Antibiotic resistance has become an increasingly fatal problem that South Florida college students are trying to solve.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 2019, antimicrobial resistance killed 1.27 million people worldwide and nearly 5 million deaths were associated with infections caused by drug-resistant organisms. Research has shown that this number is projected to increase to 10 million per year by 2050, greatly exceeding deaths from cancer.

In this landscape, a Nova Southeastern University professor and her class of 40 students are conducting research and searching for the next new antibiotic. For students, being part of the Tiny Earth network of student researchers is more than just a course: They become scientists working to address a global challenge while cultivating a sense of belonging in the field of science and within their local communities.

Students test soil from around the NSU campus or their backyards.

“Some students have found bacteria that are producing antibiotic-like compounds,” said Dr. Aarti Raja, the NSU professor teaching the course. “We are working to identify what these bacteria are and the composition of the compounds they are producing.”

The concept of crowdsourcing antibiotic discovery has opened the possibility of finding a solution to this global challenge. Leveraging this model allows entire classes of students — not just one or two students — to engage in research.

“Students often speak about how research plays an important role in their career path and express genuine interest in engaging in the work,” Raja said. “For many students, there is a great thrill in owning a project, being involved in a global effort, and the possibility of discovering something novel.”

NSU in Davie is among 540 institutions, 800 faculty, and 16,000 students worldwide working to find a solution to the antibiotic resistance crisis that affects care in hospitals and the narrowing of medical treatment options. Students work through a semester or beyond on their research.

“I was able to create pamphlets and talk about antibiotic resistance with my family, and help people understand the importance of it and why it should be taken seriously,” said Jennifer Vargas, a junior at NSU in Davie. “I hope the pamphlets I created in English and Spanish will help patients.”

The students will disseminate their research findings to their peers, the university community, and the network of researchers worldwide. Some students will go on to present their work at an international conference of scientists.

In the U.S., the CDC estimates that 2.8 million infections annually are caused by antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms, and 35,000 people die from such infections. Compounding this, the World Health Organization notes that the development and approval of antibiotics have dwindled over the years down to 1.2 agents per year globally.

Along with health concerns, combating antimicrobial resistance, called AMR, has economic impacts, creating high costs for both health systems and national economies overall. For example, it makes a need for more expensive and intensive care for patients, involves prolonged hospital stays, and harms agricultural productivity.

Raja says students often speak about how research plays a vital role in their career path and express a genuine interest in engaging in the work. Many of the students will continue to medical school and face the real-life concerns with antibiotic resistance as physicians treating patients.

“This was my first experience with hands-on research,” said Jaelyn Freeston, an NSU junior. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have contributed to something meaningful and important in the real world.”

This article was contributed as a collaboration between the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Mako Media Institute at Nova Southeastern University.

Paul sent a resignation letter to Superintendent Howard Hepburn on Sunday evening, saying she would step down as chief operations officer. Earlier in the day, School Board member Adam Cervera posted a statement on X that cited “operational failures” related to a canceled office lease agreement and a failed effort to secure a company to oversee more than $1 billion in school district construction, the latter of which is causing the district to take emergency actions to manage the construction work.

Cervera called for Paul’s “immediate resignation.”

I’m demanding immediate leadership change at Broward Schools. When rules are bypassed and the board is sidelined, accountability isn’t optional.

My statement…. pic.twitter.com/mzIcVotGaE

— Adam Cervera (@AdamCervera) December 28, 2025

But Paul’s departure is not immediate, according to her letter to Hepburn. Her resignation takes effect June 5, 2026, although her last day in the office will be April 3, her letter states. District spokesman John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel she will use accrued leave for the weeks after April 3. Paul started May 20, 2024, and has a salary of $221,450.

“Superintendent Hepburn thanks Mrs. Paul for her dedicated service to Broward County Public Schools and for her leadership across Operations, and wishes her all the best in her future endeavors,” Sullivan said.

In an email sent late Sunday night to School Board members, Hepburn said Paul “verbally communicated her intent a couple of weeks ago. This letter serves as her official notice, facilitating a smooth transition and ensuring the continuation of district operations.”

Paul could not be reached on Monday, despite multiple attempts by phone and email.

“It has been an honor to serve Broward County Public Schools and, most importantly, the students and families of our District,” Paul wrote in her resignation letter. “Over the past 18 months, I am proud of the progress our team has made across Operations. Together, we have closed out 119 projects …  strengthened processes, and advanced key initiatives that support safe, efficient, and high-quality learning environments.

“While there is no doubt that important work remains, I am confident the District is on a stronger path because of the dedication and professionalism of this team,” she wrote. “With that said, I believe it is time for me to transition to the next chapter of my life.”

Cervera told the Sun Sentinel on Monday that he called for Paul’s “immediate” resignation, not for her to continue in the role into April.

