Good afternoon. Im sarah perry director of partnerships here at the Family Research council and it is my very great privilege to introduce todays lecture and coauthors of the book upon which it is based. Why meadow died some of the people in policies that created the park when shooting and in danger of americas students. As a reminder to those of you in the audience, we will be taking questions during the last 15 to 20 minutes of this lecture. We will let you know when we are opening it up and the lecture will also be archived in our Speaker Series library frc. Org speakers. When completed we encourage you to share it on your social media platforms. Bill bennett wrote that why meadow died is the untold almost unbelievable true story of how the moral corruption brought by politically correct policies and willful blindness made the most avoidable School Shooting in history somehow inevitable. Broward county florida was ground zero for a new approach to School Discipline prompted by radical leftist organizations and enforced by an Obama Department of education colleague letter. These groups peddled a false school to prison pipeline narrative claiming that teachers and principals were massively systematically racist and could not be trusted to enforce rules with consequences. Instead, they argued for healing circles and Restorative Justice. As a consequence, these policies enabled a psychopathic criminal to maintain a clean background check and purchase a firearm used to murder 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on february 14, 2018. The Obama Administration forced these leniency policies into hundreds of schools serving millions of students by way of a letter which threatened the loss of federal funding if schools were found racially disparate in their suspension rates. Maxine is coauthor of the book he senior fellow for education at the new york citybased Manhattan Institute of former Program Manager of the education policy Study Department of the American Enterprise institute and has a ba from yale university. Andrew pollacks unlikely political activist, entrepreneur and businessman with experience in scrap metal and real estate but everything changed when his daughter was murdered by nikolas cruz on february 14 of last year. He now dedicates his life to making schools safe again. He sounded a nonprofit americans were childrens lives and School Safety abget answers and justice. To begin, ladies and gentlemen, andrew pollack. [applause] hey everyone. Id like to thank everyone for coming. Im going to tell you a little bit about my story, which is kind of rough for me to do but i want to do it for you. I was never into politics before this happened. Actually, the first time i voted was in 2016. All i wanted to know was why my daughter meadow was murdered at the school. How i could bring my daughter, i moved from long island, to an uppermiddleclass neighborhood in broward and i thought like every other parent that the school was safe and i didnt really look into really what was going on at the schools. Which is something i live with to this day, not knowing what was going on at the schools. February 14 was valentines day, i was with my wife on a picnic and thats when i got the call from my son. I said i wasnt gonna do the speech ever again but it really kills me. My son told me there was a shooting at the school and i didnt think anything of it i thought it was just maybe like one incident or something happen with the police officer, and accidental misfire but as the day started progressing it started getting worse and the calls kept coming in then they couldnt abwe couldnt find meadow all day long. We went from hospital to, my wife worked at the hospital so we had to look ahead her going from room to room in the hospitals looking for my daughter. We couldnt find her that day. She wasnt in the operating room. We gave up our researcher mustve been about 4 00 p. M. And thats when we regrouped at home and i knew personally when we couldnt reach her, by 6 00 p. M. That my daughter was murdered. I tell everybody, i use the word murdered because thats what she was, a lot of fillet tony she passed, she died, i dont like it sugarcoated. She was murdered at that school. Within the next couple days the media jumped on this event and even the superintendent Robert Runcie was already blaming the nra, blaming guns. The sheriff blaming guns. And i just want to tell you why the sheriff what you are talking about this Restorative Justice program of leniency of not reporting crimes the sheriffs are elected officials and it benefits him to join these type of policies because his crime stats look much better when he runs his commercial for sheriff when he can say he reduced crimes by 30 but in actuality they are just not arresting. There are investigation the Sheriffs Department was at this murderers house 45 times without an arrest. The sheriff makes a point to say he judged his success rate of the kids he kept out of jail. If he wouldve been arrested once a background would have been dinged and when they tipped off the fbi it wouldve came up that he was a problem kid but he had no background no issues. The last time started on i needed to honor my daughter and i wanted to find out everything that went wrong. And believe me, its in this book. It took a book, not an audible that we were first going to get together, a book to show the magnitude of failures. I owe it to my daughter to honor her. [silence] my daughter would want me to hold every single one accountable and thats what im doing. Im wrecking everybody that got there hand in this. And a lot of people dont know about everything we had to do we had to get a governor elected in florida by ron desantis. Ron ran on accountability and he stuck to his promise and i knew he was going to do it and i put my heart and soul into that Guys Campaign and what did ron do the first week in office . He removed that piece of garbage is riopiece of garbage sheriff is rio. He changed the policy and active shooters to his deputies may go into the building. Used to be timid deputies shall enter the building. He changed it on the protocol, may go in. So what happened . Five deputies show up and none of them go into the building. You can hear the shots going off on their body cameras. One is taking his time on his body camera, walks to the back of his car to put a vest on when my daughter is getting murdered you here the shots in the background, kids are getting shot and hes pulling up putting a vest on it doesnt go in the building. Another deputy hides behind a wall doesnt go in. He