District suspends Parkland review
Ex-Secret Service agent had been hired to assess massacre
A week after hiring a retired Secret Service agent to investigate the role of school staff during the Parkland massacre, the Broward County schools superintendent has changed course and suspended the review.
On July 23, Superintendent Robert Runcie hired Steve Wexler — who gave safety warnings to administrators before the Feb. 14 shooting — to look into the actions of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High’s principal, assistant principals, security staff and others. But the district announced Wednesday that no longer is happening.
Runcie couldn’t be reached Wednesday, but he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday that he worried Wexler’s efforts could duplicate the work of the state’s Marjory
Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, which he said is ready to conduct a similar investigation, talking to the same people.
“Why would we want to do that twice?” Runcie said. “It’s too much.”
District officials said they are trying to be sensitive to staff still recovering from the tragedy.
They said the suspended review would not delay the district’s efforts to find answers. Still, the move frustrated those eager to get details about the school’s role. And it also did little to calm those who worry the district and the safety commission will try to blame school staff for the actions of the gunman.
Runcie’s decision to hire Wexler in the first place had alarmed some teachers and staff members at Stoneman Douglas, who said employees did the best job they could in horrifying circumstances that no one expected.
“This is a crucible. This is a witch hunt to place blame on anyone that can be held accountable at all, even by virtue of being present,” Stoneman Douglas teacher Melody Herzfeld wrote Friday on Facebook. “Every single one of us all 3000+ individuals who were there that day were victims. And now to be subjected to the possibility [that] any one of us were responsible for those killings, for making moment by moment, or second by second decisionmaking, in the middle of a war zone is outrageous.”
Although the district ended Wexler’s investigation, Herzfeld still expressed concern Wednesday about the state commission investigation. She urged people on Facebook to email and call the School Board and commission to express support for the school administration and staff.
Herzfeld received national acclaim in June when the Tony Awards honored her with its “Excellence in Theatre Education Award” for her efforts to shield 65 students in her classroom during the shooting. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.
April Schentrup, a district administrator who lost her daughter, Carmen, during the tragedy, has been critical of district administrators’ handling of safety issues before and during the shooting.
She said she understands concerns about duplicating what the commission is doing, but she said the district should have started an internal review right after the shooting occurred, instead of waiting until July 23.
She and her husband, Philip, have questioned:
■ Why gates were often left open at the school.
■ Why an administrator reportedly called for an evacuation in the middle of the shooting.
■ Why the school had
failed to report previous issues of trespassing on campus to the state and district.
■ Whether security monitors were properly trained to respond to potentially dangerous people on campus.
The Schentrups said key administrators should be at least temporarily reassigned while their actions are reviewed.
“The school year begins Aug. 15, and we’re entrusting our most valuable gifts to people without knowing why they failed us to begin with,” April Schentrup said. “It seems to me the priorities are not there.”
Stoneman Douglas parent Eric Edwards said the district should have allowed Wexler to keep investigating, regardless of what the state commission does.
“As a former Secret Service agent who had two children graduate from the school, Mr. Wexler can offer unique perspective and insight on what happened there, and he can get a report done quickly,” Edwards said. “School starts in two weeks. As parents, we needed this done yesterday.”
Runcie said he had originally planned to let the commission handle the review but the work was taking longer than he expected. The commission has met several times since April, but the meetings have focused more on issues related to school police officers, student discipline, mental health and emergency communications.
The district then announced June 26 it had been trying to conduct a review of administrators’ responses but had been hindered because the State Attorney’s Office had the surveillance video and wouldn’t allow the district to view it, “which we need to see in order to determine what took place with the safety and security staff on campus.”
April Schentrup said that shouldn’t have stopped an investigation.
“Why don’t they talk to people to get answers into why this happened?” she asked.
District officials said the state commission has “committed to sharing its findings and recommendations with the district, which we will use to improve campus security protocols and hold identified staff accountable for their actions.” The state commission has subpoena power, which allows it to go beyond just school district employees, the district said.
Wexler, reached Wednesday, declined to comment.
The district also hired a consultant to review the education history of gunman Nikolas Cruz. That review was supposed to be released in June, but Cruz’s defense lawyers are fighting in court to try to block the release of the report to the public.