“I’m glad we’ve had some traction. This is not what I wanted from a timing perspective. It is what I wanted substantially,” Cervera told the Sun Sentinel. “My statement went out around noon. I’m glad someone read it and listened and did the right thing.”

Multiple board members had said during a Dec. 16 meeting that they expected Hepburn to hold staff members accountable for recent failures related to departments Paul supervises, but Cervera was the first board member to publicly call for Paul’s removal.

“The scale, repetition, and impact of these breakdowns leave no credible path forward under the current leadership structure,” Cervera posted on X.

Cervera’s demand came a day after the Sun Sentinel published an editorial about the district’s recent controversies entitled, “A breach of trust imperils Broward schools.” Cervera told a Sun Sentinel reporter he thought the editorial was “spot on.”

“It appears inevitable that Hepburn must fire Paul or demote her as a way of acknowledging that the board is in charge, not the staff,” the editorial stated.

Cervera, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2025, said in his Sunday statement that he arrived with “a clear understanding of the district’s troubled history, and a firm commitment to restoring accountability, transparency, and respect for governance.”

The first issue cited by Cervera was the district’s decision to enter into a $2.6 million contract to rent space in the Wilton Manors headquarters of Handy, a nonprofit group whose full name is Helping Advance and Nurture the Development of Youth.

Paul persuaded School Board members to approve the lease in June to house facilities employees at Handy, saying it was cheaper than remaining in its current decaying site, board members said. But the analysis provided by Paul’s office didn’t include an $85,000 rental deposit or $88,000 expense to install wiring. The analysis also didn’t provide a cost comparison of moving operations to vacant space on a school campus.

Board members decided they wanted to get out of the lease after the Sun Sentinel published a story in October, calling attention to the district’s plan to spend millions for a five-year contract when the district has plenty of vacant space and is facing severe budget cuts.

They later learned an executive summary falsely stated the district could terminate the Handy lease “for convenience” with just a few months’ notice.

The School Board still voted to cancel the lease during a special Nov. 4 meeting, citing a provision in the contract that says the lease can be terminated if the district fails to allocate money in its yearly budget. Handy disputes the district’s ability to cancel and has sued the district. The case is still active.

The Sun Sentinel learned from emails obtained through a public records request that a district lawyer warned about potential problems with the lease but agreed to execute it as is, saying it was the desire of senior administrators.

The emails also revealed the Handy space was too small for the number of employees and consultants the district planned to house.

School Board members have also voiced alarm about how Paul and her staff handled a solicitation for companies to oversee district construction. An audit found the district changed the type of management arrangement it would seek without informing the School Board, made major changes to the selection process after bids had already been received and failed to ensure the companies selected met the district’s qualifications.

At Hepburn’s request, the School Board rejected all bids received at a Dec. 16 meeting.

But the district’s contract with its current construction management company, AECOM, expires Jan. 17.

So Hepburn had to declare an “emergency” for the district’s construction program to be able to keep using AECOM temporarily without having to go out for competitive bids.

The botched procurement was the latest in a string of problems that have plagued the district’s construction program. It’s been the subject of four grand jury reports since the 1990s, with the most recent one — released in 2022 — causing Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove four School Board members.

“Broward County has experienced the consequences of mismanagement before. A state grand jury investigation and subsequent intervention should have been a turning point,” Cervera wrote in his social media statement. “The public rightly expects that those lessons were learned. As someone who was not part of past decisions, I view this moment as an obligation to demand better, not later, not eventually, but now. Restoring confidence in this institution requires enforcing existing rules, verifying compliance, and ensuring real consequences when standards are ignored.”

School Board member Nora Rupert also told the Sun Sentinel she had major concerns about Paul’s leadership.

“The operational side of BCPS, under the direction of Ms. Paul, has been one mismanagement crisis after another,” Rupert said. “I have had critical conversations with the superintendent about her tenure, and we surely cannot wait till April to move forward.”

Not all board members were critical of Paul’s leadership.

“Wanda Paul brought value to (Broward County Public Schools) by being straightforward, focused, and results-driven,” Board member Lori Alhadeff told the Sun Sentinel on Monday. “She cut through distractions, got projects completed, and stayed committed to what mattered most, student success.”

Other board members could not be reached or declined to comment on Monday.

Celebrants participate in an African dance at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants sing the Black National Anthem at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants participate in an African dance at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Celebrants gathered at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center during “Africa Rising,” a Kwanzaa Community Celebration of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) on Saturday, December 27, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

SARASOTA  — April Flakne strides into the classroom to teach a course on “The Odyssey,” a new requirement at New College of Florida.

She has taught philosophy at the small state college for 25 years, but this class is different — seven weeks on one classic book, required of all students. Normally, her focus is on philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir, and their theories of totalitarianism, revolution and feminism.

This class on Homer is a turnabout from all that, and marks a signature accomplishment for conservatives who want to redirect higher education.

