Stick to education

It should have been obvious from the start: Let the public-safety experts protect the students.

By Matt Walsh
| 12:00 p.m. June 27, 2018

Longboat Key
Opinion

E + R = O … Event + Response = Outcome.

That equation comes to mind as the prickly saga continues to unfold with the Sarasota County School Board and its response to the new state law requiring higher security at all of the district’s schools.

By comparison, if you scan what has transpired among the state’s school districts since the Legislature hurriedly adopted the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act, the Sarasota School Board has engulfed itself in what appears to be the state’s most contentious debate over how to fulfill its mandate.

Why, even the often dysfunctional Manatee County School Board has demonstrated unusual solidarity, working in concert with Manatee Sheriff Rick Wells to add enough “guardians” to cover every school. (Guardians can be armed officers, but they do not have the same arresting authority as sheriff deputies and municipal police officers.)

Although the Manatee County Commission previously voted not to share the cost of hiring more sheriff’s deputies, Wells has said his office would provide more deputies if the district falls short on guardians for the upcoming school year.

HOW DISTRICTS, COUNTIES ARE COPING WITH SCHOOL SAFETY REQUIREMENTS

LEE COUNTY

A clash between Lee County and three of its six incorporated communities over paying for new school resource officers shows no sign of blowing over.

The dispute is over whether Bonita Springs, Estero and Fort Myers Beach property owners should kick in half the cost of school resource officers at all schools in their communities …

The plan backed by the commission is for the county to pay half the cost of resource officers at schools in the unincorporated county.

The cities of Sanibel, Fort Myers and Cape Coral have agreed to put members of their police departments in the schools, with the school district paying half the cost.

Estero, Bonita Springs and Fort Myers Beach have no police departments and use the county sheriff’s office for police protection. They have balked at paying half the expense of school resource officers within their municipal boundaries.

— News-Press

PASCO COUNTY

An early analysis of the Pasco County School District’s 2018-2019 budget projects a deficit of more than a $1 million, with more than half of that coming from a shortfall in funding new school safety requirements.

Costs to hire and train 53 new school safety guards and a school safety director, and to supply them with uniforms and equipment, could cost $670,290 more than the $2.3 million provided by the state …

[Chief Finance Officer Olga] Swinson gave the board a list of options for voter referendums that could increase the district’s revenue, but the board shot down those options, both because of costs and because of a lack of time until the general election.

— Tampa Bay Times

LAKE COUNTY

Lake County residents will vote this summer on whether to enact a special tax to help pay for student safety, including assigning at least one deputy to every public school in the county.

The extra tax dollars would solve part of Sheriff Peyton Grinnell’s challenge to improve safety in schools and throughout the county in general. …

The Lake County School Board agreed this month to allow administrators who volunteer and meet training requirements to carry guns on campuses in case there is an active shooter.

— Orlando Sentinel

FLAGLER COUNTY

The Flagler County School Board unanimously approved an agreement with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office to provide security on all public school campuses for the 2018-2019 school year.

Flagler Schools will pay half the cost for nine deputies, a sergeant and a unit commander — $696,004, not including overtime.

The funding of nine school crossing guards, a cost of $92,938, was also included in the contract.

Palm Coast City Council members have agreed to continue funding an additional school resource deputy, allowing the district to have a deputy at each of the five elementary schools and two middle schools.

“Sheriff Rick Staly is an important partner in keeping our campuses safe,” Flagler Schools Superintendent James Tager said following [the] vote.

— News4Jax

DUVAL COUNTY

The Duval County School Board’s recent decision to hire and arm school safety assistants to patrol elementary schools continues to create tension and dissension among some board members.

At a board agenda meeting [last month], Cheryl Grymes scolded fellow board member Ashley Smith Juarez for persisting in her questions about the district’s plan to hire and arm about 105 safety assistants in the coming school year.

The safety assistants … will be trained in a fraction of the time police officers train, and they will be paid $12.50 an hour, much less than sheriff’s deputies or school police make.

A majority of Duval’s school board — by 6-to-1 — last month voted to create the positions of safety assistants to patrol the perimeters of school campuses and deter or stop armed intruders.

The state designated about $2.4 million to the district for arming police or sheriff’s deputies, but district officials said it would cost about $10 million to arm deputies for the district’s 167 schools. Board members say the safety assistants are a less expensive option.

— Florida Times-Union

It’s remarkable — Manatee officials’ spirit of cooperation. And what a stark contrast to Sarasota County.

From the start, Sarasota School Superintendent Todd Bowden and Sarasota Sheriff Tom Knight clashed, two alpha dogs snarling at each other from the moment they met.

They each bear some responsibility for fueling their disrespect for the other, and they bear some culpability for exacerbating the overall strife surrounding the issue.

But if you have observed the three months of theatrics, let’s be honest: Bowden and the school board majority of Shirley Brown, Jane Goodwin and Caroline Zucker, as leaders of the organization that should be seeking advice and assistance from law-enforcement experts, haven’t demonstrated the leadership, diplomacy and judgment to be expected.

Rather than resolve differences and work with county and municipal law-enforcement agencies on how best to increase school safety, pay for the increase and serve taxpayers, the school board majority, with Bowden’s willing acceptance, opted to create an entire school district-operated police department. And do it by the state’s August deadline.

Anyone with business and organizational experience knows such an endeavor, on a scale of the school district, is daunting and full of inevitable, unavoidable pitfalls and setbacks. And that’s if you’re already in the business at hand. To take on an operation to the extent the state has mandated in the time allotted and without the capital needed would be a venture on which pragmatic, risk-smart CEOs would pass.

We have said this before: Stick to your knitting. Do what you know. Play to your strengths. Outsource to the experts.

At least one school board member recognizes this. Ten days ago, School Board Chair Bridget Ziegler wrote what is obvious to outside observers:

“[T]he district is simply not ready to launch a full-scale police force … by August.”

She made a compelling case: “The complications of command and control, of communications and coordination with local law enforcement agencies, of everything from purchasing equipment to handling dispatch, to the significant levels of vetting and training, are just not in the short-term wheelhouse of a school district dedicated to providing students the highest quality education in Florida.

Ziegler urged her fellow board members to suspend the district’s efforts to create a police force and instead “finalize agreements with law enforcement agencies for the coming school year. Upon the completion of proper due diligence, … the board can revisit whether an internal police department is a viable solution.”

From the start, it should have been obvious for the school board to ask Sarasota County’s sheriff and four municipal police chiefs (Longboat Key, Sarasota, Venice and North Port) for their expertise on how best to harden security at the county’s public schools.

And it should have been obvious that the school board and superintendent should have opted to stick to education and rely on law enforcement to provide student safety.

Once they devised a strategy and plan, the board and law enforcement should make the financial case to taxpayers.

You’re on the same team. Serve the taxpayers. That response would produce the best outcome.