Education Week - December 12, 2018 - 5

Lawsuit Challenges Florida's Plan
To Arm Some School Employees
A Florida district's decision to put armed "schoolsafety assistants" in its elementary schools puts
the safety and well-being of its students at risk
and oversteps existing state law, a group of families contend in a lawsuit.
The suit-filed late last month by seven unnamed families and the League of Women Voters of
Florida-names the Duval County district and its
school board as defendents. If the plaintiffs prevail,
they may create a domino effect that upends the
armed-security plans of districts around the state.
The suit challenges the Duval district's security plan, put in place to comply with a new state
law passed in the aftermath of the fatal shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland. It requires districts to staff every
school with a "safe-school officer," who can be either a law-enforcement officer or a designated
school employee.
Although the new law requires civilians to be
trained in the use of firearms, the text of the measure does not require them to carry weapons in
schools and does not override existing laws that
prohibit anyone but trained law-enforcement officers from carrying firearms in public schools, the
lawsuit says.
-EVIE BLAD

New York City School Officials Blew
Millions in Travel Expenses, Audit Finds
An audit of travel expenses at the New York
City education department reveals that the school
system botched more than $20 million in travel
expenses, including unnecessary payouts to lav-

income students were 22 percentage points
more likely to apply to a flagship campus and
23 percentage points less likely to choose a
"safety" school.
-CATHERINE GEWERTZ
SCHOOL TOXINS
"School Supplies: Shopping Guide"
Four of 27 common school supplies showed
traces of toxic chemicals, according to a review
by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, an independent health and safety group.
The group analyzed chemicals in supplies
bought in retail stores, not taken from classrooms. It found asbestos in crayons, benzene
in dry erase markers, and phthalates-used to
soften plastic-in binders, among other chemicals, at levels that are legal but which have
been associated with increased health risks in
some studies. For example, lead and asbestos
in any amount are associated with a higher
risk of cancer and neurological disorders. -S.J.

ish hotels for meetings that could have easily been
held on school sites.
Controller Scott Stringer's tally of 2017 travel
vouchers filed by employees found staffers failed
to follow regulations for 93 percent of travel expenses, potentially costing taxpayers millions of
dollars.
Among the problems Stringer found in his
deep dive into a representative sample of
roughly $1 million in travel expenses were:
$14,023 in overpayments, including $11,913 to
the glitzy New York Marriott at the Brooklyn
Bridge; $233,167 for meetings in hotels and
other venues with no effort, as required by rules,
to find free or low-cost space in school buildings;
$269,684 in purchases that lacked required
written bids, including a $17,847 catering bill;
and $14,956 in credit-card charges with no supporting documentation.
Education department spokesman Doug Cohen
pointed to tougher expense-reporting procedures,
more staff training, and implementation of the audit's recommendations.
-TNS

Students Could Skip School to Protest
Under Proposal in Maryland District

Transitions

PAM STEWART, Florida's education
commissioner, has announced that she
will resign in early January.
The state board of education extended
Stewart's contract for an entire year
before last month's midterm election, but
Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis, a Republican,
has said in recent days he wants
someone else to fill the position.

LEWIS FEREBEE, the Indianapolis

High school students could skip classes to attend
political protests under a proposal up for debate in
a Maryland school district.
Montgomery County's school board is expected
to approve the proposal as early as January. The
proposal is considered to be one of very few in the
country that would allow students to take up to
three excused absences per year to participate in
protests or other forms of civic engagement during
the school day.
The board is accepting public comments on the
proposal until Dec. 16.
School board member Patricia O'Neill said the
policy is designed to help prepare students to become
"the next generation of leaders."
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Substitute Teacher Who Spoiled Santa
Not Welcome in New Jersey District
School officials say a substitute teacher who told
1st graders in New Jersey that Santa Claus isn't
real will not be returning to the school.
Montville schools Superintendent Rene Rovtar
said last week that the teacher will no longer work
in the district after the incident occurred at Cedar
Hill School.
Officials say the teacher also debunked other
holiday characters, including the Easter Bunny,
the Tooth Fairy, and Elf on a Shelf.
-AP

superintendent, has been named to lead
the schools in the District of Columbia.
Before taking the top job in
Indianapolis five years ago, he
worked in districts in North Carolina,
including the Durham schools,
where he served as chief of staff.