In early 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, executed what many viewed as a conservative takeover of New College, a struggling state school. With fewer than 1,000 students, the liberal arts college had long been a draw for nonconformists, where grades were verboten and students designed their own classes and majors.

It was “a little Club Med” for people who were “all ideologically the same,” said Richard Corcoran, the school’s new president.

Under a new board and president, and as required by a new state law, the school has installed a curriculum emphasizing the traditional Western canon, with “The Odyssey” serving as a foundational text. It has created new teams for sports including baseball, basketball and beach volleyball and recruited athletes to fill out their rosters. It has hired dozens of new professors, some with conservative backgrounds and a few who are known for their vocal opposition to liberal orthodoxies, such as Spencer Klavan, a lecturer at the college last year, and host of the Young Heretics podcast, about classical education.

In September, it announced that a statue of Charlie Kirk, the assassinated conservative activist, would be placed on campus.

And the college was among the first to say it would sign the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, which links preferential access to federal funding to a willingness to adhere to federal policies and demands, and which better known schools have scorned.

The school has also shed diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and gender studies.

About 20 faculty members and 200 students decamped within the first six months of the makeover, according to the college.

Today, the campus culture reflects the new influx of many conservative-leaning professors and students, who are sharing classes with the old guard who tend to be more liberal. The conservative tilt is unusual for colleges with a liberal arts curriculum.

The changes are not about imposing one point of view on education, Corcoran said, but about creating a place that values debate.

But as the college continues to move toward the ideological right, Flakne and other longtime colleagues are reserving judgment.

While she has embraced her class on “The Odyssey,” she wondered whether in the future, there will be room for people like her at the college. She said that she can’t help but feel that her fate at New College may depend more than ever on politics, especially now that the Trump administration has applied the full force of the federal government against the higher education establishment.

“I’d be happy to live out the rest of my career here,” Flakne, 59, said. “But people don’t know which ways the political winds may blow.”

Required reading

New College was founded in 1960 as a private, progressive school along the same lines as Hampshire College, an experimental school in Massachusetts that has also struggled to stay afloat. The founders “wanted to free both students and faculty from the limits of lock-step curriculum and a focus on credit hours and a GPA,” according to a history on the college website.

The campus straddles two sides of a highway, with stunning views of Sarasota Bay, a setting that might do Club Med proud. At the school’s dedication, the founders mixed dirt from Harvard University and New College, to symbolize their high aspirations. It joined the state university system in 1975, and eventually received a state designation as an independent honors college.

Corcoran said that his detractors have painted an unrealistically rosy portrait of New College before the shake-up. Enrollment was flagging. The dormitories designed by I.M. Pei were covered in mold. The bayfront grounds and the campus’s Gatsbyesque mansions were shabby from years of neglect.

His renewal plan consists, to a large degree, of things that any turnaround agent might have done, including recruiting student athletes and rehabbing buildings.

But he has also poked at liberal sensibilities, for instance, by eliminating all-gender bathrooms for transgender students. And the college, along with other state universities, signed an agreement authorizing campus police to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce federal immigration rules.

Commencement has become a decidedly more conservative affair. In 2023, the commencement speaker was Scott Atlas, the former Stanford University physician and adviser in the first Trump administration, who defended his opposition to lockdowns and school closings to fight the coronavirus. In May, Alan Dershowitz, the contrarian Harvard law professor emeritus, took to the podium.

David Mikics, a newly hired English professor and writer for Tablet, the Jewish-oriented news and ideas magazine, says the ideological rift at New College has been exaggerated.

“Some of my colleagues list their pronouns, others don’t,” he said. “It hasn’t been my experience that there’s a sort of war between one side and another side. I don’t even know what the sides would be to tell you the truth.”

He said he is apolitical in the classroom. Asked to describe his politics, he said: “I’m kind of a centrist, with impulses in both directions.”

Some of Flakne’s old colleagues grumble about “The Odyssey” and say that students would rather read a book that would be more relevant to their lives.

Why, they ask, teach a 3,000-year-old book?

“I hate that many of the students in the Odyssey don’t want to be there,” Flakne said of her course. But she added that she understands the desire to provide a common and cross-generational experience to students.

She said she finds “The Odyssey” to be “super approachable” for first-year students, as it raises questions about adventure, fathers and sons, marriage, identity.

“It’s a foundational book,” she said, springing to her bookshelf and grabbing some evidence — “Omeros,” Derek Walcott’s retelling of the Iliad and the Odyssey, transposed to the Caribbean.

Somewhat to her surprise, Flakne noted, no one has stopped her from continuing to teach about de Beauvoir, even with the elimination of gender studies.

“I teach what I want to teach, because I feel able to justify it on intellectual grounds,” she said.

“I will take the consequences if there were some.”

