Newberry Mayor files ethics complaint against school board members for alleged Sunshine Law violations
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
Updated at 3 p.m. with additional profile for “Sarah Beth”
NEWBERRY, Fla. – Newberry Mayor Tim Marden is filing an ethics complaint against School Board of Alachua County (former) Chair Sarah Rockwell and (former) Vice Chair Tina Certain for alleged violations of Sunshine Laws. (A new Chair and Vice Chair were selected this morning at the Board’s annual organization meeting.)
Conversation between Certain and “Sarah Beth” was shown at State Board of Education meeting
At the November 13 State Board of Education (BOE) meeting, Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas showed a screenshot of a Facebook conversation between Certain and an account named “Sarah Beth” in which those two accounts appeared to discuss the conversion of Newberry Elementary School to a charter school, a matter that would come before the School Board.
BOE Chair Ryan Petty asked Certain if she recognized the name “Sarah Beth,” and she said, “No.” Kamoutsas asked, “Sarah Beth is not the same account as Sarah Rockwell?” Certain responded, “I don’t know.” She said if she’d been sent the post in advance, she could have looked into it. When asked if the posts were from her account, Certain responded, “I see my name there.”
Petty asked what the three people were discussing in the post, implying that if they were talking about School Board business, it may have been a Sunshine Law violation, and Certain responded, “On the advice of counsel, he said for me not to answer.” Petty said that was “probably good advice.”
Under Florida’s Sunshine Laws, elected board members cannot discuss any matter that may come before the board outside of a publicly noticed and publicly accessible meeting.
“The comments clearly violate Sunshine Law. They have voted multiple times on the charter and spent untold amounts of taxpayer money fighting the effort. They need to be held accountable,” Marden said.
“They knew who each other is in the chat. Sarah Rockwell talks about voting. There is no hiding it,” Marden added. “They are already in hot water. This turns up the heat a little more.”
Marden indicated the formal complaint will be sent to the Florida Commission on Ethics later this week.
“Sarah Beth” appears to be Sarah Rockwell
Other screenshots of the “Sarah Beth” profile show a profile picture that matches one used by the “Sarah Rockwell” account:
Second discussion referred to investing in “athletic facilities that might be taken from the district”
In his complaint, Marden provided screenshots of another Facebook discussion that took place on June 19, 2024 in “Save Our Schools Newberry,” a group set up to coordinate the campaign against the charter school conversion effort; that discussion began with a post that read, “Our own school board representative, Tina Certain, voted against air conditioning for Newberry High School.” Certain responded by explaining that, in her opinion, air conditioning in locker rooms should be prioritized “in the long list” for all schools and added, “During the campaign for the 1/2 cent tax, Citizens were told that learning spaces would be prioritized over athletics.”
Strengthening the case that the “Sarah Beth” profile belongs to Rockwell, whose middle name is “Beth,” the “Sarah Beth” account replied, “I’ll come right [out] and say it. I voted against AC for the locker room too. We have gyms in this district without AC. That is far more critical to address than a locker room.”
Confirming that she was writing about Newberry schools, “Sarah Beth” later added that she was “reluctant to invest money into athletic facilities that might be taken from the district.”
Discussion shown at the BOE meeting referred to the Newberry Charter School budget
The exchange shown at the BOE meeting also appears to refer to the Newberry charter school conversion, with Certain asking for the “detail budget” and information about transportation, adding, “The mayor making a lot of promises that costs money… only way this charter will have the money to do all that is if the City raises money (from property taxes) and transfers it to the charter school.”
The “Sarah Beth” account responded, “I’m sure the same people who think China will pay the tariffs also think the budget is great.”
The Newberry Charter School was discussed several times by the School Board after the Facebook discussions: After the charter for the Newberry Charter School was approved by the State, the School Board voted to appeal that decision in March 2025. They contracted with an outside law firm to represent them during the appeal and discussed suing the State to stop the charter school in September.
The next step in the process would be a determination of probable cause by the Florida Commission on Ethics.
These public school board degenerates can’t stop digging their own graves.
This gets more interesting every week.
I’m in the corner that believes there are many more conversations, (regarding District issues), between these two that have occurred without public knowledge. For the BOE Commissioner to introduce that particular posting certainly caught her off guard. Certain’s attempt to deny she knew the identity of “Sarah Beth” was abysmal at best and the attorney’s advice to not answer a question, (after allowing her to comment on many others), likely indicates his knowledge that rules were broken.
We’ll just have to see where it goes.
Ahh, the delicious irony of a John Birch Society Officer invoking government rules and regulations in an effort to confer a political advantage. The hypocrisy of that crowd is limitless.
But not without equal.
I don’t know many liberals who are offering higher than average wages or low housing costs for some. As progressive a liberal as one of our former commissioners is, I doubt he’s lowered the rents on any of his properties.
Safe to assume they’re hypocrites as well.
But I thought “No one is above the law!” …. oh right, that’s (D)ifferent
Great job! Continue to shine the light on the SBAC…yet another log on the fire. I truly hope we have eyes on this at the state level. Rockwell & Certain need to be removed asap.
Looks like the receipts are all there.
I think the best method of properly educating the majority of Alachua County students is for the state to take over the school board and appoint properly vetted and credentialed professional leaders. This county has suffered under agenda driven feminazis and retired teachers for long enough. What about a simple tax paying citizen
If only I had a quarter for every politician who actually knew what ethical behavior was.
What were their jobs before, or now while on the school board? I think many go into politics who can’t handle working in the real world. If they act this immature in other jobs? Maybe being around kids makes them this way.
On the subject of locker room AC, I hope they at least have high capacity fans and dehumidifiers for the athletes, now.
Pretty clear violations by 2 seemingly smart people who should know better and hard to imagine no penalties. That those who are pursuing this are a national John Birch Society officer and the highly partisan BOE makes no difference with the law. They foolishly handed their enemies the means to remove them.
It must be a cold day in hell because I actually agree with this statement, however, I would add that these 2 created the circumstances that made those “enemies”. All they had to do was not be hateful towards concerned parents as well as respecting the Rights of those parents when it comes to the children. They brought this upon themselves when they put a marxist political agenda of indoctrination, designed to destroy the nuclear family, before their elected role of simple education oversight and facilities maintenance.
I would give anything to see Trump personally come to town, point to these two activists, and tell them, “you’re fired”!
That’s not what Trump does except on his TV show. He tells his secretary to withhold paying the guys who hung the sheetrock for 2 weeks and then offer them $.50 on the dollar. He’s famous for jacking up subs and little guys.
I have never seen a shovel used to dig a hole faster than these 2 school board clowns have been able to do thru their own ineptitude and lies. It is the perfect example of Liberalism/Progressivism being a mental disorder. Using emotions such as hate and racism to base your ideologic political beliefs on, blinds you from the simplest of norms such as ETHICS, as well as the protected Rights of the individual. But worse is the fact that these 2 are elected and it shows more how damaged the majority voting electorate is that continually keeps people like these 2 in office.
On the subject of school sports, do Rockwell and Certain’s personal media accounts support boys in girls locker rooms?