Results 1 to 8 of 8
-
06-08-2019, 02:52 PM #1UnregisteredGuest
Broward school district is undercutting law enforcement re controversial PROMISE prg.
MSD Commission slams Broward schools on Promise stonewalling - June 4, 2019
The Broward school district is undercutting law enforcement by withholding information about students involved in the controversial Promise program, say members of a state commission investigating the school massacre in Parkland.
Members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission blasted the school district Tuesday for secrecy and conflicting statements regarding Promise, a program that provides alternatives to arrests for students who commit misdemeanors.
A new state law, passed after the shootings, requires that children who go through pre-arrest diversion programs must be entered into a state database. To avoid that, as the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported last month, the district has begun calling Promise an “alternative to external suspension” program, not a diversion program.
The reason: Officials don’t want students to accumulate a track record that could later land them in jail.
“If your lawyers are still sticking with the supposition that the Promise program is not a diversion program, at the same time you’re diverting criminal conduct, go back and tell them to figure out their opinion correctly,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a member of the commission, told Chief Academic Officer Dan Gohl on Tuesday.
The school district’s general counsel, Barbara Myrick, said in a memo March 15 that a diversion program has a specific definition under state law. She cited a police-issued civil citation as a type of state-defined diversion, as well as programs requiring a child to surrender a driver’s license and “neighborhood restorative justice programs."
“It is clear that the Promise Program does not meet the statutory definition of a diversion program and therefore, a student’s information/data regarding participation in the Promise Program should not be entered into the Department of Juvenile Justice’s Information System database,” she wrote.
Commission member Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed at Stoneman Douglas on Feb. 14, 2018, accused the school district of a “culture of secrecy" regarding its discipline practices and a hostility toward law enforcement.
“I don’t believe right now the Broward School District recognizes its responsibility to keep kids safe or takes it seriously,” Petty told Gohl. “You are not the Vatican.”
Several School Board members said they would share information only if they could be assured it wouldn’t increase a student’s likelihood of arrest. But Gohl said Tuesday that the district is revising its computer systems and discipline rules to ensure student crimes are shared but other disciplinary infractions are not.
“We are doing everything we can to collaborate in the proper way,” Gohl said. “We will comply with making sure our records are available.”
However, Maria Schneider, an assistant state attorney in Broward, said the school district has gotten worse about sharing information. The district used to have an agreement to alert the State Attorney’s Office when a student participates in Promise. But that expired last year and the school district isn’t turning over any information, Schneider said.
She voiced concerns about the district’s mixing criminal and non-criminal behavior into the program, which she said gives the district an excuse to withhold information. State law doesn’t require non-criminal discipline to be shared, and the school district has argued that federal privacy laws prevent it. Schneider said when the State Attorney’s Office signed on to Promise in 2013, it was for only misdemeanors, not other types of discipline.
“Somehow during the course of implementation of the agreement, the School Board unilaterally decided that they were going to include all discipline issues in Promise,” she said. “They have the right to do that, but unfortunately it’s created a lot of confusion.”
Gohl says the district has proposed limiting participation in Promise to students who commit only misdemeanor offenses.
Schneider was alarmed to learn last year that the Stoneman Douglas killer was sent to Promise but failed to complete it, but was never referred to the State Attorney’s Office, a violation of the district’s agreement. The district has never explained why that happened.
The Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission concluded last year that the Promise program had no direct tie to the massacre. But Commission member Max Schachter, whose son Alex was killed at Stoneman Douglas, said Promise is part of an environment that allowed the killer to commit numerous offenses, such as bringing bullets to school and making threats, but never getting arrested.
“It created a culture of leniency in my view and the view of many on the commission and in the public that led to the murderer accumulating all these instances of disciplinary actions, and you doing little to nothing,” Schachter said.
Scott Travis and Megan O'Matz South Florida Sun Sentinel Jun 04, 2019
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/b...kmq-story.html
-
06-08-2019, 04:30 PM #2UnregisteredGuest
Thank you for posting this article. The secretive school police have been out of control and corrupt for years. Their practices have a direct impact on law enforcement and this issue has had little to no public attention. Carefully consider the plans and posturing of Gohl and the school board. Read the history. Read about Jill Harring and about A. Pollacks resignation. Harring who was a special education aide was placed by Runcie to oversee the entire department, including the chief. She had no LE experience or education. Unless BSO, parents and BCPS employees get on the same side of this and push back as a united front, LE will continue to be in the dark about what they are responding to. MSD, the Tamarac incident and many others were examples of this recklessness that snowballed as a result of their intentional efforts to hide info from LE. We have been hopeful that IUPA will take a stand on this and stay on it. It is absolutely a safety issue. You don't need to be an SRD to be affected by this. Anyone can be called to a school.