The college is growing. There are more than 900 students this year, from fewer than 700 in 2022, according to the college. The acceptance rate of 73% is not particularly selective, but the college’s provost, David Rohrbacher, said students are self-selecting before they apply. The college wants to maintain a ratio of about one teacher for every eight students, a selling point. Tuition and fees are relatively low, at $6,916 in-state and $29,944 for out of state students, according to U.S. News and World Report.

A walk across campus in late November finds students clustered into two groups, reflecting the campus, pre- and post-makeover.

The artsier contingent of students is known on campus as Novos, Latin for the “New” in New College. The jocks are called Banyans, after the “Mighty Banyan” tree, the recently adopted school mascot. (The old mascot consisted of two brackets known as “the null set,” which captured the meta humor of the old guard.)

Lately, students say, a new term has been circulating that conveys the school’s evolving identity: NARPs, for non-athletic regular person.

Many Novo types, including Callie Flemming, a transgender fourth year student, had thought about leaving with the DeSantis overhaul.

Hampshire College, a private school with a similar alternative vibe, had offered to take them in and match their lower tuition. About three dozen students accepted the offer that fall. Flemming is glad she did not.

She still feels safe at New College, at least as safe as anywhere else in society, she said. “Most of the community that I like about New College, it’s still here,” she said.

But she is a senior, and perhaps, among the last of the Novos.

State investment has helped stabilize the school. Critics have attacked New College for extravagant spending — about $83,000 per student in 2024, the highest among state universities. But New College officials defend this as largely a one-time investment, to improve infrastructure after years of deferred maintenance. As the school grows to its goal of 1,800 students, they say, there will be economies of scale.

The administration has used some of that money to hire. There are currently about 125 permanent and temporary faculty members, up from 105 in January 2023, according to Jamie Miller, a spokesperson for the college. About half of them, many with Ivy League degrees, have been hired since the shake-up, he said.

As the new incarnation takes hold, several veteran professors, who asked not to be identified because they wanted to protect their jobs, said the college’s quirky identity is on the way out.

But the demand for what the old New College had to offer just wasn’t there, Corcoran said.

Prospective students may not care for Homer either, but some may want to play on the new beach volleyball team. Players are from not only Florida, but Ohio, Brazil, Italy and Spain. They were wooed with scholarships, to play on sand that is fluffed twice a week, with a view of students kayaking on the bay.

One member of the team, Liv Fenstermaker, from Columbus, Ohio, said she was raised in a “very old-school family,” and educated in Christian private schools.

But she does not see ideological divisions on campus: “I think everybody minds their own business, does their own thing.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The University of Oklahoma has fired an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and argued that promoting a “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.”

The university said in a statement posted Monday on X that its investigation found the graduate teaching assistant had been “arbitrary” in giving 20-year-old junior Samantha Fulnecky zero points on the assignment. The university declined to comment beyond its statement, which said the instructor had been removed from teaching.

Through her attorney, the instructor, Mel Curth, denied Tuesday that she had “engaged in any arbitrary behavior regarding the student’s work.” The attorney, Brittany Stewart, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that Curth is “considering all of her legal remedies.”

Conservative groups, commentators and others quickly made Fulnecky’s failing grade an online cause, highlighting her argument that she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views. Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses as President Donald Trump pushes to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and restrict how campuses discuss race, gender and sexuality.

Fulnecky appealed her grade on the assignment, which was worth 3% of the final grade in the class, and the university said the assignment would not count. It also placed Curth on leave, and Oklahoma’s conservative Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declared the situation “deeply concerning.”

“The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in both its faculty’s rights to teach with academic freedom and integrity and its students’ right to receive an education that is free from a lecturer’s impermissible evaluative standards,” the university’s statement said. “We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think.”

A law approved this year by Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Stitt prohibits state universities from using public funds to finance DEI programs or positions or mandating DEI training. However, the law says it does not apply to scholarly research or “the academic freedom of any individual faculty member.”

Home telephone listings for Fulnecky in the Springfield, Missouri, area had been disconnected, and her mother — an attorney, podcaster and radio host — did not immediately respond Tuesday to a Facebook message seeking comment about the university’s action.

Fulnecky’s failing grade came in an assignment for a psychology class on lifespan development. Curth directed students to write a 650-word response to an academic study that examined whether conformity with gender norms was associated with popularity or bullying among middle school students.

Fulnecky wrote that she was frustrated by the premise of the assignment because she does not believe that there are more than two genders based on her understanding of the Bible, according to a copy of her essay provided to The Oklahoman.

“Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth,” she wrote, adding that it would lead society “farther from God’s original plan for humans.”

In feedback obtained by the newspaper, Curth said the paper did “not answer the questions for the assignment,” contradicted itself, relied on “personal ideology” over evidence and “is at times offensive.”

“Please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” Curth wrote.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will begin garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers who are in default early next year.

The department said it will send notices to approximately 1,000 borrowers the week of January 7, with more notices to come at an increasing scale each month.

