Palm Beach County public schools lose their second police chief in 8 months

Palm Beach Post | By Andrew Marra | January 6, 2022

The police chief of Palm Beach County’s public schools is resigning after just eight months on the job.

Police Chief Daniel Alexander submitted his resignation Thursday to take an administrative job at a government agency in Virginia, school district officials said. His last day will be Jan. 21.

Alexander – who served as Boca Raton’s police chief before joining the school district as deputy chief in 2019 – is the district’s second police chief to step down in the past year.

Previous chief Frank Kitzerow resigned last year

The previous chief, Frank Kitzerow, resigned in April amid growing tension between the police union and the district’s leaders.

In a resignation letter, Alexander wrote that during his tenure the district’s police department had “successfully met significant challenges, to include the continuing

pandemic, student wellness deficits and an increase in various threats to school safety.”

But the department has also faced high staff turnover and has struggled to fill its officer positions, police union leaders said.

Union officials have complained over the past year of high turnover and low morale in the department, leading it to call for the sheriff’s office to take over the department.

John Kazanjian, president of the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, said Alexander’s short tenure strengthened the case for the school board to let the sheriff’s office handle campus security, the practice in most Florida counties.

“Overwhelmingly, [the officers] want to go with the sheriff’s office and I think it’s time to do that,” he said. “They’re 60 to 70 officers down. They don’t need a school board police department. They don’t need it.”

The school district is expected to name an interim chief, then conduct a search for a permanent replacement, two officials briefed on the matter told The Post.