Report: Florida schools fail to report many crimes to state

(WOWT)
Published: Dec. 9, 2018 at 9:29 AM EST
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By: Associated Press

December 9, 2018

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Many serious crimes that take place on Florida school campuses are never reported to the state as required by law.

An investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel shows, on average, one in five schools in Florida fail to report a crime each year. State officials largely take the schools at their word.

The investigation says some crimes such as a teacher sexually abusing a student aren't reported because they weren't committed by a student.

The Sun Sentinel examined 27,000 crime reports that Florida schools submitted to the Department of Education over the past 10 years. The probe followed the massacre of 17 people by a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last February.

School officials there had failed to report several incidents over the previous three years.