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DeSantis Admin Issues Statement on Trans Teacher Accused of Threatening Middle School

April 15, 2023

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The Florida Department of Education issued a statement Friday regarding the transgender teacher accused of threatening to shoot his students and kill himself.

“Middle school teacher Alexander Renczkowski, who is undergoing a sex change from male to female, is accused of making the threats on March 24, 2023, according to an incident report that Fox Chapel Middle School provided to the Daily Caller. The Hernando County school was placed on brief lockdown, but parents were not informed of the threat,” the Daily Caller reported.

The teacher was allowed back in the classroom the next day. Parents who inquired about the cause of the lockdown were stonewalled and even reportedly hung up on. It appears that even the Florida Department of Education did not hear of the incident, which occurred three days before the Nashville school shooting, for quite some time.

Parents learned of Renczkowski’s threatening comments — made privately to an administrator — only weeks later, when local reporter Tom Lemons broke the story.

The apparently fierce determination to conceal the threat from parents was at stark odds with the school’s usual approach to all threats big and small, according to parents, and was covered extensively by the Daily Caller in a separate piece.

Parents said that they receive alerts if so much as a fire alarm is pulled at the school or if somebody has a weapon at a nearby park. Yet after the school went into lockdown, parents could not find out why.

“You can try to talk to me and tell me I can get in trouble for not sending my kid when they’re sick and forgetting to send the note in, then why are we not notified as parents when there’s a teacher that has made a statement of this degree?” one parent said.

Fox Chapel Principal Carmine Rufa then disseminated a recorded statement to parents on Monday, 17 days after Renczkowski made the remark about shooting students, The Blaze reported.

“It took roughly two and a half weeks for them to even say anything to the parents and send some kind of — excuse my language — bulls— recording. And it’s because of a local reporter here, Tom Lemons. He broke the article,” Jim Looker, a parent of a 12-year-old student at the school, told the Caller.

Superintendent John Stratton urged parents to be quiet and move along, telling them that a school board meeting is not “a back-and-forth.” He asked them to trust his judgment and that of local law enforcement, insisting repeatedly that the experts had determined that Renczkowski posed a threat to neither himself nor students.

Renczkowski has been legally changing his name from Alexander to Ashlee Belle and reported taking antidepressants along with his female hormone treatments “and is planning on having surgery over the summer,” the incident report stated.

Renczkowski’s wife, Fawn Renczkowski, also is a teacher at the school. According to a now-deleted private Instagram page and multiple parent statements, Fawn identifies as a mermaid. Fawn did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment.

The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) also confirmed to the Caller that they employ a deputy Michael Renczkowski, who parents say is the teacher’s brother.

A significant, separate piece of news stands out, and may offer some hope to some:

Renczkowski was deemed by law enforcement not to meet the criteria of the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows for involuntary institutionalization of mentally ill individuals. Such criteria are notoriously difficult to meet; however, the HCSO was able to petition the court for a temporary Risk Protection Order, which the court “immediately” granted.

Renczkowski cooperated with police, and they were able to remove three firearms from the home he shares with his mermaid-identifying educator wife. The RPO expires in a year.

This last bit brushes up against two frequently heard narratives in the national debate over gun control. One is that conservatives want everyone to have guns, regardless of danger. The other is that those suffering from mental illness are shielded from attempts to prevent their having guns, their violence then serving as a pretext to disarm everyone else.

In this case, law enforcement in a red state was willing and legally able to disarm Renczkowski. And it was willing and able to do so even though he did not meet Baker Act criteria. Renczkowski committed no crime, has not been charged, and remains free.

Good news to report in this arena has been scarce.