Governor Ron DeSantis is calling for a Statewide Grand Jury on School Safety.
The Governor filed a petition today with the Florida Supreme Court to impanel a statewide grand jury that would examine and review school safety measures through the sunshine state, as well as the responses of public entities to laws that are designed to protect schools such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.
If the investigation were to go through, then the grand jury would investigate districts across the state of Florida.
Specifically, the grand jury would investigate any crime or wrongdoing with the Florida Statute that relates to whether or not there was refusal or failure to follow the mandates of school-related safety laws, which resulted in unnecessary and avoidable risk to students across Florida;
whether or not public entities committed and continued to commit fraud and deceit by accepting state funds conditioned on implementation of certain safety measures while knowingly failing to act; whether school officials committed and continue to commit fraud and deceit in the state by mismanaging, failing to use, and diverting funds from multi-million-dollar bonds specifically solicited for school safety initiatives and whether or not school officials violated and continue to violate state law by systematically underreporting incidents of criminal activity to the Florida Department of Education.
In a statement, Governor DeSantis shared his thoughts on the petition filed, saying that “As the one-year anniversary of one of the darkest days in Florida history approaches, it’s clear more needs to be done. What’s truly devastating is that the tragedy in Parkland was avoidable.
As Governor, I have a moral obligation to protect the children in our state, which is why I have requested a statewide grand jury to investigate school safety practices and failures occurring around the state and to identify measures to improve the safety of our students.”
