Broward Schools may soon end its Promise program, an arrest diversion effort that was once touted as a national model but faced a major backlash following the Parkland tragedy.
Promise allows students to attend an alternative school to avoid being charged with a misdemeanor for a non-violent offense. Under a district proposal, it would be replaced by a program that’s similar but would not involve the school district issuing civil citations. These are non-criminal warnings that law enforcement may refer to when deciding whether to arrest someone for a later crime.
The new program would still use the curriculum and counseling services now provided at Promise. In addition to being offered at the current Promise site of Pine Ridge Education Center in Fort Lauderdale, the new program would have additional locations at Lanier-James Education Center in Hallandale Beach and Cypress Run Education Center in Pompano Beach.
“We would take the best of Promise. What we are losing is giving students civil citations,” Jodi Washington, the district’s director of equity, diversity and school climate, told the School Board at a workshop Tuesday.
[ FROM 2019: Promise program gets tougher on troubling students ]
Students could still get civil citations, but that would be at the discretion of law enforcement. Washington said district policy requires law enforcement to be consulted for all Promise-eligible offenses: alcohol sales, alcohol use, major disruption on campus, misdemeanor possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia, mutual combat fighting, petty theft, trespassing and vandalism.
If approved by the School Board at a June meeting, the change would take effect next school year.
The Promise program used to allow students to avoid any kind of sanction from law enforcement. But critics said this enabled children to commit multiple crimes without law enforcement ever knowing.
But a change in state law required the school district to report Promise-eligible infractions to a state database. This also resulted in students getting the same civil citations for crimes at school that they would get from police if they committed the offense off-campus.
A review found that the school district had issued 76% of all civil citations in 2022. The district issued 1,213 last year, compared to 108 by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, 51 by Hollywood police, 39 by Planation police, 30 by Pembroke Pines and fewer than 30 each for 11 other law enforcement agencies in the county.
[ RELATED: Promise program — slammed after Parkland shooting — should be scrapped, commission says ]
“This is a program that was originally designed to be an intervention and not enter children into the system, but because it’s now a pre-arrest diversion program, the school district is the conduit to the system.”
Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who heads a commission that investigated the Parkland tragedy, said he doesn’t understand the district’s concerns about giving civil citations and entering the data into a website that’s viewed by law enforcement.
“No one has access to that other than law enforcement. It doesn’t create a criminal record. Everything is exempt under public records,” said Gualtieri, chair of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Commission. “Maybe part of the concern is showing how much is going on on campus.”
Washington said all incidents will still be reported, but the district doesn’t want to be handling a function that it sees as best reserved for law enforcement.
[ RELATED: Broward schools are finally getting security right, state safety leader says ]
The Promise program started in 2013, and the district touted the program as a success in its early years, saying it was changing behaviors and keeping kids out of jail. The program was created after data showed Broward led the state in the number of arrests of Black children, many for minor offenses such as throwing spit balls or mouthing off to a teacher.
The program had initial backing from the State Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office and the Chief Judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit. Some county law enforcement agencies supported while others didn’t.
“I believe there is a place for the Promise Program or a substantially similar program, with the appropriate enforcement and follow-up procedures, in the school district,” State Attorney Harold Pryor told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in a statement.
The program received positive national attention in its early years, and many cited it as a model for discipline reform guidance that the Obama administration sent to school districts in 2014.
[ FROM 2018: MSD killer’s record in Promise a mystery ]
But the program became a lightning rod in 2018, following the Stoneman Douglas tragedy.
After conservative critics tried to link killer Nikolas Cruz to the program, then-Superintendent Robert Runcie repeatedly said for two months the gunman had never participated in the program. That turned out to be false, and the district admitted in May 2018 that Cruz had been assigned to the program for vandalism, but never completed it.
Although Gualtieri said in 2018 that Promise had no impact on the shooting, the intense scrutiny did identify a number of problems with the program. A Sun Sentinel investigation in May 2018 found that the program was part of a “culture of tolerance” that allowed troubled students to get repeated second chances. The district also was inflating the success rate of the program, the investigation found.
[ FROM 2018: Schools culture of tolerance allow troubled students to slide ]
“Our students and teachers deserve safe classrooms and schools,” Ryan Petty, the father of a Parkland victim who serves on the safety commission and the state Board of Education, told the Sun Sentinel. “The Promise Program has made Broward Schools less safe by failing to address serious disciplinary issues plaguing schools. It’s long past time to end the facade.”
In 2019, the safety commission recommended the program be disbanded, after the school district refused to enter Promise data into a state law enforcement database, despite a state law requiring that for diversion programs. The district didn’t want students to build a criminal record and had argued that Promise was an alternative-to-suspension program, not a pre-arrest diversion program.
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The state later clarified the language and the district started entering the data in 2021.
A statewide grand jury report, released in 2022, also criticized the program, suggesting the district was using the program to hide student crimes from law enforcement.
Broward Public Defender Gordon Weekes said it’s “deeply disappointing” to hear the district discuss ending the Promise program.
“The Promise program has gotten a lot of negative attention but the premise of the program was to help children be able to get an education,” Weekes said. “Broward and a number of school districts around the country were expelling and arresting students at a very, very alarming rate, and the Promise program was designed to address that.”
He said state lawmakers greatly hindered the program by requiring it be treated the same as the civil citation program, saying Promise was designed to correct minor issues without making students part of the juvenile justice system.
District officials said they’ll continue to work to ensure troubled students get the help they need.
“Our commitment to students is not going to change whether there’s a Promise program or not,” district spokesman John Sullivan said. “We have no interest in seeing an increase in students arrested on our campuses.”