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Health & Fitness

Eyes Wide Shut and too Big to Fail

On Sunday the Tampa Bay Times ran the article “Teacher's emails reveal problems at Rodgers months before student's death”. The Times’ article laments that both the Sheriff’s Office and the School District investigations in to the death of Student Jenny Caballero were very limited and did not even interview Jenny Caballero’s classroom teacher Jodi White who supervised two of the aides who were in the crowded gym where Jennifer was last seen and who had complained about staffing issues.

The Times complains that the Sheriff’s Office and the School District didn’t go this one step further back to the ESE classroom and discover this teacher’s staffing complaints. However, much like the Sheriff’s Office and the District investigations, this Times’ investigation is likewise extremely limited and compartmentalized, only going one step further while ignoring the numerous ESE incidents that gave ample warning that there was a comprehensive District-wide problem that ignored training and outdated procedures.

Two significant examples: on December 15, 2011 a special needs student was left on a bus at Valrico Elementary. And about 6 weeks later on January 26, 2012 was the death of Bella Herrera that went unreported to the board for 9 months which conceivably required untold numbers of staff who knew, to sit in front of the board for 9 months and, likewise, all remain silent.

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Why has the Sheriff’s office never investigated all these incidents together as a pattern of negligence? Why have these failures to act gone uninvestigated? Had appropriate action been taken after the December 15, 2011 incident Isabella Herrera might still be with us. And if appropriate action had, in turn, been taken after the Isabella Herrera tragedy, Jenny Caballero might still be with us. 

Why has this almost complete 10 month failure to act gone uninvestigated by the Sheriff’s department in behalf of the administration? An administration that had a duty to act and a silence and failure to act that arguably led to the drowning death of a second ESE student Jenny Caballero 9 months later, for lack of training and updated procedures that should have taken place during those silent 9 months.

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If the Sheriff’s Office will find a charge of negligence for a child left unattended on a bus on December 15, 2011 why did they not find negligence in a chronic failure to provide training and updated procedures in these 2 subsequent deaths? The answer appears to be because they investigate each incident separately and thus never investigate if a pattern of neglect exists. They do not revisit prior incidents and by focusing only on one incident at a time and compartmentalizing each incident, the Sheriff’s Office fails to consider if there was an overall pattern of culpable negligence or other violations at higher administrative levels. This is the classic “too big to fail” system at work. Higher-ups are insulated; only the low level bus drivers and aides take the fall.    

Eyes wide shut.

 Is the Sheriff’s office there to protect the students or protect the administration? Even some board members believe this failure to report was unethical. In this year’s performance review of the Superintendent, School board member Susan Valdes said “It is unethical for you to not have notified us of the death of one of our students in January 2012”. This is a clear reference to the death of Bella Herrera in January 2012.

Another backstory that was not acknowledged: the Superintendent’s interim 2011-2012 performance review would have been in January 2012, the same timeframe as both the Herrera death and the re-election campaigns of 4 sitting board members, 3 of which had been endorsed by the Times in this same time frame. The Superintendent’s failure to inform for 9 months managed to eclipse her entire 2011-2012 performance review and most of the campaign for re-election for those board members. 

We can’t help thinking that the Tampa Bay Times article should be titled “Student Deaths revealed problems at School District 10 months before the Rodgers Middle School Student Death”. 

We have no confidence that these investigations were handled appropriately. By compartmentalizing and keeping these tragedies separated the Sheriff’s department fails to consider if there was a pattern of culpable negligence or other violations.  The Attorney General and State Attorney should review these cases. You might want to write the State Attorney (ober_m@sao13th.com) and ask why these cases have not been investigated comprehensively as a pattern. 

We believe that they have failed to devote the necessary degree of care to their investigation. Interested persons and the public-at-large are entitled to no less than a thorough, deliberate and just review of the information provided, along with any other evidence that may or may not be developed in the course of the review process.


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