Parents Not Informed of Threat by Trans Teacher

Parents at a Florida middle school north of Tampa earlier this week expressed outrage at school officials for not informing them about a report about a transgender teacher who threatened suicide and killing students in March, multiple reports said.

The threats occurred March 24, according to a Hernando County Sheriff’s Office incident report, which was three days before a reportedly self-identified transgendered individual killed six people — including three children — at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. The sheriff’s office community relations department confirmed the authenticity of the report.

Two dozen parents spoke at a contentious Hernando County School Board meeting Tuesday night, cable television station Bay News 9 in Tampa said.

The anger resulted after a local news outlet reported — quoting anonymous sources — on April 7 that the threats occurred at Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill.

“The Assistant Principal, Kerry Thornton, and Guidance Counselor, Kimberly Walby, advised me that a teacher had just made concerning statements about self-harm and then possibly making statements about shooting students,” the report by the school resource officer from the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office incident report reads.

The incident report was obtained by the parental rights advocacy group Moms for Liberty Hernando County chapter and posted to Facebook.

The report identified the teacher as Ashlee Renczkowski, who it said “was born as a male but is currently in the transformation stage of becoming a woman.” It added Renczkowski was taking hormone medications and was planning on having surgery this summer.

Ashlee was born Alexander Renczkowski but legally changed names in October 2021, according to court documents.

The school resource officer reported that Renczkowski told Walby about social media posts regarding the teacher’s sexual orientation and that Renczkowski sometimes had suicidal thoughts and a desire “to shoot some students due to them not performing to their ability.”

Walby told the resource officer that Renczkowski then said the teacher “would never harm a student.”

Renczkowski and wife, Fawn Renczkowski, who also teaches at Fox Chapel, consented to a home check, and a sheriff’s deputy later collected three firearms, previously acknowledged by Ashlee, from their residence.

A day after the school board meeting, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release indicating that it had obtained a risk protection order to seize the weapons.

Renczkowski left the school but returned for work the next day, the Daily Caller reported.

Hernando County School District Mental Health Coordinator Sandra Hurst responded to the school, conducted her own assessment of Renczkowski and determined that there was no need to invoke Florida’s Baker Act, which allows for involuntary temporary detention in mental health cases.

Hernando School District Superintendent John Stratton told the school board meeting that both the school and sheriff’s officer investigated the incidents and determined no further action needed to be taken.

“Both agencies felt there was not an imminent threat,” Stratton said.

A message left with the district office community relations department about the parents’ claims that they were not informed was not immediately returned.