Duval Public Schools are changing process for misconduct reporting

First Coast News | By Cheyenne Cole | August 2, 2023

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval County Schools are changing the way the district reports misconduct as students get ready to head back to class.

In April, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz criticized the district’s failure to report almost 50 cases of teacher misconduct since 2020.

Assistant Superintendent Victoria Schultz said they’re moving to an electronic format for reporting teacher misconduct.

The change comes following the arrest of a longtime teacher in March at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. That revealed many earlier complaints about vocal coach Jeffrey Clayton were never reported.

A critical grand jury report found the district failed to report 500 student crimes.

“It’s just more user-friendly,” Schultz said, “so I think it’ll help us with pulling reports and those sorts of things, just an extra layer of monitoring.”

Nina Perez is a parent who said she wants to make sure school employees have what they need to do their jobs.

“The thing that I most honestly think about as a parent is how is it that we make sure that the schools are well-resourced to make sure they can take these reports seriously, right,” Perez said, “and that they have the time and dedication and that ability to do it with intention.”

Schultz said daily reminders from the system should also help.

“If I’m a principal and I start working on a misconduct reporting form, but then I’m distracted because I have 3,000 kids in my school, right? If I don’t finish that misconduct reporting form, it’s going to email me every single day until I either finish it or delete it because it’s been cleared up, it was a misunderstanding,” Schultz said.