Palm Beach County school district settles lawsuit in charter cop training debacle for $75K
A security company fired by the Palm Beach County school district in 2019 for failing to properly train dozens of would-be charter school cops will nonetheless collect $75,000 of the outstanding bill under a settlement approved Wednesday.
The payment to Invictus Security in Boynton Beach ends a court battle launched as Florida schools scrambled to meet new campus security laws in the wake of the 2018 Parkland shooting.
The district had aimed to create a pool of affordable school security guards for its charter schools by paying Invictus to train them at $3,000 per person.
More: Stoneman Douglas commission takes aim at PBC school security
More: Firm that trained security guards for charter schools blames district for failure
More: Without district's help, charter schools scrambled to get cops
But before those guards could step foot on a campus, their training came under fire.
District owed Invictus $97,000 when contract ended
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office reviewed Invictus' program and found it lacking. The lead instructor wasn't properly certified, its record keeping was shoddy and students who failed the firearms qualifications were marked as passing, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw reported.
The district owed Invictus more than $97,000 when it pulled the plug on the contract.
The company's president, Patrick Miller, laid the blame on district leaders, saying at a public meeting at the time that they signed off on a contract not understanding what state law demanded or permitted.
“The faults of the school board should not fall on Invictus,” said Miller, who said his company has been unfairly maligned and “vilified in the public eye.”
Then the company sued. The district filed counterclaims over alleged shortcomings in Invictus' work. All claims are dropped as part of the settlement approved by the school board Wednesday.
The driver behind the training was the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School public safety law, requirements of which were to kick in for the 2019-2020 school year.
Huge savings: $1 for 3 months
Subscribe today to support local journalism and enjoy unlimited digital access including videos, apps, sports news, and more. Special introductory offer for new subscribers only.
The law demanded all schools, including charters, have full-time armed security daily. But in the months after the law passed it wasn't immediately clear who was in charge of making those hires or who had to pay for them — the district or the charters?
Districts across the state watched as a tug of war played out in the courts with Palm Beach County schools a named defendant in a suit filed by the Renaissance charter chain.
More school news: School board settles on name for newest elementary school with ties to old IBM campus
Masks in schools: Mask mandate for Palm Beach County school staff, visitors ends Monday
Court says districts were responsible to put armed guard on every campus
On their own, charter schools had limited options. One option was to hire off duty officers from the city or county, but at $90 to $100 an hour that was proving cost-prohibitive for most. They could contract private security officers, but many did not have the special training, called Guardian training, prescribed by the new law.
Eventually the courts ruled it was the district's responsibility to ensure armed security on charter campuses.
The Palm Beach County district, among the few with an in-house police department, aimed to meet its charter obligations by providing those schools with a less expensive pool of security guards.
The district would make it affordable by footing the bill for the 144 hours of Guardian training — the same training necessary for schools seeking to arm teachers or staff. It was training typically provided by a sheriff's office.
But in the summer of 2019, Bradshaw wasn't offering Guardian training, so district officials hired Invictus to do it at $3,000 per person.
Want more education news? Sign up for ourExtra Credit weekly newsletter, delivered every Friday!
Weeks before school opened, the district's solution came under statewide scrutiny, with the Majory Stoneman Douglas Commission and the state's education commissioner questioning the legality of private training.
As a compromise, Bradshaw agreed to review the training and certify Invictus' work if it met with state standards. Bradshaw later concluded it fell notably short.
Bradshaw relented to statewide pressures to offer training. After severing the contract with Invictus, the district directed the charter security guards to the sheriff's office. As was practice across Florida, that training was paid for with state Guardian funds. Meanwhile, the school year began and as a stop-gap, the district hired deputies and city police to fill any gaps in charter school security.
District officials reported Thursday all charters operating within the county currently meet the law's security requirements.
@sonjaisger
sisger@pbpost.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County schools settle lawsuit over charter police training