Millions of borrowers are considered in default, meaning they are 270 days past due on their payments. The department must give borrowers 30 days notice before their wages can be garnished.

The department said it will begin collection activities, “only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans.”

In May, the Trump administration ended the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments, beginning to collect on defaulted debt through withholding tax refunds and other federal payments to borrowers.

The move ended a period of leniency for student loan borrowers. Payments restarted in October of 2023, but the Biden administration extended a grace period of one year. Since March 2020, no federal student loans had been referred for collection, including those in default, until the Trump administration’s changes earlier this year.

The Biden administration tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness to student loans, but those efforts were eventually stopped by courts.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin garnishing wages, and said the department had failed to sufficiently help borrowers find affordable payment options.

“At a time when families across the country are struggling with stagnant wages and an affordability crisis, this administration’s decision to garnish wages from defaulted student loan borrowers is cruel, unnecessary, and irresponsible,” Yu said in a statement. “As millions of borrowers sit on the precipice of default, this Administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources to seize borrowers’ wages instead of defending borrowers’ right to affordable payments.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

THIBODAUX, La. (AP) — The teasing was relentless. Nude images of a 13-year-old girl and her friends, generated by artificial intelligence, were circulating on social media and had become the talk of a Louisiana middle school.

The girls begged for help, first from a school guidance counselor and then from a sheriff’s deputy assigned to their school. But the images were shared on Snapchat, an app that deletes messages seconds after they’re viewed, and the adults couldn’t find them. The principal had doubts they even existed.

Among the kids, the pictures were still spreading. When the 13-year-old girl stepped onto the Lafourche Parish school bus at the end of the day, a classmate was showing one of them to a friend.

“That’s when I got angry,” the eighth grader recalled at her discipline hearing.

Fed up, she attacked a boy on the bus, inviting others to join her. She was kicked out of Sixth Ward Middle School for more than 10 weeks and sent to an alternative school. She said the boy whom she and her friends suspected of creating the images wasn’t sent to that alternative school with her. The 13-year-old girl’s attorneys allege he avoided school discipline altogether.

When the sheriff’s department looked into the case, they took the opposite actions. They charged two of the boys who’d been accused of sharing explicit images — and not the girl.

The Louisiana episode highlights the nightmarish potential of AI deepfakes. They can, and do, upend children’s lives — at school, and at home. And while schools are working to address artificial intelligence in classroom instruction, they often have done little to prepare for what the new tech means for cyberbullying and harassment.

Once again, as kids increasingly use new tech to hurt one another, adults are behind the curve, said Sergio Alexander, a research associate at Texas Christian University focused on emerging technology.

“When we ignore the digital harm, the only moment that becomes visible is when the victim finally breaks,” Alexander said.

In Lafourche Parish, the school district followed all its protocols for reporting misconduct, Superintendent Jarod Martin said in a statement. He said a “one-sided story” had been presented of the case that fails to illustrate its “totality and complex nature.”

A girl’s nightmare begins with rumors

After hearing rumors about the nude images, the 13-year-old said she marched with two friends — one nearly in tears — to the guidance counselor around 7 a.m. on Aug. 26. The Associated Press isn’t naming her because she is a minor and because AP doesn’t normally name victims of sexual crimes.

She was there for moral support, not initially realizing there were images of her, too, according to testimony at her school disciplinary hearing.

Ultimately, the weeks-long investigation at the school in Thibodaux, about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans, uncovered AI-generated nude images of eight female middle school students and two adults, the district and sheriff’s office said in a joint statement.

“Full nudes with her face put on them” is how the girl’s father, Joseph Daniels, described them.

Until recently, it took some technical skill to make realistic deepfakes. Technology now makes it easy to pluck a photo off social media, “nudify” it and create a viral nightmare for an unsuspecting classmate.

Most schools are “just kind of burying their heads in the sand, hoping that this isn’t happening,” said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University.

Lafourche Parish School District was just starting to develop policies on artificial intelligence. The school-level AI guidance mainly addressed academics, according to documents provided through a records request. The district also hadn’t updated its training on cyberbullying to reflect the threat of AI-generated, sexually explicit images. The curriculum its schools used was from 2018.

A school investigation hits obstacles

Although the girls at Sixth Ward Middle School hadn’t seen the images firsthand, they heard about them from boys at school. Based on those conversations, the girls accused a classmate and two students from other schools of creating and spreading the nudes on Snapchat and possibly TikTok.

The principal, Danielle Coriell, said an investigation came up cold that day as no student took responsibility. The deputy assigned to the school searched social media for the images unsuccessfully, according to a recording of the disciplinary hearing.

“I was led to believe that this was just hearsay and rumors,” the girl’s father said, recounting a conversation he had that morning with the school counselor.

But the girl was miserable, and a police incident report showed more girls were reporting that they were victims, too. The 13-year-old returned to the counselor in the afternoon, asking to call her father. She said she was refused.

