School safety must be critical priority
Valentine’s Day is traditionally meant as a day when you share feelings of love. Not this year, not for one young man. Instead, he walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day armed with an AR-15 determined to go on a killing spree. In his wake, 17 students and faculty lost their lives.
That day was one of the most tragic in our community’s history. But the response is just as heartbreaking. Talk of gun reform has resulted in little from lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee. At the same time, improvements to school safety in Broward County have not materialized.
It’s part of our responsibility as a community to ensure the safety of our most vulnerable — our children. No parent should send a child to school fearing that the school grounds will become of place of violence and horrific death.
Despite everything we have witnessed from Columbine to Parkland, the Broward school district has been slow to respond and has tried to shift its responsibilities to Fort Lauderdale and other municipalities.
The state Legislature took clear action this spring in requiring school districts to staff each school with an officer by fall. The districts may contract with cities to provide police officers, utilize their own police force, or designate and train other staff to do the job.
Fort Lauderdale has long provided police officers – called school resource officers or SROs – at high schools and middle schools in our jurisdiction even though many students come from surrounding cities.
The school district has covered less than half the cost of these officers. This has resulted in a huge subsidy from the city toward school operations. School officials have wanted cities to continue to pick up this cost even though they now can receive additional aid from the state for security and are considering a tax increase for it as well.
While the debate continues, our children are vulnerable. Just last week, the city’s contract with the School Board to provide protection at schools lapsed altogether despite the city’s repeated requests that the school system take action.
The time is getting late to act.
We have 30 current vacancies in our Police Department and would need some 20 additional officers to cover every elementary and charter school in the city as well as the middle and high schools. It would take several years to recruit and train that number of officers. Many other Broward cities are in the same position.
Our city leadership is urging the school district to opt for the idea of school marshals or school guardians in which individuals who are not sworn law enforcement officers undergo certain testing and meet minimum training requirements. These could be security personnel, retired officers or military veterans.
As a community, we will find a way to protect our children even if the School Board fails to accept its responsibility.
In addition to the need to increase security personnel on campuses, there must be better training for emergencies like an active shooter.
Our Police Department has not been allowed to train at most schools in the city. And long before the Parkland massacre, Fort Lauderdale asked the school district to allow the police to work with schools on educating staff and students about how to respond to incidents. Only recently have we received a crisis-response training plan from the school district.
Sadly, it is one size fits all that requires Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and every other city to respond precisely the same way. It ignores nuances. Fort Lauderdale trains its emergency medical crews to rush into a scene, while some cities train EMS to wait back until police clear the area of hazards. The district training plan also has aspects that would trouble even someone who is not educated in threat assessment and response.
Lives are at stake here. We must come together so we can try our best to prevent more tragedies in the future. We’ve lost too many lives already.
Before closing, let me remind you of the importance of planning for hurricane season.
Everyone should review their family emergency plan and assemble a hurricane supply kit. The city of Fort Lauderdale offers detailed information about hurricane preparedness on its web site. Please visit
www.fortlauderdale.gov/hurricane.
Everyone should have emergency supplies for at least three days. Those supplies should include at least one gallon of water per person per day, non-perishable food that is ready to eat, a battery-powered flashlight, a battery-powered radio, a first-aid kit and a reserve of prescription medicine.
As part of your family action plan, you should determine if you live in an evacuation zone and where you would go if ordered to evacuate. It’s also prudent to inventory your possessions, assess your home for vulnerable spots, trim trees and check the condition of shutters and back-up generators.
FPL has assured me that they have taken steps to improve our electric grid since Hurricane Irma last year. They have been inspecting and replacing old wooden power poles, trimming vegetation, upgrading main power lines, installing smart grid devices and enhancing the information they share with residents regarding power restoration.
Finally, please join me for the city’s annual July 4 celebration and fireworks on the beach. I also wish everyone a happy Pride Month. June 28 marks the 49
th
anniversary of the start of the modern movement for LGBT rights in the United States. Let’s remember the strides we’ve made and re-commit ourselves to the work that is left to accomplish.
Sincerely,
Dean
