{"id":19953,"date":"2025-09-15T06:58:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/2025\/09\/15\/broward-schools-struggle-with-threats\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T06:58:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:58:35","slug":"broward-schools-struggle-with-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/2025\/09\/15\/broward-schools-struggle-with-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward Schools Struggle with Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Introduction to Broward Schools&#8217; Struggle<\/h2>\n<p>Broward schools once again struggled to properly assess students who demonstrate potentially violent behavior, seven years after missing warning signs that were believed to have contributed to the Parkland massacre, an audit has found. The district\u2019s internal audit reviewed how well the district conducted behavioral threat assessments, or reviews of students believed to be at risk of harming themselves or others, during part of the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n<h2>Findings of the Audit<\/h2>\n<p>The report found the district was noncompliant in 52% of the areas measured. While some were largely paperwork issues, some had a troubling impact on families. For example, the audit found that in one case of an imminent threat that was reported to law enforcement, there was no evidence that parents were notified as required. Kim Punzi-Elabiar, director of the behavioral threat management department, identified this as a \u201csignificant concern\u201d in a management response to the audit. \u201cTimely and transparent communication with parents and guardians is essential to maintaining trust and ensuring the safety of our school communities,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<h2>Response to the Audit<\/h2>\n<p>She wrote a memo was sent to all school administrators outlining \u201cthe expectations for timely emergency notifications in accordance with [state law], which mandates prompt communication to parents regarding threats to school safety.\u201d The audit, which the School Board plans to discuss at Tuesday\u2019s School Board meeting, covered the first two quarters of the 2024-25 school year. The district has been conducting similar audits semiannually since 2019, but officials said there were more findings than normal this year, which they largely attribute to the temporary use of new software.<\/p>\n<h2>District&#8217;s Priority on Safety<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cOur top priority as a District is the safety of our students and staff, and we continue to be a leader in all areas of school safety,\u201d district spokesman John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He said all Broward schools now have access to a state portal, which will replace the software used during the audit period. \u201cRegarding the other findings, the District is actively addressing them and continues to make improvements in the areas identified,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h2>Changes in Behavioral-Threat Assessments<\/h2>\n<p>The school district made changes in 2019 to the way it conducts behavioral-threat assessments in response to a scathing report by a commission investigating the 2018 tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. The 2019 review found that school administrators botched a 2016 threat assessment conducted on the former student who killed 17 people on Valentine\u2019s Day 2018. At the time, reports were not done quickly and completely, police and mental health officials were not always involved and school staff often failed to follow up on the students\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n<h2>Specific Findings of the Audit<\/h2>\n<p>Among the findings of the latest audit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An initial form addressing the potential threat is supposed to be completed within one school day, but it wasn\u2019t in 22% of the cases. The delays ranged from one to three days.<\/li>\n<li>For 32% of the reports reviewed, schools did not document that the staff member who had personal knowledge of the threat, even though they\u2019re required to be.<\/li>\n<li>In 86% of the reports reviewed, a copy of the final plan to assist the student was either not provided to parents or not documented.<\/li>\n<li>In 64% of student support plans, the district provided no documentation to show all needed actions were taken. In most of these cases, the required logs and referrals were not uploaded into the electronic system as required by the Behavioral Threat Assessment department. In other cases, they were incomplete.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Reaction to the Findings<\/h2>\n<p>District Audit Manager Ali Arcese told the district\u2019s Audit Committee last month that she had reviewed the results with Michael Gregory, the new district police chief, and he found them alarming. \u201cHe just didn\u2019t understand how with \u2026 the (computer) system that we have, how some of these things have not become electronically documented in the system,\u201d she said. District officials said the poor compliance was the result of the switch from a software program called EdPlan to one called Focus during the 2024-25 school year. Focus remains in use for everything from maintaining individualized education plans for special-needs students to tracking daily school attendance.<\/p>\n<h2>Challenges with New Software<\/h2>\n<p>But Focus proved problematic for behavioral threat assessments, officials said at the August Audit Committee meeting. \u201cEdPlan was easily visible, easy to maneuver,\u201d Kim Punzi-Elabiar, director of behavioral threat management for the district, told the Audit Committee in August. But in Focus, if the educator completing the report didn\u2019t check the proper box, the principal wasn\u2019t alerted. \u201cAnd if the principal didn\u2019t check the box, I didn\u2019t get an alert that it was ready for me to review. We did the best we could with what we had available,\u201d Punzi-Elabiar said.<\/p>\n<h2>Plans for Improvement<\/h2>\n<p>She said the functionality of the new state portal, which the district started using in August, is similar to the EdPlan software. However, Marty Fertig, who chairs the district\u2019s Audit Committee, said at the August meeting that compliance still should have been higher. \u201cI\u2019m just going to say after reading this, after going through these percentages, regardless of the technology we\u2019re using or anything else, if 45% of schools are able to comply with documentation, then I feel that that should be higher,\u201d she said. \u201cIn some of these cases, it\u2019s alarming to see how many people are not documenting.\u201d In an audit response, Punzi-Elabiar identified other ways the district plans to improve the process. \u201cThese findings highlight critical areas where procedural fidelity and documentation must be strengthened to ensure alignment with district policy and state requirements,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe Behavioral Threat Management (BTM) Department is committed to providing targeted training and reinforcing expectations with school-based teams to improve compliance and enhance the overall effectiveness of the threat management process.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>The audit&#8217;s findings highlight the ongoing challenges faced by Broward schools in conducting effective behavioral threat assessments. Despite changes made in 2019, the district still struggles with compliance, particularly in areas such as timely notification of parents and proper documentation. The introduction of new software has exacerbating these issues, but the district is taking steps to address them, including providing targeted training and reinforcing expectations with school-based teams.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQs<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Q: What was the main finding of the audit regarding Broward schools&#8217; behavioral threat assessments?<br \/>\nA: The district was noncompliant in 52% of the areas measured, with issues ranging from paperwork problems to failures in notifying parents of imminent threats.<\/li>\n<li>Q: What changes did the school district make in 2019 regarding behavioral-threat assessments?<br \/>\nA: The district changed its procedures in response to a scathing report following the 2018 tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, aiming to improve the speed, completeness, and follow-up of threat assessments.<\/li>\n<li>Q: What software issues contributed to the poor compliance found in the audit?<br \/>\nA: The switch from EdPlan to Focus software during the 2024-25 school year caused problems, as Focus was less intuitive for behavioral threat assessments, leading to missed alerts and incomplete documentation.<\/li>\n<li>Q: How does the district plan to improve its behavioral threat assessment process?<br \/>\nA: The district plans to provide targeted training, reinforce expectations with school-based teams, and utilize a new state portal that is similar in functionality to the previous EdPlan software, aiming to strengthen procedural fidelity and documentation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction to Broward Schools&#8217; Struggle Broward schools once again struggled to properly assess students who demonstrate potentially violent behavior, seven years after missing warning signs that were believed to have contributed to the Parkland massacre, an audit has found. The district\u2019s internal audit reviewed how well the district conducted behavioral threat assessments, or reviews of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/migration\/2019\/04\/17\/6NZQMKN4CZHSVEE6OVXOH3T6UE.jpg?w=1024&h=670&w=1024&resize=1024,576&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19956,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953\/revisions\/19956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}