From rapes to arsons to guns, Florida’s school districts are hiding countless crimes that take place on campus, defying state laws and leaving parents with the false impression that children are safer than they are.
Many serious offenses — and even minor ones — are never reported to the state as required, an investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found. A staggering number of schools report no incidents at all — no bullying, no trespassing, nothing.
Florida schools cover up crimes: Rapes, guns and more
First we heard about it with Trayvon Martin case and then with Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School shooting: Crimes and dangerous behavior in school were being covered-memory holed-not reported. Now and thanks to an amazing work by the Sun Sentinel we find out it is an endemic issue across the state.
“At Parker Elementary in Panama City, a 12-year-old boy stole a school bus in July 2014 and went on a two-hour joyride, just hours after he had appeared in court for another bus theft. The theft was never reported to the state. The school district did not respond to requests for comment.”
“Despite the warning, LaVoy Exceptional Center School in Tampa reported no sex crimes during the 2016-17 school year, the same year teacher George Summers molested a disabled teenage student. He’s now a registered sex offender.
Schools spokeswoman Tanya Arja said the district reported the crime to police, but annual safety reports list only incidents in which students are disciplined. Arja said she would ask the state to clarify, ignoring that the state had already made it clear many times before.”
Even murder has been ignored. A student at Coral Gables Senior High got a 40-year prison sentence for a fatal stabbing in 2009, a case that attracted national attention, but the Miami-Dade County school district never reported it to the state.
But it was always easier to blame Gun Owners. It was always easier to blame the NRA. It has been said that Florida’s Teacher’s Union and the School Boards are powerful mafias in the state and I have to say this seems to prove it. Will something be done? No idea, I hope some of the newly elected state legislators are already checking the legislation to see how will it be improved. And let’s see if the new Governor and new State’s Attorney hit the ground running with this
As for Florida Gun Owners, we need to throw this back in the faces of our accusers, 24/7 and 365 days a year.
“Stop Blaming Guns. Fire the School Boards. Do It For The Children!”
Yesterday’s TV news had a piece about some group in CT arguing for people to speak up when they see signs of dangerous plans, saying that in Sandy Hook and most other places there are warnings before.
Hidden agendas are one question with efforts like that. The other one, as you’ve just pointed out, is that saying something is useless if the chair warmers you report it to don’t care to do anything beyond warming their chairs and collecting their paychecks.
How many times do I have to say it? Bureaucracies protect themselves.
When Obama decided that schools that punished minority kids too much were doing so because they were racist (what other explanation could there be?) they administration had to punish the school by withholding money.
What did the schools do? They stopped reporting the kinds of behavior that required recordable punishments.
What did that do? It encouraged kids to be worse because they knew they could get away with anything… like planning a school shooting.
The only people who benefited were the bureaucrats who got raises because the school didn’t lose money.
Everyone else got hurt.