Sources say that DCF recently approached two officials who were employed by Leon High School at the time of the incident and the officials did not initially choose to cooperate.

The incident was originally reported by officials at Chiles High School.

TR has been in contact with officials at the Leon School Board and are waiting for an official response.

Why is DCF involved?

Florida laws require school officials to report incidents involving minors to DCF.

Specifically, Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes states that all employees and agents of the district school board, charter school or private school have an affirmative duty to report all actual or suspected cases of child abuse, abandoment, or neglect.

In this case, TR has been told a credible allegation of abuse was reported to Chiles High School officials involving a male student at Leon High School.

The allegations prompted Chiles High School officials to notify DCF, law enforcement officials, and officials at Leon High School.

Source say that DCF recently contacted Leon High School’s administrators and rather than cooperate with investigators, the administrators have requested the school district hire attorneys to represent them during the process.

TR will continue to investigate and provide updates when more information is available.

Now, as Superintendent, Hanna’s priorities are being implemented.

At the last School Board meeting there were three votes by the Board to move forward with renovation projects at Rickards and Fairview.

First, the Board voted to accept the Superintendent’s recommendation to approve an architectural consulting services contract in the amount of $423,476 for a Fairview Middle School project. The project includes new construction, remodeling and renovations of administration, dining, stage and kitchen facilities. The Fairview project has an estimated construction budget of $20,000,000.

The architect for the project is Barnett Fronczak Barlowe & Shuler Architects.

Second, the Board voted to accept the Superintendent’s recommendation to approve the Hoy + Stark Architects’analysis which calls for the demolition of buildings 5 and 6 at Rickards High School.

The analysis concluded that demolition would save the school system approximately $120,900 per year and corrects conditions found to be in violation of Life Safety codes, FLDOE requirements, and Safe School Design guidelines. Both buildings are over 50 years old.

The analysis will be submitted to the Florida Department of Education for review and approval. The Board has previously received approval to raze five other buildings on the Rickards campus.

And third, the Board voted to accept the Superintendent’s recommendation to approve a contract with Hoy+Stark Architects, P.A. in the amount of $816,903 for the Rickards High School New Construction Project. The project is for a two story classroom wing addition of approximately 20,000 square feet.

The Rickards construction project has an estimated construction budget of $30,000,000.

After the votes, Superintendent Hanna said “it’s going to be magnificent. I am excited about tonight. We made a promise to that community and to those schools and most importantly to those children. And tonight is the first step in delivering on that promise.”

When contacted by TR,  Striplin confirmed the complaint and said that “Ms. Lawson should conduct herself in an ethical and professional manner as outlined in LCSB policies 3210 and 1210, towards all District employees.”

Stiplin added, “This complaint was not filed without careful consideration.”

The complaint was submitted to Superintendent Rocky Hanna.

Policies 3210 and 1210 are broad policies related to the principles of conduct and ethics for district personnel.

For example, the preamble states “It is expected that employees will be of good moral character and demonstrate conduct as an employee that is at all times appropriate and consistent with the high standards that the Board and community expect.”

Ms. Striplin would not comment on the specifics of the complaint.

However, sources have told TR that the complaint involved a personal altercation between the two school officials late last year on a golf course and more recently moved into the professional realm.

Also, sources told TR they could not recall a complaint lodged by a school board member against an administrator in at least the last eight years.

TR will request a copy of the complaint from the School Board on Monday morning and will seek a comment from Superintendent Rocky Hanna and Ms. Lawson.

The report, based on information released earlier this month by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), showed that high school graduation rates in Leon County dropped by 3.7% for 2016-17.

Gillian Gregory, Assistant Superintendent of Academic Services for Leon Schools, explained to TR that the decline in graduation rates was, in part, due to the fact that FDOE no longer allows for students who receive diplomas through alternative methods to be counted as graduates.

The change in the calculation was dictated by a new rule in an education bill passed last spring by the Florida Legislature.

Gregory explained that beginning in 9th grade the academic performance of students are tracked and based on evaluations and/or test results, an intervention can be initiated.

If the intervention determines that the student may not graduate, the student is provided a different path that can lead to a diploma.

This path involves a partnership with an alternative school, such as EdOptions. Alternative schools provide online coursework that can lead to a diploma without passing state exams which are normally required for graduation.

Gregory said this program costs the school about $1300 per student and during 2016-17 approximately 86 students took this path.

Research by TR found that a number of school districts use this approach. For example, Smart Horizons – an online alternative school – has partnerships with about 25 Florida school districts and serve about 1,000 students.

Superintendent Rocky Hanna, who said the program was in place when he was elected, told TR he is not sure if the program will continue.

Gregory said the alternative path provides a diploma to students that would have otherwised not graduated.

State Investigation of Student Transfers

Journalist Andrew Atterbury, with TCPPalm.com, recently reported that in 2016 the Department of Education began looking into districts where students transferred to a nonpublic school or a home-education program in the second half of their senior year.

In March of 2017, state Education Commissioner Pam Stewart expanded the inquiry statewide that the findings will eventually be presented to the Board of Education.

Atterbury also reported that Dennis Kramer, director of the University of Florida Education Policy Research Center, said transferring students right before graduation is a common practice in many states.

Typically, districts do this to give students more support — or to game graduation-rate calculations, Kramer said. More often than not, districts are trying to help students, Kramer wrote.

Kramer said he believes the new rule is an attempt to increase reporting accuracy across Florida.

But the state could be better off creating a new category — a transfer rate to accompany graduation figures — instead of penalizing schools by labeling students as dropouts even though they did graduate, Kramer said.

“Counting them as the same,” he said, “does both the sending and receiving school a disservice.”

Florida’s statewide graduation rates rose to 82.3 percent, an increase of 1.6 percentage points over last year.

Last year Leon Schools were 11.6% above the state-wide graduation rate of 80.7%. Now the Leon graduation rate is 6.3% above the state-wide rate of 82.3%

The Leon graduation rate has increased each year from 77% in 2012-13 to 92.3% in 2015-16.

Despite the decline, the Leon County graduation rate ranks 7th out of the 67 Florida counties. Last year Leon ranked 3rd.

Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart said, “I am thrilled to celebrate our state’s students and educators on this monumental accomplishment. Excelling in high school opens doors to opportunities that provide students long-term benefits, and Florida’s steady increase is promising for our state’s and students’ futures.”

The table below shows the graduation rates for the five major high schools in Leon County over the last two years and the year over year changes.

The information shows that all five of the high schools have a higher graduation rate than the state-wide average. Also, four of the five schools have graduation rates over 90%.

However, all schools reported a decline in graduation rates when compared to the previous year. The two largest declines were reported by Godby (-7.3%) and Leon (-5.7%). Chiles reported the highest graduation rate (97.7%) and the smallest decline (-.2%).

The new numbers showed that the gap between white and minority students in Leon grew by about 1.3 percentage points over the previous year to a difference of 12.8 percent. The graduation rate is now 81.6 percent for black students, compared to 94.1 for white students.