Broward School Board wants more updates on safety issues

Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie has been directed to provide more regular details of what the district is doing to make schools safer.

The School Board agreed Tuesday to require monthly status updates at board meetings and monthly workshops where board members can discuss safety for the next three months. After that, the workshops would be quarterly. Board members also want the district to create a website to serve as a repository for safety information.

Runcie said he publicly will address Thursday what steps the district has taken in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, which reviewed what factors contributed to the Feb. 14 massacre that killed 17 people.

The report criticized the district’s lack of policies on active shooter drills, “hard corners” or safe spaces for students to hide in a classroom and little to no training for security staff.

The proposal evolved from a request made by board member Nora Rupert. She asked Runcie to create a list of ongoing and upcoming safety improvements and when they will be finished. She also asked for a timeline of those already complete.

She said the School Board needs to better hold Runcie accountable.

Rupert said she got the idea after she met with the families of Stoneman Douglas victims, who complained the district was slow at making changes and the timelines kept changing.

“They don't feel there's any urgency from downtown to implement changes, to have full accountability and make sure this never happens again,” Rupert said. "They had a belief that the district's timeline kept getting pushed back. It's a moving target."

As an example, she cited the single point of entry projects, where the district uses fences and gates to restrict visitor access. Runcie said shortly after the massacre the projects, many of which are years behind schedule, would be expedited, with the goal of finishing by late 2018. But as of late December, at least a quarter of district schools still didn’t have these safeguards.

Board member Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter was killed at Stoneman Douglas, agreed and said a firm timeline was needed to implement recommendations from the commission reports as well as ones from district consultants.

“We have information from experts. Now we need to execute that,” she said.

Runcie responded, "Let me talk to staff and I'll send a memo out by end of the week with the date of when we would be able to align and integrate the recommendations and findings from various reports.”

The school district has been close-mouthed in recent months about many security upgrades, limiting discussion to executive sessions that aren’t open to the public.

School Board members said they want to hold Runcie accountable and ensure adequate progress is made, but they balked at the idea of a “timeline.”

Board member Laurie Rich Levinson said Runcie can’t create benchmarks for certain issues without first getting School Board direction of what they want done and when.

Board member Ann Murray dismissed the idea that the public was unhappy with the progress the district is making already in improving safety. She said the board may be responding to political pressures that she says have arisen since the tragedy.

Many Parkland families and Gov. Ron DeSantis have blasted Runcie and the district for what they see as failures.

But Murray said those concerns don’t represent most people in Broward County, noting they recently approved the district’s request for a tax increase for teacher pay and school resource officers.

"We got a referendum passed,” she said “Those of us that were running for re-election were re-elected. Why? Because

there's a trust out there in the community.”

But not everyone is a fan. John Daly, a Coral Springs resident who moderates a group called Concerned Citizens of Broward County, told School Board members he had a petition with 7,500 signatures of people who want the School Board to terminate its contract with Runcie.

“Even with prior knowledge of potential gun violence on school campuses from Columbine and Sandy Hook, it was no priority and insufficient action [was] taken by this administration to ensure that a violent offender didn’t walk into one of our schools and start shooting people,” he said.

He also complained not only about the slow progress of the $800 million bond referendum to fix dilapidated schools.

The website idea also caused debate. While some board members wanted the district to put as much safety information as possible on their website, Levinson disagreed.

“I've done a lot of reading. In places where that's done, perpetrators who do these kinds of things will do go look at that," she said.

A compromise was made to put information on the website that’s not specific to any school and won’t be a threat to school security.

The timeline also may include how the district plans to address recommendations form Collaborative Education Network, which reviewed how the district’s handled the education of gunman Nikolas Cruz.