Worcester County Public Schools officials said last Friday that local law enforcement representatives used misleading data to support claims that there is a surge in student crime and they are doing little to address the issues.
Worcester County Superintendent of Schools Lou Taylor addresses the audience at a press conference last Friday.
Charlene Sharpe/Bayside Gazette
Heiser, Crisafulli defend original claims
By Charlene Sharpe, Associate Editor
In a rebuttal to charges by local law enforcement officials that Worcester County Public Schools are experiencing a surge in student crime and doing little about it, representatives of the school system said last Friday that the accusers used misleading data to make their argument.
Superintendent of Schools Lou Taylor and Board of Education President Todd Ferrante also countered that they have been working on several safety improvements recommended by the state’s attorney and sheriff’s office, despite their critics’ assertion to the contrary.
Taylor and Ferrante took turns at the rostrum at their own press conference three days after State’s Attorney Kris Heiser and Sheriff Matt Crisafulli showed charts depicting rising crime rates and videos of fighting in local schools to augment their charge that the schools have been uncooperative in seeking a solution to the alleged problem.
Both Taylor and Ferrante, however, said the numbers cited by Heiser and Crisafulli to show an increase in assaults included the schools’ reports of referrals for discipline, which can be issued for other behavior problems besides actual crimes.
“I was saddened and frankly appalled to see our elected law enforcement leaders choose to manipulate student referral data and attempt to say our schools were hotspots for assaults,” Taylor said. “Student disciplinary referrals are not crimes. To label referrals as assault rate is an affront to our schools, our students and our staff, particularly those staff who lent their expertise to putting this data together not knowing it would be manipulated in such a way.”
Taylor then ticked off items on the list of local law enforcement’s recommended safety improvements that noted the schools had taken no action, when some of the improvements had already been instituted or were about to be.
Worcester County Board of Education President Todd Ferrante speaks during a press conference at the board headquarters on March 1.
Charlene Sharpe/OC Today-Dispatch
He said officials would not stand idly by while the reputations of students and staff were smeared.
“We don’t know what has motivated law enforcement to publicly and aggressively defame our school system but I’m here to tell you we can’t stand for it,” Taylor said.
A statement Heiser released after the school board press conference said, “Despite their best efforts to label the Sheriff and State’s Attorney as liars and data-manipulators, their press conference today confirmed the two main points that law enforcement has been making for months: (1) that crime in schools is rising at an unacceptable rate and (2) that none of law enforcement’s recommendations to improve school safety have been implemented by Worcester County Public Schools. Now that the Board of Education and Superintendent have publicly acknowledged these two facts, we once again call on them to take immediate action on these recommendations to improve safety in our schools.”
According to Heiser, school system officials were told for months that law enforcement would update the public on safety concerns so they shouldn’t have been surprised by last week’s press conference.
Members of the school board and school administrators said they only learned of the Heiser/Crisafulli press conference when they were contacted by the media.