School board, not city, comes up short in protecting our children
The Sept. 21 opinion by David Rubin (“City of Fort Lauderdale, we demand you protect our children”) missed the mark. When the Florida Legislature passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act, the mandate was clear: local school boards were required to assign an armed safe-school officer to every public school.
Unfortunately, the Broward County School Board could not meet the state requirement in time for the first day of school, which would have left 13 schools in Fort Lauderdale unprotected.
To provide a safe and proper learning environment for our children, the city of Fort Lauderdale stepped up and made sure that every school in our city was covered. We dedicated eight school resource officers (SROs), one truancy officer, and 13 additional police officers to schools throughout our city to fulfill the state requirement and provide enhanced protection to our students. Today, we continue to provide anywhere between 7 to 10 police officers per day in addition to the eight fulltime SROs and one truancy officer to cover the Broward County School Board’s shortfall.
Fort Lauderdale’s commitment to serving and protecting our schools has never been stronger. Our police officers have conducted active killer training in every elementary, middle and high school in our city. Our Motor Unit conducts daily traffic enforcement in the school zones during arrival and dismissal times to ensure the safety of our students. Our patrol officers, Neighborhood Action Teams and Community Engagement Team are regular visitors to the schools and participate in programs such as reading initiatives, Hoops for Harmony, the Teen Summit and many others. Our Mounted and K-9 units make regular school visits and presentations, and we never pass up an invitation to participate in Career Day. These are just a few examples of our commitment to the safety of our students and to strengthening our relationships with Fort Lauderdale’s youth.
While it is easy to lay blame and make demands for better school safety, it is much more difficult to find reasonable and equitable solutions.
Asking Fort Lauderdale or any other city to pull as many as 25 police officers off the streets to serve as full time SROs with virtually no lead time is both unreasonable and shortsighted. It risks putting hundreds of thousands of neighbors and visitors at risk on a daily basis.
To enlighten readers, a minimum of 20 additional police officers would need to be recruited, hired and trained to properly staff all of the public schools in Fort Lauderdale with a full-time SRO. This process would take approximately 18 months to complete, require significant resources, and substantial funding that the School Board has been unwilling to equitably share.
Under the new law and expanded School Board policies, SROs are required to complete additional training on top of the training already required by their agency. Officers assigned to the schools are expected to know and adhere to School Board policies and procedures and the policies and procedures of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, which could lead to delays and confusion when the two sets of rules conflict and be extremely detrimental in the event of a crisis. These are only a few of the concerns we are currently trying to navigate in a good faith effort to work with the School Board.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is currently filling the nearly 50 police officer vacancies we were faced with earlier this year. We have used aggressive and innovative recruiting strategies and made our entire hiring process more effective and efficient, all in an effort to attract the best and brightest individuals to ensure the safety and protection of our neighbors and visitors. One option we never considered, however, was to request that the School Board recruit, hire and train the applicants at their expense; then donate these officers to our police department for the bargain price of approximately one third of their salary and benefits. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the School Board is asking us to do.
Demanding these types of resources without realizing the time, training, and financial commitment required is naïve; not developing an equitable funding plan to make it happen is senseless.
Neither the Police Department nor the School Board currently have the resources or officers needed to fully staff the schools. If the School Board cannot come up with a fair and equitable plan, we would recommend they consider expanding their own police force to fulfill the staffing requirements.
Until then, the city of Fort Lauderdale will continue to assist the Broward County School Board with meeting their obligation under the new statute.
While it is easy to lay blame and make demands for better school safety, it is much more difficult to find reasonable and equitable solutions.