Fla. officials told student diversion programs often work
SUNRISE, FLA. »
The school district where the Florida high school massacre happened defended its controversial student diversion program Thursday, telling a commission investigating the shooting that the program has reduced on-campus crime and kept children in school.
Broward County schools administrator Michaelle Pope told the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission that the number of offenses covered by the Promise program have fallen by twothirds from about 6,000 a year to about 2,000 a year since 2013.
There are 10 misdemeanors eligible for the Promise program, including fighting, threatening assault, petty vandalism and theft, drug and alcohol use, creating a major disruption and making a false accusation against a staff member.
Under the Promise program, which covers kindergarten through high school, students are sent to an alternative program for up to 10 days and they and their families receive counseling. Police officers are notified after the third offense in a school year, although they can arrest a student on a first offense if they choose. The program was devised by the school district, police, prosecutors, public defenders, a judge and community groups including the NAACP to reduce the number of students being arrested for minor on-campus crime and all remain supportive of the program, Pope said.
“There is accountability by all of the signatories,” Pope told the commission.
Critics have said the program has made campus police officers reluctant to arrest students like Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student accused of killing 17 students and staff on Feb. 14.