Broward Schools overhaul background checks after volunteer’s murder conviction is revealed

The Broward School District plans to start conducting background checks for members of its voluntary advisory groups after learning that a member of one committee was found guilty of murder three decades ago when she was a teenager.

But the background checks will be statewide only for most crimes and wouldn’t have actually caught the Pennsylvania crime that raised concerns.

The former district committee member, Deidre Ruth, a 47-year-old Hollywood mother, started serving in 2024 on the district’s Parent Community Involvement Task Force, a group designed to help parents become more engaged. Ruth was appointed to the committee by former board member Brenda Fam and stayed on after Fam stepped down in the spring of 2025, when Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced Fam with Adam Cervera.

But Cervera told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he instructed Ruth to step down after learning that she had been found guilty of third-degree murder in 1997 in Philadelphia. She was 17 at the time of the crime and was 19 when she was found guilty. She was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison and was released in May 2007, according to a Pennsylvania criminal background check obtained by the Sun Sentinel.

Ruth could not be reached, despite repeated attempts by phone last week and on Tuesday.

The revelation, which came to light through a story in the Daily Mail, a British publication, also has prompted the school district to take a closer look at who is serving on district committees.

“After hearing concerns from School Board members and community members regarding the criminal history of a former advisory committee member, Superintendent Howard Hepburn informed the Board that the District will now require all advisory committee members to undergo a … background screening,” district spokesman John Sullivan told the Sun Sentinel.

Among the committees affected by the change are the district’s Audit Committee, District Advisory Council, the ESE Advisory Council, the Facilities Task Force and the Technology Advisory Group.

Cervera said he believes the school district should have reviewed Ruth’s criminal history before allowing her to serve.

“This was not somebody that I appointed. This was a rollover from my predecessor,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “My thoughts are this is something that should have been caught at some point by the district. We should have had this policy in place eons ago. It shouldn’t have to come to fruition in a situation like that. This should have been on the books, and the district should have been vetting all of our volunteers.”

But the planned background checks would not have caught an out-of-state crime, district officials acknowledge. The district plans to conduct what’s known as “Level 1” background checks. These checks include a statewide criminal name-based check through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a check of the National Sex Offender Public Website and may include local law enforcement checks, district spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion said in an email.

Hepburn had initially told the School Board at a May 19 meeting that the district had planned to conduct more thorough “Level 2” background checks, which require fingerprinting and use an FBI database to identify crimes committed anywhere in the country.

Hepburn mistakenly told the School Board these were the same background checks conducted for parents and community members who volunteer with kids on school campuses.

But school district officials later realized that this background check system only includes statewide searches. The more thorough Level 2 checks are reserved for those who may have unsupervised access to students, such as employees, coaches and chaperones for overnight trips.

“We’re keeping it the same as school volunteers,” Sullivan told the Sun Sentinel. “Committee members do not have unsupervised access to students.”

The national background checks are more expensive, $41.25, compared to $2.50 for the statewide checks, Concepcion said.

Sullivan said the district hadn’t conducted background checks on districtwide committees in the past because they usually had less access to students than volunteers who work inside schools. But after revelations surfaced of Ruth’s history, Hepburn decided to make the change.

“One of the largest concerns for me is that we do have some of our committees actually visit our schools, and albeit they’re escorted, they do have access to our schools, which means they have access to our students,” Hepburn said at the May 19 meeting. “So I think it’s important for the board to know the members that they may be appointing to their advisories or committees have gone through a … background check.”

In addition to board appointments, most advisory groups have members who join in other ways, such as members representing the superintendent, the PTA or employee unions.

Ruth has served on several district panels as a representative of former member Fam. In addition to the Parent Community Involvement Task Force, Ruth served as Fam’s representative on a community interview panel for superintendent candidates in 2023, a process that resulted in hiring former Superintendent Peter Licata.

Ruth has spoken often at School Board meetings to voice concerns about issues such as mandatory masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, sexually explicit passages in library books, proclamations supporting the LGBTQ community and comprehensive sex education.

She also was highly critical of Rod Velez, a Hollywood father who was elected to the School Board in 2022 but was not allowed to serve due to his criminal past. Velez was convicted in 1995 of aggravated battery, a second-degree felony. The incident was a matter of self-defense, Velez had said, and he pleaded guilty to avoid jail time.

A state clemency board never restored his right to hold office, and DeSantis replaced Velez before he could be sworn in. Prior to DeSantis’ decision, Ruth wrote on X, then known as Twitter, that Velez’s background disqualified him from serving.

“If it was a non-violent crime, that would be one thing, but this is a violent charge,” Ruth tweeted on Nov. 10, 2022. “Does Broward schools allow convicted felon teachers or school faculty with violent crimes? I highly doubt it. Rod should be no different than anyone else! He is a fraud!”

Ruth’s own crime happened on May 3, 1996, at a carnival in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Tacony, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Then known as Deidre Frazer, she was 17 but tried as an adult. She was accused of fatally stabbing Christa Lewis, 16, who was attending the same carnival.

Police said the incident started after two cliques of girls ran into each other at a local park, the Inquirer reported in 1997.

“At first, the two groups exchanged looks, gestures and taunts. Then there was pushing and shoving,” the newspaper wrote in a story on the trial. “At some point during the melee, Frazer pulled out her knife. The blade pierced Lewis’s breastbone and penetrated her heart. She died at the scene.”

Ruth pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense, the Inquirer reported in 1997. During the trial, she testified that she wielded the knife to scare off the teenagers, but Lewis charged toward her and into the blade after being pushed by one of her own friends, according to the Inquirer.

Frazer was found guilty of third-degree murder and possession of the instrument of crime — a seven-inch dagger that was found in her home after the slaying, the Inquirer reported.

Ruth was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. Pennsylvania records show she was paroled on May 31, 2007.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a 30-year anniversary story of the crime in early May. On May 15, the Daily Mail followed with a story that revealed Deidre Frazer now goes by her married name, Deidre Ruth, and had become a conservative activist in Broward County.

Cervera said he demanded Ruth’s resignation from the Parent Community Involvement Task Force shortly after reading the story.

“Obviously, you can’t have anything to do with the district with a situation like that,” Cervera told the Sun Sentinel. “So she’s no longer on.”

That same night, on May 15, Ruth sent an email to task force Chairwoman Erin Gohl resigning her seat.

“I will be out of town before the last meeting. Also, since my child has no longer been a part of the district for some months, I feel it’s only fair for a public school parent to be able to serve the district,” Ruth wrote in her email to Gohl. “We have done wonderful things for the district, and I thank you and (former Chairwoman) Mary Fertig for allowing me to have a voice. Best of luck to you all.”