quit to accept another position,” she said. “This board should explain precisely what contractual provision entitles a superintendent quitting his job to a payout of more than 1,000 hours of unused sick leave potentially worth six figures.”
Brevard Federation of Teachers President Anthony Colucci said the agreement was unnecessary on its face. “Dr. Rendell voluntarily chose to resign. His existing contract already provides for payment of his earned leave and benefits,” he said. “What exactly is the district getting in return that it doesn’t already have?” He asked the board to “fully explain why the existing resignation provisions in Dr. Rendell’s employment contract are not sufficient.” No member did.
Craig Divine, whose son is in full-day VPK at Riviera Elementary in the classroom next door to the one where a 5-year-old was killed by a falling display board last month, said Rendell “is making the decision not to show up for BPS kids by leaving midyear with so many unanswered questions still remaining. He deserves the same treatment that any other BPS employee would receive without giving appropriate notice, not a parachute deal.”
Catherine Martinez, a parent of two, walked through the agreement section by section: the missing 90-day notice, the sick leave, the expanded indemnification, the roughly $147 an hour for future cooperation “with no meaningful cap on the time or expense involved,” and the release of unknown claims “while the Riviera Elementary death investigation, outside counsel’s review, and the state reporting inquiry remain unresolved.”
Castellano asked the board to go further than voting no. “I’m not asking that you delay this vote,” she said. “I’m asking that you end his contractual agreement for cause. Fire him for cause. He did not give you notice.” Caitlyn Khalifa agreed: “You are considering rewarding him for a breach of contract.”
Several speakers noted the timing. “By calling an emergency meeting at 9:00 a.m. on a school day, you made it as difficult as possible for working parents to attend and for teachers to show up and leave their classrooms,” said Kevin Hobbs, a District 4 parent. Caitlyn Wynn said parents “were turned away this morning right after 9:00 a.m. for dropping their kids off at high school and didn’t make it here in time to sign up to speak.” Susin responded that the meeting could not have been held Wednesday because it is Veterans Day.
Christina Cruz held up a printed ethics complaint form. “You have a lot of constituents that are willing to file an ethical complaint against each and every one of you if you are violating the code of conduct,” she said.
“I don’t seek your approval”
The board’s deliberation was interrupted repeatedly by the audience. When Wright’s prepared remarks turned to thanking Rendell “for stepping into the lion’s den with us” and “taking the arrows that were shot your way,” the room erupted. Campbell called the reaction “incredibly disrespectful” and “quite frankly, it’s just trashy.” Susin, taking the microphone, said: “I don’t seek your approval. So your criticism does not” before being drowned out.
Wright attributed Rendell’s departure to the election. “When a local union president is openly and actively working to put a new school board in place with the stated goal of removing the superintendent, it should come as no shock to anyone that this is where we have ended up,” she said. “The outcome is exactly what the union had been working towards.”
Campbell said she had spoken with both incoming members the day before, something she said she could do because, as an outgoing member, she is no longer bound by the Sunshine Law with respect to them. She said she told McCormack and Kyle Savage “that today was going to be rough and I would sit through it and take all the heat today so that they wouldn’t have to, because I don’t want their first meeting next Tuesday to be this.” She added: “There’s nothing in this for me. I’m out in seven days.”
Campbell also sought to narrow what the release does. “The indemnification only prevents legal action between the board and Dr. Rendell,” she said. “Nothing in this agreement prevents someone outside the district from bringing suit and naming Dr. Rendell or any board member.” That is correct as far as it goes. Sections 11 and 20 bind only the School Board. They do not reach Palm Bay Police, the State Attorney, the Florida Department of Education, the Education Practices Commission or a private plaintiff. What they surrender is the district’s own right to pursue him, and its ability to offset anything it is later found to be owed against anything it has promised to pay him.
Susin disputed that the district has no chief financial officer, saying the board “chose Miss Sue Hann” and that she is “probably the most qualified CFO” in the state because of her experience overseeing roughly $1.3 billion in facilities work. He cited Section 18 of the Blackburn, Mullins and Rendell contracts to argue post-employment indemnification is “standard in the Brevard contracts,” and said the bad-faith and malfeasance exclusions in Florida’s sovereign immunity statute mean “a lot of your concerns can be met with that statute.”
Wright’s explanation after the vote
Tuesday evening Wright posted a statement on her official Facebook page calling the agreement “the most financially advantageous decision for Brevard Public Schools and, most importantly, our taxpayers.”
“By allowing the Superintendent to resign rather than termination, the district avoided an additional 20 weeks of salary that would otherwise have been owed under the termination provision of his contract, on top of the accrued sick and vacation time,” she wrote.
The 20 weeks of salary is owed only if the board terminates the superintendent without cause. No board member proposed doing so, and under the Second Amendment to Rendell’s contract, which Wright voted to approve on the consent agenda in October 2025, a termination without cause now requires a supermajority of four votes. Rendell announced his resignation on Nov. 5. Section 15 of his contract provides that when the superintendent resigns, the board pays salary and accrued contract benefits through the resignation date and “no other compensation or benefits shall be due.” The agreement approved Tuesday adds the sick leave payout, the releases, the extended indemnification and the hourly cooperation pay on top of that.
Wright’s post also offered an account of Rendell’s motive that no one at the meeting had given. “There is also a larger political reality worth acknowledging: elections have consequences,” she wrote. “The Superintendent understood the changing dynamics of the board and made the decision to depart before the newly elected board was seated. That was his decision, and the timing is certainly worth recognizing.”
What was not answered
Several questions put to the board on the record Tuesday remain open.
The total cost. The agreement states no dollar figure. It lists approximately 178 hours of vacation and 1,094.7 hours of sick leave, says the sick leave is payable “at the rates and up to the limits” of his contract and s.1012.61, and adds that the sums are “in addition to any other amounts payable” under his contract. Speakers cited figures from $160,000 to $167,000 for the sick leave alone; the statutory percentage schedule and the lower rate for hours accrued before he became superintendent would reduce that. No board member or staff member provided a number.
The policy. Neither the board nor its attorney identified the board policy under which a resigning employee is paid for sick leave.
The notice. Susin said Rendell told him. He did not say when, or in what form, and two of his colleagues said they learned on Nov. 5.
The interim. The stated reason for the 9 a.m. meeting was resolved that afternoon by consensus at a work session, with the incoming members in the room. The new board will formalize Harris’s appointment Tuesday, four days after Rendell’s last day. Nothing about that sequence required the separation agreement to be approved in the morning.
Rendell closed the meeting with the statement he had sent to staff the week before, listing three consecutive A ratings, 41 A-rated schools, record graduation and a 93 percent instructional retention rate. “I take no personal credit for the academic achievement,” he said. “I didn’t teach a single lesson or take a single test.” He said he looks forward “to working with Brevard Public Schools in my new role at Eastern Florida State College.”
The Space Coast Rocket’s public records requests to the district for the Riviera Elementary emails and for the superintendent’s reporting of educator misconduct to the state remain pending. The district denied the Riviera request on Monday citing an open investigation, without identifying a statutory exemption. The Rocket has asked for the citation.
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