-
06-09-2019, 03:35 AM #3UnregisteredGuest
Schools out of security compliance, armed teachers’ risks, reserves, choice and more
By Jim Booth - June 6, 2019
https://www.redefinedonline.org/2019...oice-and-more/
-
06-09-2019, 12:54 PM #4UnregisteredGuest
-
06-12-2019, 12:04 AM #5UnregisteredGuest
-
06-12-2019, 02:02 AM #6UnregisteredGuest
Absolutely. WE, the parents, and some teachers let loose on them at a school board meeting about PROMISE and all that goes with it. Their response was to recite scripture and essentially call us "racists" for having the audacity to question their practices. They went on to say things like " Kids in OUR community get shot all the time. None of y'all come down here...."
We just don't have the numbers to go up against them in a way that has a significant impact. They have no interest in making the schools safe. They need to be sent packing. None of this can be fixed without a cooperative effort of all whose interests are affected by these race hustling individuals who hate those who live in NW Broward and hate the police. It's unbelievable that one obnoxious,misguided and delusional teenager can bring 10K people to a march that has no purpose but a county of adults with a common interest can't seem to organize to get Runcie and his crew out of Broward. What LE CAN do is tell the truth about how things were prior to 2/14/18 with regard to school cover ups and the wink-wink between the school admin and the districts. PROMISE is a sham and the devil is in its details.
-
06-12-2019, 02:58 PM #7UnregisteredGuest
Jimmy Bernard Witherspoon status (Active-Withdrawn)? Why?
Office: School Board, Dist. 5 Rosalind Voreece Osgood status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $6,222.00
In-Kind
in-kind $600.00
Expenditures
expenditures $1,042.52
Contributor:
Anthony Brunson P.A.
$100.00
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.
$1,000.00
Law Firm
Vanessa E. Walker DC PA
$250.00
Chiropractor
Yolanda Jackson P.A.
$1,000.00
Attorney
Carl Sams
$100.00
Phillip Jerez A.A.
Administrative Assistant
$25.00
Mikelange Olbel
Non-Profit Executive
$100.00
George Odom
Attorney
$50.00
Wayne Messam (For occupation he listed “Businessowner” but I guess he forgot he was also an elected official, the Democrat Mayor of Miramar AND running for President of the United States of America)
Businessowner
$1,000.00
Corey Shearer
Entrepreneur
$20.00
Sonya L. Burrows
Entrepreneur
$100.00
Brian C. Johnson (West Park Vice Mayor)
Elected Official
$150.00
Marsha A. Ellison (Fort Lauderdale Broward NAACP Civil Rights Activist)
Bookkeeper
$100.00
Kimberly G. Hillery
Attorney
$50.00
Earlene S. Home
Retired
$50.00
Mia Y. Merritt
Educator
$250.00
Vision Electric, Inc.
Electricians
$100.00
Dale C. Holness (District 9 Vice Mayor)
Elected Official & Owner All Broward Realty
$250.00
L&B Janitorial Services, Inc.
Janitorial Services
$250.00
Barbara M. Sharief MSN, ARNP
Broward Commissioner
$500.00
Christine Jones
Retired
$50.00
Barbara Freeman
Retired
$100.00
Derrick J. Hughes (Dr. Pastor First Baptist Church Piney Grove)
Pastor
$250.00
Calvin Hopkins (President and Director William's Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, inc.)
Pastor
$100.00
Cynthia T. McDonald
Teacher
$100.00
Luwando Wright
Administrator
$100.00
ACE Productions
Production
$25.00
Ladies of S.P.I.C.E.S Inc.
Florist
$52.00
Campaign Treasurer's Report – In-Kind Contributions
Anthony Brunson P.A.
CPA Firm
Food and drinks for campaign $500.00
Bobby Henry
Entrepreneur
DJ Services for Campaign event $100.00
-
06-12-2019, 03:15 PM #8UnregisteredGuest
I guess he was scared to run against Osgood so now there's 8 people running in Office: School Board, At Large 9?
And now that SCAMMER Jepatha “Jeff” Holness (Dale Holness' cousin) is running too. Besides #FixIt we also need to #StopThisMadness
Office: School Board, At Large 9
Stephen Bryan Barrow
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Jeff Holness
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $100.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Laurie Greenstein Kandel
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $115.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Elijah Manley
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Narnike Pierre-Grant
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Timothy Wesley Sternberg
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Joyce Williams-Bryan
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Jimmy Bernard Witherspoon
status (Active-Filed)
Contributions
monetary $0.00
In-Kind
in-kind $0.00
Expenditures
expenditures $0.00
Bookmarks