Bobbie Bean, a candidate for the US Senate, launched an investigation today into the way the Highlands County School Board is dispersing and using its Florida Safe Schools funding. Mr. Bean is questioning why the vast majority of Highlands County’s federal Safe Schools funding is going to the Highlands County Sheriff and Police Departments and a “boot camp.” The funds are allocated by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE).

Many Florida schools use Safe Schools funds for anti-bullying educational programs starting as early as kindergarten, but Highlands County’s federal dollars are being funneled to law enforcement for job creation, Mr. Bean says. According to House Bill 5001, Safe Schools funds should be used for “school programs for middle school students; other improvements to enhance the learning environment, including implementation of conflict resolution strategies; alternative school programs for adjudicated youth; suicide prevention programs; and other improvements to make the school a safe place to learn.”

“Our society needs stronger preventative measures at a time when we’re seeing very serious bullying and harassment problems among children, such as the case of Michael Brewer of Ft. Lauderdale, who was lit on fire by a group of boys, or Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was severely bullied and harassed by a group of girls in Massachusetts,” he notes. “We need to address the violence and bullying problems in America with early education, more anti-bullying programs and activities, awareness literature, and other preventative measures.”

Over a 5-year period, Safe Schools payments from the Highlands County School Board to law enforcement agencies more than quadrupled – from $173,404 in 2003 to $745,490 in 2008. The vast majority of the funding went toward school resource and “boot camp” officers.

For example, in the 2006-07 school year, Highlands County used their funds only for school and “boot camp” resource officers, according to the FDOE. By comparison, Broward County used funds for preventative measures such as “the enhancement of existing programs for Alternative Placement Programs for Adjudicated Youth. Additionally, funds were utilized for training teachers/staff, providing school resource/school safety officers, funding district-level positions for Safe Schools activities.”  Collier County “utilized funds to support Middle School After-School Programs and to fund district-level positions for Safe Schools activities.”  FDOE 2006-07 county Safe Schools allocations:  http://www.fldoe.org/safeschools/pdf/2006_07_ss_allocation.pdf

“Highlands is creating a time bomb” by not having more preventative programs, Bean says. “The situation in Highlands County shows that these federal funds should be monitored more closely.” According to Florida House Bill 5001, “$65,387 shall be distributed to each district, and the remaining balance shall be allocated as follows: two-thirds based on the latest official Florida Crime Index provided by the Department of Law Enforcement and one-third based on each district’s share of the state’s total unweighted student enrollment.”

A portion of Highlands County’s Safe Schools funds gets allocated toward a boot camp each year. In 2004, the School Board created the Academy at Youth Care Lane as an “alternative to expulsion for Highlands County students in grades six through 12.” It emphasizes “marching drills, calisthenics, a rigid dress code, manual labor assignments, physical training with obstacle courses,” according to a document obtained by the Bean campaign. Dr. Rodney Hollinger, assistant superintendent of the Highlands County School Board and coordinator of the program, says the Academy is the only one of its kind in Florida.

“Every day we had to do drills and drink water until we threw up,” said one 19-year-old Sebring resident who was placed at the Academy at Youth Care Lane after punching a child at school. He described the program as “too rigorous.” A parent whose child was placed at the Academy described it as a “strenuous and scary program for a teenager,” according to a letter written to Superintendent Wally Cox that was obtained by the Bean campaign.

The Highlands County School Board created the Academy at a time when boot camps were being questioned as a safe and effective means of discipline. Critics say boot camps can be dangerous, are a questionable way of changing aggressive behaviors, and can exacerbate behavior problems. Many states and counties have dissolved boot camp programs over the last several years. In Florida, a boot camp in Polk County was the focus of intense media scrutiny when a 12-year-old boy was exercised to death by drill instructors.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Bean campaign last fall found no anti-bullying pamphlets or brochures available from the school district, local law enforcement, children’s agencies, the Chamber of Commerce, or at kiosks in the mall in Sebring, Fla. The only anti-bullying information or program manual provided by a high school resource officer was the Federal D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Program) notebook, which is customarily used by school districts nationwide.

