New school model enables incarcerated kids to watch porn, public records show

Florida Department of Juvenile Justice HQ in Tallahassee. (Photo by Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix)

This is part one of a two-part series.

Kids in juvenile detention facilities are using state-provided laptops intended for educational use to post on Instagram, screen movies, and view pornography, according to agency disciplinary reports and people who worked in the system.

There’s an overall lack of appropriate supervision for the hundreds of incarcerated youth in 38 residential centers under state oversight and their misbehavior is being underreported, Alyssa Richardson, a behavior analyst who works in facilities housing at the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) youth, told the Phoenix.

“Every kid got put on a computer at taxpayer dollars,” Richardson said.

“The first thing we started noticing … was the use of those computers. We noticed that the kids were watching movies all day, they were on social media, they were talking about social media, they were talking about what they were talking about on social media,” she continued.

Since the department launched a new model in July to educate incarcerated students, Richardson said, she has seen unprecedented access to technology but lack of attention to the kids, including to personalized education plans for students with learning disabilities or other needs.

“Essentially, if there was no teacher, no computer, or the kids chose to watch a movie or pornography or message their friends all day, that’s what they’d do,” Richardson said, talking about classrooms without sufficient staffing. 

When asked about students accessing unauthorized content, program administrators at the Florida Virtual School (FLVS), which oversees the program, said via email, “We take this very seriously and are working closely with our partners to ensure a distraction-free learning environment. We investigate all allegations of misuse and have taken — and will continue to take — additional security measures to ensure our network remains secure, but due to the confidential nature of cybersecurity, we cannot disclose any specifics.”

Last year the state reorganized education programs for juvenile offenders. SB 7014 created the “Florida Scholars Academy,” a program administering online instruction to each of the 38 residential centers housing students for the Department of Juvenile Justice.

The academy, operated by Florida Virtual under the direction of Superintendent Julian Cazañas Jr., delivers instruction remotely and in person in classrooms year-round within the facilities. Students may study toward a high school diploma or its equivalent, a college or university degree, or earn “industry-recognized credentials of value.”

A uniform juvenile corrections education system will promote equity, advocate says

Before the 2023 legislation, residential facilities relied on local school districts to educate incarcerated students. The new program was applauded for bringing uniformity to a system that previously had inconsistent delivery.

Florida Virtual provides accredited K-12 distance learning curricula to public, private, charter, and homeschool families and school districts.

What’s on the computers?

The Phoenix submitted a request to the DJJ for incident reports describing access by incarcerated students to sexually explicit material or social media websites. The request was submitted on Aug. 13. The department complied on Oct. 18, attributing the delay to hurricanes and the need for its legal team to review the documents.

The records captured the first month of the Florida Scholars Academy’s operation, from July 10 through Aug. 13. A request for the incidents reported between Aug. 13 and October remains unfulfilled. 

The documents provided describe students accessing and posting pictures of the inside of the secured facilities to Instagram and watching movies on school-issued laptops. Students were written up for using the laptops to watch pornography and to access “unauthorized” or “explicit” websites.

For example, at Deep Creek Youth Academy in St. Johns County, two 14-year-olds, two 15-year-olds, three 16-year-olds, and three 17-year-olds accessed pornographic websites on their school-issued computers, according to a report. “FLVS IT [information technology] is investigating the incident and how the breach occurred,” the report reads.

A group of students locked administrators out of the online system at the Palm Beach Academy.

“It is assumed one of the youths ended up taking this notebook, ripping the page with the password out of it,” an incident report filed with DJJ reads. “The staff password was then used to access the user account and then the youth changed the password locking out the staff.”

The records don’t reflect the whole picture, said Richardson, who worked in facilities in Kissimmee, Orlando, Ocala, and Okeechobee before and after imposition of the new education model.

“Documentation from the facilities that go to DJJ are completely controlled by the facility,” Richardson said. “If the facility does not want DJJ to see it, DJJ is not going to see it.”

In the two months before the Florida Scholar’s Academy launched, there was one reported incident involving a student in DJJ residential facilities of computer misuse. That student was using a “facility computer.” In the first month of FSA, there were eight incidents explicitly mentioning school computer use, some involving several students.

“Services were very questionable when the [local] districts were in charge, but I think there was some managing, more so,” Richardson said. Educators used computers for instruction then, too, she added.

However, “I did not hear of kids getting on pornography sites when the [local] school district was in charge,” Richardson said.

“Again, they had more limited access to these computers, as well. They weren’t just given to them all day. So that’s, I think, another difference,” she continued.

“Even if Florida Virtual is trying to block [unauthorized websites] or do whatever, these kids still have access all day with these laptops with very little supervision and eyes on actually in the room on the computer.”

Broad age range

Youth in DJJ facilities can be as young as 10 years old and as old as 21. Exposure to porn while under the state’s watch is worrisome, said Heather Beaven, CEO of the Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates, which has a presence in the DJJ system to help prepare students for the working world.

“It’s not like you’re talking about a bunch of 16-year-olds who have already engaged in sex or, you know, have already seen porn or whatever,” Beaven said in an interview with the Phoenix. “You’re talking about somebody’s baby being exposed to this, which is just all kinds of interesting given everything else going on in Florida.”