was nine feet from the door to open the door where the killer was and doesnt go into the building. And let everybody die. There are so many failures that happen. Ron desantis removed the sheriff, that was very important to me. The next thing ron does for accountability is he opens up a grand jury investigation into the school board. Because they are so unethical the people so damaged abim so damaged from living in broward. He to categorize democrats but i dont care anymore. They hurt me more than anyone imaginable. Whenever you hear them talking about the president day in and day out, thats nothing compared to what the democrats in broward did to me and my family. None of them except accountability. The sheriff removed is actually running again in Broward County in 2020. The superintendent, families went to the School Board Meeting and wanted accountability. They asked superintendent about Restorative Justice policies that he brought to broward and what did he say to the families . He called it reprehensible that they would question him and they were called racist. For account awanting accountability for the dead children. This is what the superintendent and the community did. The school board a few of them came around. I ran a School Board Race so i can honestly tell you i did everything humanly possible to try and fix this county of broward and its just not repairable. I ran a School Board Race to get rid of these policies to fix the schools and who fought me at every single early voting . The Broward Teachers Union. I wanted to make it safer for the teachers could. We wanted the School District safer the teacher safer, Broward Teachers Union fought us like it was the civil war the north against the south. An army of people from all over the country to help road run the School Board Race but i couldnt get it done. Whats ironic is, because of these programs the Restorative Justice programs in broward we wanted to change it but they fought us. About a month ago the head of the Teachers Union was at the School Board Meeting complaining to the district that all the teachers are getting beat up, the teachers are getting assaulted and we need to have a change in broward. Help me with the stats max. Could you say the stats . 2000 teachers were interviewed in broward. Can you say the stats max. [inaudible] so, it even gets crazier. I keep categorizing democrats because at the end of it today theyre all a democrat at the end. This is the Teachers Union that fought us. This is the president now of the Teachers Union is that the School Board Meeting complaining that her teachers are getting beat up. Wouldnt you know that week they have a fundraiser for the sheriff at a business and who you think is at the fundraiser supporting the sheriff . Broward Teachers Union president anna fosco. This is just whats going on with these teachers. Really its really the Public School systems at attack right now. California just passed a bill, if anyones following education, gavin newsom signed into law that its illegal to suspend or disruptive student so i dont even know how it can make sense being that even if youre a democrat, it cant make sense to you to put your kids in a school where they can say whatever they want to the teacher they can act any way they want with no consequence. Those of the same policies that led to my daughter getting murdered. And they are still in broward. The School District still has these policies. When my daughter was at the school one of the policies was they were allowed for misdemeanors per school year without ever getting introduced to the judicial system or Law Enforcement. So one of them was, which i dont even know how to parent a and you dont know these things. I didnt know it, im living with it now. I dont know the legal amount for weed. I forget lets say its just called announce if you have more than an ounce it would be a felony. In Broward County if you have 30 bags of weed in the school and your distributing and its less than that felony amount, they dont consider it a crime. It would be just into one of those healing circles where they put it on the teacher. Lets put them in a healing circle this child and tried to put a video on for them and thats going to cure it. This i know is fact because the police, they make the police out to be the enemies these bureaucrats that run the school. I know as a fact because my buddies and Law Enforcement at the schools has a special School Police unit who gave me those records of multiple children with just drugs, 10 bags of wheat, 15 bags of wheat and they wont let them arrest the kids they put them into that healing circle that we spoke about so what bothered me this week is, this book is the truth whats in this book regardless of, the media everyone knows the people that got the attention and parkland were the gun people that wanted to say it was about the scary gun nra. And if it was that i be appear telling you thats what it was but like i said, i was gonna find out everything why and how my daughter got killed and it was all these leniency programs of these kids. They had the first kid before school he was so dangerous i found out they frisked him and he wasnt allowed in with the back. Thats how dangerous he was. He threatened to shoot the school up and wasnt arrested. He threatened students lives never arrested. At one point his Mental Health work wrote a letter to his psychiatrist that they were worried they couldnt find a hatchet. It was a hatchet missing in his garage and they didnt know what they should do with him. Those same mental counselors that were overseeing him eight months later they recommended him to be mainstreamed into the School District with my daughter the same people under his care. From middle school he was infatuated with guns in the book you can read the records we got he said he wanted to kill. They tend to tie his desk down in middle school. At the end of the day when they mainstreamed him back into high school the first class they put him in was jrotc where they taught him how to shoot and gave him an air rifle. Thats whats going on in the schools. What brings me also to say is when this first happened i really wanted to be the last parent that could say they lost a child in the school. That was out of my hands there was more School Shootings, santa fe, charlotte, colorado. Kids were getting killed. I couldnt be the last parent but now i can honestly say i want to be the last parent back and say they didnt know what was going on in the schools. Thats why its important for me to get this message out. I dont want to hear