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Parkland commission seeking new student discipline rules

Stuart News - 7/11/2018

"They have created a Promise program that gives students bite after bite of the apple. In fact, they can eat the whole apple three or four times."

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

Criticizing Broward's diversion program

Alternative student-discipline programs in Florida need an overhaul, according to the commission investigating the Parkland shooting.

Commission members, meeting Tuesday in Sunrise, recommended reforms to school-diversion programs, created to shield students who commit low-risk, non-violent offenses from legal consequences.

First and foremost, according to the commission, law enforcement should have access to information about the offenses leading students into these alternative punishments, which often isn't shared.

"There needs to be some common database," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, commission chairman. "... Anybody and everybody referring kids to pre-arrest diversion, and/or having to make decisions about whether to refer somebody, needs to know what that kid's history is so they can make a good decision."

Commission members stopped just short Tuesday of proposing a uniform state policy on diversion programs after a second dive into the flaws of Broward County's version, called Promise.

Instead, they are asking state attorneys across the state to confer among themselves and "strive for consistency" when crafting new pre-arrest juvenile-diversion programs based on local standards, as required in legislation passed after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

They also want to prohibit school districts from creating their own diversion programs outside that scope.

Additionally, the commission agreed school diversion programs should not offer students a blank slate each year, as Broward County's program has done.

Eligibility for Promise, instead of facing suspension, is reset every year, the commission was told, leaving members baffled.

That approach, they said, failed to hold students accountable.

"They have created a Promise program that gives students bite after bite of the apple," said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. "In fact, they can eat the whole apple three or four times. That doesn't even click the criminal-justice diversion programs (into) place."

In many cases, offenses that send students to programs such as Promise wouldn't trigger a report to law enforcement, according to Tuesday's presentation.

As a result, a student could receive multiple Promise referrals and civil citations from law enforcement, without either side knowing a student was a repeat and constant offender.

All diversion programs in the future should be required TO report their data to the Department of Juvenile Justice, or another entity to be determined later, to create a case database, commissioners agreed.

Broward's Promise – an acronym for Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support and Education – has been thrust into the spotlight since school officials revealed Nikolas Cruz, the accused killer of 17 people in Parkland, was assigned to the program but never enrolled.

School officials still have not explained how Cruz slipped through the cracks. Records released Tuesday showed Broward County marked Cruz present at both his middle school and the alternative campus his first day at Promise.

He was absent the last two days of his three-day punishment for vandalizing a restroom, records showed.

Commission members, although distressed by that lack of an explanation, agreed the investigation needed to move beyond the Promise program.

"I don't think this event in and of itself, breaking a handle off of a faucet, had anything at all to do with a mass shooting later on," Judd said.

The commission, established this spring, is charged with examining the defenses that were in place at Stoneman Douglas, Broward County's policies and gauging the law-enforcement response.

Its findings and proposals are due to lawmakers by Jan. 1.

"They have created a Promise program that gives students bite after bite of the apple. In fact, they can eat the whole apple three or four times."

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

Criticizing Broward's diversion program