Her father says she sent a text message that said, “Dad,” and nothing else. They didn’t talk. With the mocking unrelenting, the girl texted her sister, “It’s not getting handled.”

As the school day wound down, the principal was skeptical. At the disciplinary hearing, the girl’s attorney asked why the sheriff’s deputy didn’t check the phone of the boy the girls were accusing and why he was allowed on the same bus as the girl.

“Kids lie a lot,” responded Coriell, the principal. “They lie about all kinds of things. They blow lots of things out of proportion on a daily basis. In 17 years, they do it all the time. So to my knowledge, at 2 o’clock when I checked again, there were no pictures.”

A fight breaks out on the school bus

When the girl stepped onto the bus 15 minutes later, the boy was showing the AI-generated images to a friend. Fake nude images of her friends were visible on the boy’s phone, the girl said, a claim backed up by a photo taken on the bus. A video from the school bus showed at least a half-dozen students circulating the images, said Martin, the superintendent, at a school board meeting.

“I went the whole day with getting bullied and getting made fun of about my body,” the girl said at her hearing. When she boarded the bus, she said, anger was building up.

After seeing the boy and his phone, she slapped him, said Coriell, the principal. The boy shrugged off the slap, a video shows.

She hit him a second time. Then, the principal said, the girl asked aloud: “Why am I the only one doing this?” Two classmates hit the boy, the principal said, before the 13-year-old climbed over a seat and punched and stomped on him.

Video of the fight was posted on Facebook. “Overwhelming social media sentiment was one of outrage and a demand that the students involved in the fight be held accountable,” the district and sheriff’s office said in their joint statement released in November.

The girl had no past disciplinary problems, but she was assigned to an alternative school as the district moved to expel her for a full semester — 89 school days.

Weeks later, a boy is charged

It was on the day of the girl’s disciplinary hearing, three weeks after the fight, that the first of the boys was charged.

The student was charged with 10 counts of unlawful dissemination of images created by artificial intelligence under a new Louisiana state law, part of a wave of such legislation around the country. A second boy was charged in December with identical charges, the sheriff’s department said. Neither was identified by authorities because of their ages.

The girl would face no charges because of what the sheriff’s office described as the “totality of the circumstances.”

At the disciplinary hearing, the principal refused to answer questions from the girl’s attorneys about what kind of school discipline the boy would face.

The district said in a statement that federal student privacy laws prohibit it from discussing individual students’ disciplinary records. Gregory Miller, an attorney for the girl, said he has no knowledge of any school discipline for the classmate accused of sharing the images.

Ultimately, the panel expelled the 13-year-old. She wept, her father said.

“She just felt like she was victimized multiple times — by the pictures and by the school not believing her and by them putting her on a bus and then expelling her for her actions,” he said in an interview.

The fallout sends a student off course

After she was sent to the alternative school, the girl started skipping meals, her father said. Unable to concentrate, she completed none of the school’s online work for several days before her father got her into therapy for depression and anxiety.

Nobody initially noticed when she stopped doing her assignments, her father said.

“She kind of got left behind,” he said.

Her attorneys appealed to the school board, and another hearing was scheduled for seven weeks later.

By then, so much time had passed that she could have returned to her old school on probation. But because she’d missed assignments before getting treated for depression, the district wanted her to remain at the alternative site another 12 weeks.

For students who are suspended or expelled, the impact can last years. They’re more likely to be suspended again. They become disconnected from their classmates, and they’re more likely to become disengaged from school. They’re more likely to have lower grades and lower graduation rates.

“She’s already been out of school enough,” one of the girl’s attorneys, Matt Ory, told the board on Nov. 5. “She is a victim.

“She,” he repeated, “is a victim.”

Martin, the superintendent, countered: “Sometimes in life we can be both victims and perpetrators.”

But the board was swayed. One member, Henry Lafont, said: “There are a lot of things in that video that I don’t like. But I’m also trying to put into perspective what she went through all day.” They allowed her to return to campus immediately. Her first day back at school was Nov. 7, although she will remain on probation until Jan. 29.

That means no dances, no sports and no extracurricular activities. She already missed out on basketball tryouts, meaning she won’t be able to play this season, her father said. He finds the situation “heartbreaking.”

“I was hoping she would make great friends, they would go to the high school together and, you know, it’d keep everybody out of trouble on the right tracks,” her father said. “I think they ruined that.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.

The school district has received at least two formal proposals from groups that want to lease the campus of North Fork Elementary, at 101 NW 15th Ave., which is one of seven schools the district is targeting for closure due to its low enrollment.

But its central location off of Broward Boulevard, just east of Interstate 95, has made the 60-year-old campus a sought-after site for groups looking to redevelop it.

Junior Achievement of South Florida was among the first to show interest in the site, proposing a “Workforce Innovation Center” to teach career readiness skills for high school students throughout the district.