The survey found that the non-profit Highlands County Boys and Girls Clubs of Sebring and Avon Park were actively working on preventative measures. Among their activities is an annual joint outing to a major big league sports event to diffuse tensions between youth gangs in the two communities.

In an effort to track Safe Schools funding in more current years, the Bean campaign inquired about allocations to Highlands County in the 2007-08. “The survey period has closed and copies of the submitted surveys were not compiled in an easily readable format. It would be more timely and perhaps more meaningful for the questions to be posed directly to this district contact,” wrote the FDOE in response to the request.

An exchange was started with Pat Landress, head of Federal Programs at the Highlands County School Board:  “For the past 2 years our district has used Safe and Drug Free funds to pay for an Addictions Specialist who works with our students (and their families) who are assigned to our alternative school,” she wrote. “In 07-08 we used some funds for bullying, and although our grant did not originally show it, we did use some 08-09 funds to send guidance counselors to bullying conferences.”

When asked to provide invoices and cancelled checks for those projects, the Bean campaign received the following response: “Sorry, the person who was in charge of this retired – I don’t know where her records are.”

FDOE was able to provide this information for Broward and Collier County funds for the 2007-08 year: “Broward – Their funds went to funding after-school programs, alternative placement programs for adjudicated youth, and school safety and security program activities which resulted in funding SROs, district level positions and research. Collier – Their funds went to funding after-school programs and district-level positions for school safety and security program activities.” 2007-08 allocations: http://www.fldoe.org/safeschools/pdf/2007_08_ss_allocation.pdf

The following information describes how Safe Schools funding was used for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 years for all three counties:

2008-09

Highlands – Project SUCCESS  – a substance abuse/use prevention program for students grades 6-12. (There was no mention of programs related to bullying or violence prevention.)

Broward – Project B.L.A.S.T. Building Lasting Attitudes & Strategies for Tomorrow (a substance abuse/use and violence prevention program for students grades K-12); CHAMPS (a violence prevention and school-wide climate program for staff (and ultimately students) grades K-12).

Collier – Navigator (a substance abuse/use and violence prevention program for students in grade 8); Positive Behavior Support (PBS) (a violence prevention and school-wide climate program for staff and students grades K-8); Comprehensive Health (a substance abuse/use and violence prevention program for students grades K-12).

2008-09 allocations: http://www.fldoe.org/safeschools/pdf/2008_09_ss_allocation.pdf

2009-10

Highlands – Project SUCCESS – a substance abuse/use prevention program for students grades 6-12. (There was no mention of programs related to bullying or violence prevention.)

Broward – Project B.L.A.S.T. Building Lasting Attitudes & Strategies for Tomorrow (a substance abuse/use and violence prevention program for students grades K-12), and CHAMPs (a violence prevention and school-wide climate program for staff (and ultimately students) grades K-12).

Collier - Too Good for Drugs (a substance abuse/use and violence prevention program for students grades 6-8). http://www.fldoe.org/safeschools/pdf/2009_10_ss_allocation.pdf

Payments to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office School Resource and Academy Officers from Federal Safe Schools Funds Sent to the Highlands County School Board

The numbers below reflect allocations for school and Academy resource officers only. The Bean campaign was unable to obtain total annual expenditures for the Academy program, despite numerous requests of the Highlands County School Board beginning in November 2009.

YEAR              CUT TO                                                            AMOUNT

6-30-03            County Commissioners                                      $173,404

5-28-04           County Commissioners                                       $175,743

4-22-05           County Commissioners                                       $176,661

4-21-06           County Commissioners                                       $238,533

1-19-07           County Commissioners                                       $357,732

3-21-08           County Commissioners                                       $370,294

10-10-08         Sheriff’s Office*                                                 $383,432

*In July, 2008, an agreement was signed between the School Board and Sheriff’s Office for these monies from 7/1/08-6/30/09. Use of this Safe Schools money as described in one voucher includes “Background checks, conc weapons permits, community maint, fingerprints, meals, school res. officers.” We were later told that the 10-10-08 check was cut to the Sheriff’s Department by mistake, and should have gone to the County Commissioners for distribution, which it eventually did.