Indeed, Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Legislature, and local school boards have led efforts through laws and policies to remove books and other content they refer to as “pornographic.” The battle over books has prompted lawsuits, been the focus of political campaigns, and enlivened activists to call into question school librarians’ judgement.

Human supervision

The program was serving about 1,900 students across Florida at the start of October. Residential juvenile detention facilities are operated by nonprofits but subject to state law. Since education was and remains largely separate from the responsibility of the facilities staff themselves, they may not be equipped to oversee classroom operations, as classroom teachers are hired by Florida Virtual.

The 14 months between the bill signing and the first day of classes were not enough to prepare, according to Beaven. She said the department left out important planning, which has led to uncertainty between providers and instructors when it comes to reporting bad behavior and managing classrooms.

In the classrooms, Richardson said, it is unclear who is supposed to enforce discipline, even when there is adequate staff. 

In minimum security facilities, Richardson said, “The floor staff in the room, who are employed by the facilities, from what I’ve seen, it’s a very black and white line — ‘We are floor staff, we don’t do school, so if there’s nobody here doing school we’re going to make sure nobody gets hurt to the best we can but we’re not going to monitor anything else.’”

Staffing

When the program launched, FLVS told the Phoenix, it had hired 186 teachers, instructional leaders, paraprofessionals, school counselors and registrars. The expectation was of a 15:1 student-to-teacher ratio and 30:1 student-to-paraprofessional (supporting the teachers) ratio, despite reporting that about 60% of its students have learning disabilities. 

In October, FLVS reported that it had filled 85% of the positions, mostly teachers and paraprofessionals, or 138 of 163 positions. In August, the school reported having 84% of positions filled.

The school projects it will spend nearly $7 million more than its $23 million budget this year, the difference mostly coming from personnel costs.

FLVS told the Phoenix that in-person instruction happens in all residential facilities. The expectation is that each classroom has an online teacher, in-person teacher, and a classroom assistant, and adjustments are made to ensure proper supervision when vacancies arise.

“At Kissimmee Youth Academy, there’s six units that each house 16 kids, so you have a scale of that. If you walk into one unit with 16 kids, I would say on average you probably see maybe one to two actually trying and doing something,” Richardson said of students working on school assignments.
”Those would most likely, I would say 90% of the time, be your GED kids, not your school-tracked kids.” 

“GED kids” are students pursuing a general educational development certificate, a high school diploma equivalent.

A mother worries

According to Nyitecka Burden, a mother of a 17-year-old who lived in Kissimmee Youth Academy, her son’s education would have been better outside the facility.

She described a lack of supervision in her son’s classroom such that the boy was “emailing me, emailing to other people. They wasn’t doing no schoolwork.”

Burden has focused closely on her son’s education while he is in detention, she said, and for the nine months her son was in the facility he didn’t receive his individualized education plan accommodations until the final weeks.

He received 3.5 high school course credits during his time at the academy, she said, although he expected to receive between nine and 12.

“He’s been angry for a long time, honestly, because he wasn’t learning, he wasn’t getting the things that he needed,” Burden said, adding: “They don’t have the proper staff there, they’re understaffed. … If it was staff in the classroom, these kids would be doing what they need to do.”

Richardson said Burden’s son is “one of many.”

Florida Vitual acknowledged to its board of trustees that it has seen out-of-date and “non-existent” individualized education plans in the facilities.

Computer supervision

When teachers are not available to supervise computer use, monitoring is meant to be done using filters and content screeners, like at most schools. In fact, it’s mandated by the DJJ and FLVS contract that there are “necessary filters and web-screening applications to mitigate risks associated with accessing inappropriate content for websites that may violate student confidentiality or policies associated with online access for youth.”

The school touted its roots when asked to defend its firewalls, saying it “is constantly monitoring our systems,” but, citing cybersecurity concerns, “cannot disclose any specifics.”

‘Educational malpractice’

Beaven said DJJ Secretary Eric Hall’s eagerness to implement the program resulted in “educational malpractice.” 

“Not only do I call [Florida Scholars Academy] a flop, I call it, I mean, to be honest, its educational malpractice is what it is. Because those kids deserve better,” Beaven said.
”Eric [Hall] is the father of those children right now — when you take custody of another person’s child, you become their parent, and Eric would not treat his own children like this.”

Hall did not respond to a question from the Phoenix about the effects on students who have misused technology in the new program, but the department previously provided a statement regarding the program.

“Safeguarding the students in the care of our department is a top priority,” DJJ officials said in the written statement to the Phoenix. “In the vast majority of cases, students in DJJ programs use school-issued computers responsibly, and we have firewalls in place.”

DJJ said it takes “immediate action to investigate and ensure both the student and staff involved are held accountable” when incidents are passed along to its central reporting center.

“We continue to work with our contracted providers and local school districts to enhance protections and confirm they have taken additional security measures to ensure students are unable to access unauthorized internet and social media sites,” the statement concludes. 

Tomorow: Juvenile Justice education program having trouble figuring out finances.