The Monroe County School Board unanimously agreed that suspended schools Superintendent Randy Acevedo should not return to office, no matter what the outcome of his criminal trial.</p><p>Gov. Charlie Crist suspended Acevedo without pay when Acevedo was indicted and arrested June 11 on a felony charge of official misconduct for allegedly covering up theft of school district money committed by his wife, a former administrator.</p><p>Acevedo’s trial began Wednesday and could be complete by the end of the week. Acevedo could be reinstated if acquitted.</p><p>But on Tuesday, the school board unanimously voted to request that Crist permanently suspend Acevedo from office. </p><p>“I think it’s important to send this to the governor, hopefully with a unanimous vote,” board member Duncan Mathewson said before the vote.</p><p>The resolution to the governor will also include a copy of a detailed report of the financial scandal recently completed by board-hired investigators. The report placed much of the blame with Acevedo and his wife.</p><p>“For me, the results [of the investigation] were incontrovertible,” board member Steve Pribramsky said. “We need closure, and we need to heal.”</p><p>Pribramsky then offered what he said was a vote of confidence in new interim Superintendent Joe Burke, who was appointed by Crist last Friday.</p><p>Pribramsky said the superintendent’s spending authority of purchases up to $25,000, which was stripped from Acevedo after details of the scandal emerged, should be reinstated.</p><p>The board agreed to take up the vote at the next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 8. That is also the final hearing to adopt next year’s district budget.</p><p>The discussion raised a response from Key Largo School Principal Annette Martinson sitting in the crowd.</p><p>She said the board should also reinstate some district credit cards for employees. The cards were canceled after it was learned Acevedo’s wife, Monique Acevedo, had improperly purchased thousands of dollars of personal items on her card.</p><p>“This pure stoppage is not serving us,” said Martinson, who relayed a recent incident where maintenance workers were taken off their jobs to go on fire watch because the school could not purchase a necessary part for the fire alarm system.</p><p>“We respect where you’ve been, where we’ve all been, but it’s time to move forward,” she said.</p><p><b>Board turns down association, again</b></p><p>Also on Tuesday, the board heard from Florida School Boards Association Executive Director Wayne Blanton, who showed up after the board voted to not pay $15,000 in annual membership dues to the group this year.</p><p>“There’s some big issues coming down the road,” Blanton said, “and I think you want to be at the table.”</p><p>But board members Pribramsky, Mathewson and John Dick, who voted down the dues in a 3-2 vote, echoed past sentiments that Monroe County has been a member for decades but has seen state funding shrink and rules past that adversely affect the Keys above other areas.</p><p>“To stick our heads in the sand and pretend like the rest of the world doesn’t exist…is the antithesis of education,” said Board Chairman Andy Griffiths, who is a past president of the association and invited Blanton to the meeting.