Escambia Boys Base, a facility of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. (Via DJJ)
This is the second of a two-part series.
A new Department of Juvenile Justice education program run through the Florida Virtual School is projected to cost significantly more than budgeted, in part because officials underestimated the number of students requiring special education accommodations.
The situation arose from the state’s reorganization of education programs for juvenile offenders last year. SB 7014 created the “Florida Scholars Academy” to administer mostly online instruction to each of the 38 residential centers housing students for the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
Insufficient staffing and unclear lines of responsibility between educational and custodial staff, advocates say, have led to misuse of state-issued computers by students to surf social media and pornography websites, as detailed in DJJ records.
The academy, operated by Florida Virtual School (FLVS) under the direction of Superintendent Julian Cazañas Jr., delivers instruction virtually 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 to earn “industry-recognized credentials of value.”
According to FLVS, the school expects to spend about $30.4 million this fiscal year, adding nearly $7 million on top of its budget, with much of the increase going toward salaries. FLVS reported it ran about $2 million under its $9.7 million budget during its first fiscal year ending in June.
Dividing the projected program costs of about $30.4 million by the number of students (1,860 as of September), the program could end up spending about $16,350 per student in the current fiscal year, if it secures the funding to match its expected need.
Average total per pupil spending for traditional Florida public school students in 2023 was $10,646, with the state providing about $8,620 per student and the rest coming from federal aid. However, those students do not receive instruction year-round and typically require fewer special educational services.
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No-bid contract
DJJ offered potential vendors a chance to inquire about the program in May 2023 and eight responded. FLVS was not one of them. However, the department never formally solicited bids and ultimately gave the assignment to FLVS.
Florida Virtual previously operated only online, but the partnership charted a new path.
“Florida Virtual School was contacted by the Department of Juvenile Justice due to our proven track record of delivering high-quality virtual instruction and curriculum to students across the state for 27 years,” FLVS said in an email to the Phoenix.
The DJJ awarded FLVS a three-year contract to purchase laptops and hire nearly 200 employees. The contract, for now, is worth about $56 million total, including $9.7 million to ramp up the system before it launched in July and $23.4 million for each of the first two years of instruction.
In September, the joint Legislative Budget Committee, which holds authority to approve deviations from the formal state budget, authorized DJJ to spend $3.13 million from federal grants to “further enhance the Florida Scholars Academy.”
Funding the $7 million still needed as of November will be up to teamwork from the DJJ and Florida Virtual.
“Our current projections are $30.4 million, and we are working closely with the DJJ to align the budget with additional funding streams, which includes federal and state grants, to ensure that we have the resources necessary to provide students with an outstanding education,” FLVS said in an email to the Phoenix.
The department requested federal grant money for its 2025-2026 budget too, as well as an additional $4 million, which includes $400,000 for “internet/network services specific to the education program operated by the FSA.”
The school has now identified additional technology services and how to better support students with special education accommodations, administrators told DJJ after its first quarter of delivering instruction to students.
‘Paradigm shift’
“As we have come up and operationalized and understood what is the correct level of FLVS full-time staff versus potentially what we had set out. Contracted services, we’re going to see a little bit of that paradigm shift as we go through and set those up. We’ve also identified specifically some services that we’re going to need in the IT world, as well as [students with special education accommodations] and how we will actually support those,” FLVS representative Tiffany Kinzer told Scholars Academy trustees during their November meeting.
An FLVS spokesperson told the Phoenix by email that the school realized after starting operations that the number of students requiring education accommodations was bigger than originally forecast, “which requires more resources.”
Since the launch, FLVS said, it has been able to identify that about 60% of the approximately 1,900 students who require education accommodations. Before FLVS took over, the number reported to the school was 20% of students, they said.
According to FLVS, it employed five certified exceptional student education specialists to serve the Florida Scholars Academy statewide as of October.
“We are working closely with the DJJ to align the budget with additional funding streams, which includes federal and state grants, to ensure that we have the resources necessary to provide students with an outstanding education,” FLVS told the Phoenix.
The DJJ issued the following statement Tuesday:
“The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice is proud to offer educational opportunities for thousands of students in our care through the Florida Scholars Academy. We are unwavering in our commitment to improving the future of each child and dedicated to providing the best possible education for these students.
