Background Checks

School districts are required by the 2005 Jessica Lunsford Act to run background checks on workers and most visitors. So how did The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind allow felons to work on campus construction jobs during the past two years?

That's the question a Police department employee asked in anonymous letter complaining about the felons to school officials in May 2006, He also sent it to state officials, who asked the school's board of trustees' chairwoman about the felons.

A reporter at the St. Austine Record asked the exact same questions and more.
You can read it at the link.
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TT - the implication is that the school was "saving money over the school's students' safety," as an unattributed "others" put it. The records of the 10 men are daunting, but the newspaper acknowledges that they broke no law going on the campus.

Neither, apparently, did the school. There was a memorandum from the school president in 2005 at about the same time as Jessica's Law was implemented that stated that the school would not allow felons on the campus. But most schools issued memorandums to announce that they were responding to the new law.

The felons who acted on construction projects at the school are not accused of any criminal activity. The school hasn't broken any law in employing them. The school employed a full-time, off-duty Augustine police officer to be there the whole time they were there.

So where is the story? At a guess, it's a newspaper taking advantage of the tide of resentment from the "Broken Trust" series from the Herald-Tribune to expose more wrongdoing on the part of the Florida Department of Education.

And, perhaps, some construction union resentment that the workers might have been non-unionized. It's hard to tell because the reporter doesn't examine that angle. But, then, there is no criminal conduct alleged either, and the reporter quotes a 'former" FSDB Police Department employee without explaining to the reader why he is no longer employed. And who, besides the FSDB Police Department, employed him. No one was injured or hurt, threatened, raped, pickpocketed, sexually propositioned, offered drugs, or assaulted.

At least not by the construction workers. And not by anyone else employed by the school.

The school is boarding school supported by the Florida Department of Education. It was established in 1885. It is Florida's primary public school for hearing-impaired and visually-impaired students pre-school through 12th grade. (Wikipedia)

A headline of "Felons on Campus" is catchy. But the reporter would do more good investigating the biggest threat to students: the school systems that hire and fail to provide oversight of teachers who sexually abuse students The same officials who then, after the fact, express surprise, conduct their own investigations without any training, and dismiss the allegations and allow the teacher to move on to another school. Another victim.