This month, the district also received a proposal called “Sistrunk Rising” to create a “cradle-to-career” campus. This may include a new community school and learning hub, a teacher and family resource center, an affordable housing complex and a national brand hotel, according to the proposal.

The district also received a third proposal, from the Museum of Discovery and Science, to implement a science and technology-based curriculum at North Fork. But that proposal would be contingent on North Fork staying open, said Joseph Cox, the museum’s president and CEO. Cox said the museum is open to partnering with another school.

Although the School Board won’t take a final vote until Jan. 21,  Superintendent Howard Hepburn has recommended North Fork be closed, and board members unanimously voiced support for the idea at a Dec. 8 workshop.

School Board members are expected to hold another workshop in the coming months to review these proposals as any other that may come in for new uses of North Fork or any of the six other schools likely to be closed: Plantation Middle, Bair Middle in Sunrise, Sunshine Elementary in Miramar, Panther Run Elementary and Palm Cove Elementary in Pembroke Pines and Sea Gull Alternative High in Fort Lauderdale.

“I am open to reviewing existing and future proposals that will be received by the District for the North Fork community up to March 2026,” School Board member Jeff Holness, who represents North Fork, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I am personally interested in proposals that make good business sense for the district and proposals that have real input from the residents” of Holness’ district.

The Junior Achievement proposal has received letters of support from Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis; Coconut Creek Mayor Jackie Railey; the Broward Workshop, a group of business leaders; the United Way of Broward County; and Arc Broward, a group that serves people with disabilities.

Junior Achievement has a $10 million pledge to construct a new building as well as some smaller pledges, Laurie Sallarulo, president and CEO at Junior Achievement of South Florida, told the Sun Sentinel.

So far, at least one School Board member, Lori Alhadeff, who represents northwest Broward, has expressed support for the Junior Achievement plan.

“I do think career training programs, wherever we can implement them into our schools, is something that is very up-and-coming and something we should be doing,” Alhadeff said at an October School Board workshop.

Junior Achievement currently serves fifth- and eighth-graders in the district through a center called JA World Huizenga Center, which is at Broward College’s Coconut Creek campus. The North Fork proposal describes JA World as “the largest experiential learning center of its kind in the world — serving every BCPS student.”

Fifth-graders attend JA BizTown, where they get to run a mock town. Eighth-graders attend JA Career Discovery Park, where they use technology to simulate different jobs, Sallarulo said.

She said she’s had requests to expand the concept into high schools.

“I’m just telling you as someone who works with students every day, the anxiety levels of what the future looks like, they don’t feel prepared,” she said. “They want more of this. They ask us all the time, ‘Why don’t we have a high school program?’ And I say, ‘Oh, we’re trying.’ They do want more of that preparation for the future.”

She said North Fork is a more ideal site than some other potential school sites Junior Achievement has toured.

“Every single student from across 31 high schools will be served. In order to do that, you’ve got to be centrally located and off a main highway,” Sallarulo said. “And you’ve got to have the space. You’ve got to have the space for parking for volunteers and mentors and business partners.”

The Sistrunk proposal has a student job training component, but the proposal is much broader. It’s spearheaded by a nonprofit group called Community Based Connections Inc., and includes partnerships with the Minority Builders Coalition, the Broward Teachers Union and McDowell Housing Partners, which develops affordable housing projects.

The group proposes a school focusing on science, technology and math, as well as a teen career readiness program and adult education offerings. While the proposal envisions the district running the school, it’s still viable if the district isn’t interested, Brian Johnson, who heads the Minority Builders Coalition and Community Based Connections, told the Sun Sentinel.

If the district were to say it doesn’t want to operate there, “then we look at other ways to provide community schooling on that site,” Johnson said. “The point is that the site under our control will maintain a robust educational program throughout.”

The proposal also envisions about 200 affordable housing units, which Johnson said would be affordable but require higher income levels than residents at low-income housing units nearby. Teachers would be a major target for these units, Johnson said.

The Broward Teachers Union would co-manage a Teacher–Family Resource Center.

“Through this partnership, we will help design, operate, and maintain a high-impact resource hub that provides teachers with school supplies, professional supports, and personal and family resources that improve retention and instructional readiness,” the proposal states. “Together with BTU, we are committed to building a system of support that uplifts educators and enhances their ability to succeed in the classroom.”

The proposal also includes a national-brand hotel and a transportation hub that would provide easy access to Broward County Transit, express bus routes, Tri-Rail and Brightline stations.

“Whatever process this district decides to select who they partner with, I expect, and I hope the community would expect, their process will reward the project with the highest and the best use of that facility and with the most benefits,” Johnson said, adding he believes his proposal is the best.

One issue that could hinder both projects is money. A major reason School Board members are closing and combining schools is to try to save money on administrative costs and also earn revenues on the sale or lease of property.