“By partnering with Florida Virtual School, a statewide public school district, we can collaborate with proven leaders in education while ensuring accountability through our robust oversight and monitoring process. As a new statewide school system, we have invested funds to upgrade outdated infrastructure in our facilities, to enable access to fiber-optic internet. It is important to note that funding from last year’s budget is available to help offset these expenses.”
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Laptop damage
One added expense has involved damaged computers. Alyssa Richardson, a behavioral analyst contracted to work in DJJ residential facilities, told the Phoenix that she knows a student who has broken 10 laptops since the July launch of FSA and has witnessed students throwing computers to avoid schoolwork.
“These kids are being given a laptop, it’s being broken, it’s being destroyed, and Florida Virtual is saying, ‘Well, because that’s how we’re educating them, we’re just gonna give them another one,’” Richardson said. “Now, it could take months before they get [replacements]. So, one, now we have a kid sitting doing no education, having access to nothing. And two, I mean, how much does [10] laptops, one kid, in one facility cost? This is taxpayer money.”
When students lost laptop privileges, according to some DJJ incident reports, they received paper and pencil assignments.
Lack of oversight of education would he unsettling in any setting, but especially when academic progress is factored into discipline and sentencing.
“I noticed that as these youth were going up to talk to their [juvenile probation officers] and judges for release dates and transition days, they were getting in trouble for failing grades or refusal for having bad behaviors, horseplay, messing around with each other instead of doing schoolwork,” Richardson said.
Richardson said her time working in Youth Opportunities Investments facilities, a nonprofit organization housing DJJ youth, came to an end after she told a parent that their child was not receiving his individualized education plan. (She continues to work within the system for other contractors, she said.)
When asked how many technology devices the program has purchased to operate FSA, FLVS told the Phoenix in an email that it has “implemented numerous technology devices and security measures to ensure our network remains secure.” The school did not say how many devices have been purchased for or destroyed by students, citing “the confidential nature of cybersecurity.”
According to the current year DJJ budget, FLVS was allocated about $21,000 for equipment items costing less than $5,000 each, which includes the purchase of laptops. The department’s first quarter financial report shows FLVS had spent $54,254 more than the annual allocation for equipment. The school forecasts that in the second quarter it will spend $405,000 in that category.
The department has gone over budget in the first quarter in two other categories: contract staff including consultants, and training.
In an email, FLVS said those over-budget items were a result of expenditures that were meant to be made during the previous fiscal year but delayed until July, during the current fiscal year.
DJJ was allocated $153,800 for the year for “contracted staff/services/consultants,” and in the first quarter spent $257,477 on that category. The school was allocated $75,275 for “trainings/seminars” for the year and, through the first quarter, has spent $78,096.
Leadership
The five-person Floride Scholars Academy Board of Trustees includes Hall and two lobbyists, Chris Moya and Nathan Hoffman; Dan McGrew of TSG Advisors, which helps organizations “navigate increasingly complex governmental waters or seek to improve their own outcomes;” and former State Board of Education Chair Marva Johnson, who now works for Charter Communications.
Cazañas started as superintendent of Florida Scholars Academy after serving as an administrator at a charter school and FLVS. The bulk of his career, though, he spent at Miami-Dade County Public Schools, overlapping with Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr.’s time there as a teacher and administrator.
In 2005, Cazañas was reprimanded for “gross immorality or an act involving moral turpitude” after he “grabbed [a student] by the shirt and struck him in the face without permission and against [student’s] will” at Miami Lakes Middle School in 2002, according to state documents.
Cazañas “neither admits nor denies, but elects not to contest the allegations set forth,” according to a settlement with the department and former Education Commissioner Jim Horne of alleged violations of the state’s professional code of conduct and failure to protect a student from harm.
FLVS told Florida Phoenix that Cazañas has passed a level 2 background check in the last five years, a requirement to work in DJJ residential facilities. The checks include scanning of federal and state records.
Hall was senior chancellor of the Florida Department of Education from 2019 to 2021 before DeSantis appointed him as DJJ secretary.
Hall did not respond to questions about solicitation of bids for the contract and what has driven the program over budget.