Students Get the Shuffle

Entering his senior year at William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, Miami Gardens teenager Julio Gonzalez was looking forward to his third-period AP Spanish class this past August 20. Since 2005, the course has been taught by a popular dreadlocked, gold-toothed educator named Patrick Williams, who is fluent in seven languages. In the past two years, 68 of 70 Turner students who took Williams's class passed their advanced placement exams, a feat the Jamaican-born teacher accomplished without any textbooks for his pupils.

"He is an awesome guy," says the deep-voiced 17-year-old. "He may not portray the typical suit-and-tie professor, but his charisma, persona, and excellence go beyond that of many teachers."

Gonzalez and his classmates won't be seeing Williams again anytime soon, though. The 41-year-old Kingston native was abruptly removed from his classroom October 19, when Turner Principal Valmarie Rhoden accused him of harassing her. The charge is being investigated by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Civilian Investigative Unit, an agency that looks into administrative complaints against school district employees. Exactly what Williams did to badger Rhoden remains a mystery, as does the duration of his exile from Turner. MDCPS officials, including Rhoden, will not comment, says school district spokesman John Schuster.