Obituary

HAROLD O. LEVY, the first
noneducator to lead the nation's largest
school district, has died. He was 65.
A Wall Street lawyer, Levy was New York
City's schools chief between 2000 and
2002. He was the last chancellor to be
selected by the school board; subsequent
chiefs have been appointed by the mayor.
Levy later served as the executive
director of the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation, a scholarship-granting
organization, which supports
educational opportunities for highachieving, low-income students.

RELIANCE ON CREDIT RECOVERY
Credit recovery has come under scrutiny as a quick, subpar way to get high school diplomas into
the hands of academically struggling students. And the schools likeliest to rely heavily on credit
recovery are the ones that serve large populations of low-income and minority students, finds a
new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
25

Percentage of
20
schools with
15
active credit
recovery 10
programs 5

0%
0%

100

Percentage of students enrolled in free or reduced-price lunch
20% or more enrolled

40% or more enrolled

60% or more enrolled

Note: Each line represents the percentage of schools with at least 20 (purple), 40 (aqua), and 60 (yellow) percent of
students enrolled in credit recovery.
SOURCE: Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Caleb Kenna for Education Week

That figure came as top district officials defended
and reviewed the district's response to sexual-abuse
allegations after the Chicago Tribune exposed broad
failures in an investigation this year. District leaders say they have changed background-check procedures and policies on abuse reporting and the sexual
grooming of students, as well as created the office
devoted to investigating student-on-student assault,
supporting student victims, and training staff on
their child-protection duties.
Most of the 624 misconduct cases that came in
to the office between Sept. 4 and Nov. 26 involved
student-on-student allegations. But 133 were allegations of misconduct by adults, with roughly
half of those adult-related cases involving people
who do not work for the district. Adult-related
complaints must be forwarded to the district's inspector general.
-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Smilie Memorial Elementary School in
Bolton, Vt., was part of a small, rural
district that merged with another.

Vt. Officials
Face Backlash
Over Mergers
Audra Hughes and her husband moved
to Stowe, a ski resort town in Vermont, five
years ago, in part because of the schools.
Now, the district is being forced to merge
its budget and school board with the
neighboring district of Elmore-Morristown.
It's part of a 2015 law to create larger, more
efficient districts in the rural state dotted
by small towns, to give students more
equal educations and improve results.
But the merger doesn't sit well with
Hughes and many residents in the three
communities.
"I think that both of our school boards
demonstrated the success of how we all
currently operate on behalf of our students
and I think that anything that takes away
from our students is something I'm not
comfortable with," she said.
The communities are among at least
20 planning to take legal action against
the state over the forced mergers. The
state board of education released its final
plan this month to merge 45 districts in 39
towns to form 11 new districts.
"If we are forced to merge this year,
Elmore and Morristown residents will
see their taxes rise," Stowe and ElmoreMorristown school boards wrote in an open
letter to their communities. "Both districts
have pressing capital projects that could be
compromised by a forced merger."
Jamie Kollar of Elmore fears that
pressure will rise to close her town's oneroom elementary school when three towns
vote on one budget. She and her husband
moved to the small rural community
(population 860) where she was raised
because it had offered an option for parents
to send their children to other high schools.
But six months after they arrived, that
choice was eliminated when the district
consolidated with Morristown in 2016.
"We just gave away so much initially in
that merger and we're just giving up more
now in this forced merger with Stowe,"
Kollar said. Not only are they losing control
of their school budget but they will be
paying taxes to a school system in Stowe
that their kids can't attend, she said.
Vermont's education secretary had
recommended that the two districts
not merge, but the state board,
which has the final say, rejected her
recommendation.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Education Week - December 12, 2018

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