Parents: Magnolia School needs a full-time officer

Parents whose children attend an Orange County school for students with serious mental handicaps, medical needs or behavior issues are upset there is not a fulltime police officer on the campus.

Susan Best, president of the PTA at Magnolia School, said that for the past few years she’s been pushing unsuccessfully for a school resource officer to be stationed at the west Orange school. She thought Florida’s new school safety law — passed in March after the school shooting in Parkland that left 17 dead — would make it happen because it required an officer to be assigned to every public school.

“I thought it was a done deal,” Best said.

But Best and other parents said there is still no full-time officer on campus.

“The kids at that school are so vulnerable,” said Chip Tolman, who has two children at Magnolia School. “I just don’t understand why an SRO officer has not been

assigned to the school.”

The new law, called the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, was named for the Parkland school that was site of the February massacre and kicked in when classes began in August. It demands that school districts “establish or assign” one officer to every public school in Florida.

Wendy Roundtree, a spokeswoman for the Orange County school district, said in an email that an officer from the district’s inhouse police department is assigned to the school. But citing security concerns, she would not say how often the officer is at Magnolia.

Orange school officials have interpreted the new law to mean an officer must be assigned to each campus but does not have to be on the campus every day or for the whole school day.

A number of other public schools in Orange, typically

“If something did occur, what can I say, a lot of them would not understand what they would need to do. Some would not respond. Some might, truthfully, have a meltdown.”

Susan Best, president of the PTA at Magnolia School

smaller elementary schools, also do not have their own, full-time officers, according to information from both the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office and the Orlando Police Department. That’s in part because the agencies and the school district, like counterparts statewide, have struggled to pay for and hire enough officers to meet the new rules.

Magnolia has an unarmed security guard who is there every day and is helpful, Best said, but with students who sometimes have challenging behaviors, a full-time police officer would better. And if there was an emergency on campus, many of Magnolia’s students, some of whom are in wheelchairs, could not help themselves, she added.

“If something did occur, what can I say, a lot of them would not understand what they would need to do,” Best said. “Some would not respond. Some might, truthfully, have a meltdown.”

Magnolia has an enrollment of about 140 students, most of whom are middle- or high-school age. But students with disabilities are able to attend public school until they are 22, so there are some older students there, too.

The school, which sits about a mile west of Hiawassee Road, called for police help nearly 50 times during the 2017-18 school year, according to records from the sheriff’s office. The calls included requests for aid in dealing with mentally ill people, handling medical emergencies, reporting cases of battery and finding missing people, among others.

In one case, a 17-year-old student had threatened to hurt himself with scissors and then punched holes in a school wall, a police report said. In another, an 18-year-old with autism and developmental delays bit a teacher on the thumb, a report said.

Tolman said both his children are severely disabled. His 17-year-old son mostly relies on a wheelchair, and his 20-year-old daughter walks but not well. Both are nonverbal, he said. “My kids need 100 percent assistance with everything,” he added.

An officer at Magnolia could help with some student-related problems, such as students running off campus and into the surrounding neighborhood, he said, but also protect students should an armed intruder get onto campus.

“Who knows who could bring a gun to a school?” he added. “Safety is number one for my kids.”

The sheriff ’s office is providing school resource officers to 116 traditional public schools that, like Magnolia, sit in unincorporated Orange, said Capt. Carlos Torres, in an email. Many have their own officers but some are sharing, according to an agreement the district and sheriff ’s office signed in August. The costs are split between the sheriff and the school district.

But Magnolia is not part of the agreement. Torres referred questions about why Magnolia was not included to the school district, saying the new law puts responsibility for coverage on school systems.

Shari Bobinski, another district spokesman, said the district could not discuss why Magnolia was not part of its agreement with the sheriff’s office or make Magnolia’s principal available for an interview. “For security reasons we are unable to respond beyond stating that Magnolia does have an assigned SRO,” she wrote in an email.

The sheriff ’s office is not adding more school resource officers to its rolls now, Torres said. But 17 charter schools — public schools run by private groups — in unincorporated Orange are hiring off-duty deputies to work on their campuses, Torres said, and Magnolia could do the same. In fact, a Magnolia administrator called the sheriff’s office to ask about a school resource officer and was told about the off-duty option, he added. The off-duty option is expensive, however, as the department charges $50 an hour.

Best, also chairwoman of Magnolia’s school advisory council, said she spends a lot of time on campus and remains disappointed the new law hasn’t meant a fulltime officer for the school.

“I don’t care just for my son,” she added. “I care for all the kids there.”