JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval County School Board members held a workshop to discuss a scathing grand jury report that accused the district of underreporting crime.
The report, which was unsealed last Friday, referred to 2016 through 2019. According to the report, Duval Schools’ former police chief Michael Edwards is accused of falsely reporting more than 2,000 incidents and directly told officers not to report incidents of battery on a school official, which is a 3rd-degree felony under state law.
“This conduct is not simply irresponsible, it is absolutely criminal,” the report said.
Action News Jax learned during Thursday’s school board meeting that incidents went down as ‘information’ reports instead of ‘offense’ reports. Information reports do not need to be reported to the State.
Board Chair Darryl Willie said under Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene’s leadership, that is no longer practice and officers are not trained to do that.
“Whenever we get a report like that, we want to see what actions we can take or what actions we’ve already taken — and honestly with this report we got, there was a lot of action that’s already taken place,” Willie said in reference to the grand jury report. “We want to make sure we’re following the law and the procedures that are there and at the same time, make sure we are caring for our students. If we create the right environment to do that, we’ll be in a good place.”
Duval County Public Schools requested the Department of Education’s ‘Safe Schools’ office come to conduct an audit of the district’s procedures. The state department came to Duval in May and district leaders are still waiting for a full report. School board members said they would wait for the full report before making recommendations for change.
One recommendation mentioned in the grand jury report was to have the school’s police chief report to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office instead of school administrators.
Willie said around 2012, while Dr. Nikolai Vitti was superintendent, there was a push to fix the ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline and not give students a criminal record.
“There’s been pressure back in 2012 around civil citations versus arrests — we want to make sure the students in our schools don’t end up with a record,” Willie said. “At the end of the day, if a student does misbehave or if something happens — they have to face some of those consequences at the same time. So there’s a balance.”
DCPS was the only district mentioned in the statewide grand jury report, however, there was mention of more to come.
Action News Jax’s Law & Safety Expert Dale Carson, a criminal defense lawyer, said the report just lists allegations. It will be presented to a statewide prosecutor and Edwards could be charged with malfeasance, which is a felony.
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