US Senate candidate Bobbie Bean is known for his extensive lobbying at the local and state level for safe schools after his son was viciously beaten at the Highlands County Public Schools for nearly 3 hours in 2002. He visited Tallahassee eight times to lobby for the Jeffrey Johnson Stand Up and Be Counted Act, which was enacted by the Florida House and Senate in 2008.  Safe schools, education, law enforcement, and court reform are key concerns in his campaign.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article unaltered for free.

Our introduction to the Florida Bar began in 2004, when our neighbor, Dr. Ronald Owens, attempted to obtain a permit for a lighted airport runway that would run beside our rural property line. It turned into a contentious battle. After I cited several safety issues at a Highlands County Board of Adjustment meeting, which were backed up by the Federal Aviation Administration, his permit was denied.

Two weeks later, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Department arrested me for cutting a fence (and allegedly letting cows out) that suddenly appeared across the deeded access road to my property (see “Our Family Story” on this website). I cut the fence to allow my wife and mother-in-law to pass through the gate with a car full of groceries. We had been using that access road unobstructed for many years.

At the advice of Alister Ibrahim of Gator Title, I hired the firm Keough & DuBose, P.A.. Attorney Keogh convinced me that the charge was a serious federal offense, and I could spend a year in prison. Because we were financially strapped due to extensive medical bills resulting from our son’s serious injuries from a bullying incident at the Highlands County Middle School, we were forced to put a 10- and 5-acre parcel of our land on the market.

Initially, the law firm convinced us to sign a promissory note for the entire property, including the house. But we found out that the note was misleading, and we demanded to have it annulled.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ibrahim, Sheriff Susan Benton’s granddaughter, and the daughter of former code enforcer Gary Laurey all offered low bids on the 10-acre parcel. We finally sold it to a local doctor, Dr. Kevin Roberts, who turned out to be a friend of Ibrahim’s. The 5-acre parcel was put up for auction and sold to a relative of Dr. Ronald Owens, the neighbor who was denied a runway permit.

I never thought someone would take advantage of a family with burgeoning medical bills and an ongoing crisis with their son. But Keough & DuBose convinced me that the fence-cutting offense was so serious that we ended up paying $15,000 to them to keep me out of jail for an offense that we later found out, according to Florida state records, was a mere $125 bail. It was the same bail paid for selling fish and frogs without a license. We managed to keep our house, but after all of the legal bills, we lost 15 prime acres. We also found out from someone who had worked for over 15 years at the Animal Control Department for Highland’s County that no one, other than myself, had ever been arrested for cutting a fence and letting cows out during that time. She had dealt with a whopping 75,000 “cow out” calls.

Several years later, before I realized what had happened, I tried to hire Keough & DuBose again to look into the questionable manner in which the Sheriff’s Department and Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) handled our son’s bullying case. They refused to take the case, citing a conflict of interest.  How could Keough & DuBose handle my bogus arrest by the Sheriff’s Department several years earlier, but not represent us in a probe into the same department’s handling of our son’s bullying case?

In a letter dated Oct. 4, 2007, fax #3197, to Bobbie and Marilyn Bean, Attorney John DuBose stated: “As we discussed with you on Tuesday, we have an ongoing relationship with the State of Florida and represented various state agencies through State risk management program. In that regard, we routinely represent various state attorneys offices, public defenders offices, and other constitutional officers. Therefore, we would have a conflict of interest bringing any action against an officer or employees of the State of Florida, including officers or employees of the Highlands County Sheriffs Office or officers or employees of the State Attorneys Office for the the Tenth Judicial Circuit, and we must decline to represent your interests in any such action.”

If Keough & DuBose couldn’t represent me because of a conflict of interest, then they shouldn’t have represented me in the fence episode. They failed to disclose their relationship with state agencies to me at that time. In fact, they should have declined representation at that time based on their relationship with any state agencies. One can conclude that it was an orchestrated sceme.

When I sent two complaint letters to the Florida Bar regarding the questionable response by Keough & DuBose, they refused to address the clear conflict of interest. It became clear that the deck was stacked against us from the very beginning. A group of high-placed individuals within the community set us up and tried to steal our house and property right out from under us. But I held the Ace of Diamonds, because in the end, I managed to clearly expose the corruption and favoritism within the Florida Bar. If I’m elected to office, I will again.

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