The Junior Achievement plan asks the School Board to lease the property at a minimal cost, while the Sistrunk Rising project proposes a long-term lease with a discount on the market rate.

“The board made it very clear at our last workshop that we had a strong belief that we needed to get market rent if we were going to lease the land, and we needed to get the highest bidder if we were going to sell the land,” Board member Allen Zeman told the Sun Sentinel.

Holness said he’s spoken with representatives from both Junior Achievement and Sistrunk Rising, and he’s told them any deal must make financial sense to the district.

“With our current tight budgetary constraints, our school district is in no position to entertain plans that are not financially beneficial,” he said. “We are not in a position to accept zero or $1 lease arrangements from any group or organization.”

Sallarulo said when School Board members pitched the idea of closing schools, they supported looking for ways to repurpose the buildings.

“They didn’t go into the community and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to close your school and build housing. Or we’re going to close your school and sell it for commercial property,'” Sallarulo said.

She said the advantage of the Junior Achievement plan is “it does build on the credibility and the trust of the School Board.

“So while it doesn’t bring back a financial benefit in their pockets, it does cut the costs of maintaining the property. So they don’t have to demolish the building,” she said. “They don’t have to maintain the property, and they still own it.”

Superintendent Howard Hepburn’s determination on Thursday of “exigent emergency circumstances” comes after an audit found the district flubbed a competitive bidding process to secure companies to oversee its large-scale construction program.

The emergency declaration will allow the district to continue using the services of its current construction program manager, AECOM, whose services would otherwise expire on Jan. 17, district lawyers have said.

“Upon expiration, oversight ceases,” Hepburn wrote in his memo to School Board members. “No authorized entity will manage installation, testing, or closeout of systems that prevent fire spread, ensure evacuation, and keep schools occupiable. Every day without oversight increases danger. Time lost equals heightened risk.”

The district still plans to seek competitive bids, but that process takes about six to eight months, so a short-term agreement with AECOM is needed in the interim, officials said.

AECOM oversees 166 active capital projects, or about $1.27 billion in work, Hepburn said. This includes life-safety systems “essential for lawful occupancy,” including fire alarms and sprinklers, egress and emergency lighting, emergency power, smoke control, high-hazard protections, ventilation and kitchen hood suppression.

“Stopping or slowing oversight now puts people at risk — students, staff, visitors — today,” Hepburn wrote. He used dire terms to describe the potential consequences.

— Life-safety systems may stall, fail inspection or remain inoperable, “which creates a risk of injury or death.”

— Permits that allow building occupancy can be suspended or revoked, “forcing school closures and instructional disruption.”

— Active construction sites can become uncontrolled, “raising accident risk and exposing the District to liability.”

— The district could face sanctions due to regulatory noncompliance.

“These are not hypothetical risks. They are imminent,” Hepburn wrote. “Delaying to obtain multiple prices prolongs exposure and magnifies harm.”

The emergency declaration follows a failed procurement effort by district staff. The terms of the district’s 5½-year contract with AECOM do not allow for renewal under normal circumstances, and the district had to seek competitive bids, district lawyers told School Board members earlier this year.

The district put the services out to bid in August, but the solicitation contained provisions that may have violated district policies and state laws and discouraged competition, an internal audit released last week found.

As a result, Hepburn recommended the School Board reject all bids at a meeting on Tuesday, and he told members he planned to use the emergency procurement option.

It’s the latest in a long list of problems with the district’s construction program, which has been the subject of four grand jury reports since the 1990s.

The most recent report, completed in 2021, blasted the execution of an $800 million bond referendum that voters approved in 2014.

The program has been riddled with delays, cost overruns and lawsuits. A grand jury report released in 2021 concluded that mismanagement of the bond was so egregious that some School Board members should be removed. Gov. Ron DeSantis removed and replaced four in 2022.

Several School Board members said Tuesday that they were angry the district had to declare an emergency for more district-created problems.

“This was a self-inflicted wound, and it’s a very, very serious one, and it is time for people to be held accountable,” Board member Allen Zeman said Tuesday.

Hepburn told the School Board on Tuesday that he’s still reviewing the report but is planning “accountability measures for any staff that I need to hold accountable.”

Their pleas on Monday in Fort Lauderdale federal court to wire-fraud conspiracies mark the latest developments in a three-year federal crackdown on about 50 private nursing school owners and associates in South Florida, with only two remaining as defendants facing trial in 2026.

The three defendants are: Victor Escalante Zerpa, former manager of Academus University in Coral Gables, who pocketed $9.5 million in illicit payments; Lemuel Pierre, ex-owner of Med-Life Institute in Lauderdale Lakes, Kissimmee and Naples, who raked in $9.1 million; and Irene Matthews, former manager of Agape Academy of Sciences in Delray Beach, who collected $1.5 million in illegal profits.

For more, please visit miamiherald.com