it from a parent i cant believe my kid was bullied. I cant believe my kid got his arm broken i cant believe the iphone was stolen. I cant believe theyre selling drugs in the school i cant believe my kids got to sit there and twiddle his thumbs like a teacher has to deal with another kid 20 minutes. All these things are going on and its no excuse for parents to take it. Politicians can only do so much the president did his administration did so much for me and schools across america but it doesnt matter what the president does. He doesnt get any credit. He had this Federal School commission he rescinded the obama era policies which meant a lot to me. I put 10 months of research into it but what is that mean . In Broward County where my daughter was murdered its like the greatest thing since cut bread this policy of not discipline kids and giving them chance a few chance. Other School Districts are still going to deal with it. Politicians can only do so much and its on the parents now. I tell them, listen, parents, you take your kid to the school bus. You drive them to the school. You put them in the environment. You cant look for politicians to help you. They cant do it at a local level when it comes to School Districts. The only people that could do anything now for the Public School system is parents and grandparents. Or else its really doomed, the Public School system. Its just more segregation i see, people that could afford it will send their kids to private school. Charter schools are booming you cant get into it charter school. So its on the parents and the grandparents and i hope everyone would read my book. Bring it to school, given to a teacher. Give it to a principal and use it as a manual. I dont even say its a book its manual for parents to see what happened in broward if they are interested in knowing the truth. All week long i tried to get on Mainstream Media channels to show them the truth and they werent interested. I guess to their viewers its not important to liberal viewers to put their kids in a safe environment and know whats going on. And i tried, believe me. Cnn, the canceled on me, msnbc and never heard back from. Abc i shot a video, im still waiting for it. I think they wasted my time. Cbs edited telmex abcbs, i did a video, it wasnt important enough Children Safety to be on their live show they put me on a digital one. They try to put me abthey use my clip in question mother father that lost a kid to see if he would go against what i said. Thats what cbs did. So these other channels are despicable and should be embarrassed of themselves of not wanting the truth to get out. Its only parents that watch fox that are going to know the truth because i could have had a tent at fox between dc and new york and couldve slept there, everyone wanted to know the truth, they welcomed me on every single show they did everything to get their listeners to really know the truth and max is a fact guy hes in education policy guy. I didnt know anything about this stuff. I felt the need to educate parents and get the word out. Thank you for coming. I will answer some questions and max could speak. Thank you. [applause] thank you all for coming. As andy said its been somewhat mixed things seen the reception to the book thus far. It was somewhat that phenomenon that led me to going down to parkland meeting him getting involved and joining him on his mission to try to figure out why his daughter was murdered. And make something good come out of it. In the very beginning a day or two days later two groups of students came forward, one group immediately pointed its figure out the nra and republicans uncalled for background checks, another group said, we all knew he was going to do this, he threatened to kill us, he threatened to rape us, he threatened to shoot up the school, we knew it was him before it was done and this is verifiable, they set snap chats back and forward while it was happening, is it this kid . Those kids didnt get very much attention. They were featured for a couple days and went away. I from approaching dcs senior fellow Manhattan Institute look at this and i thought, all these kids are saying he committed these felonies in school and he wasnt arrested and Broward County became nationally famous for its policy to decrease arrests. In fact, became the model for the nation to fix the school to prison pipeline by lowering suspensions and expulsions and arrests. So maybe these policies had something to do with how to reconcile these apparent facts. I wrote a little article posing the question and very immediately became polarized. Some conservative media took it as an answer. It wasnt a gun it was these policies at that point it was more of a question then an answer. Liberal media Mainstream Media decided it was a conservative thing. It didnt need to be investigated, it kind of should be attacked. Im not overstating this because the superintendent after this news cycle started coming up from conservative media responded by saying that this is fake news because the shooter was never referred to the promised Diversionary Program nor did commit a promise eligible offense while in high school. So anybody who can read or understand the meaning of english knows that those last three words were there for a reason mainstream reporting, dropped the last three words categorical denial and quite content to move on having highlighted some kids who were yelling at republicans and bashing the nra. A couple months after i wanted to answer the question because i didnt particularly like being called an nra shell. I want to be a serious researcher and figure out the truth. It came down to parkland, i had no intention meeting andy. I just wanted to talk to teachers and students. He found out i was in town and wanted to talk to me. Because anybody who he ever heard was trying to find something come he got in contact with. We wouldnt have met on my own accord its only because you tested me because you heard i was in town. And to explain to andy what i was doing, why i was doing it and he text me a few days later, i gave them questions to take the state commission where he found out that state commission that has the subpoena power still has not received the shooters disciplinary records and he says, max, thank you so much it can be a great asset helping me find justice for my daughters murder. I came down to write an article, i didnt really find what i wanted to write the first time when andy said that i couldnt not come back. This time i come back and not coming back being a random person im coming back being the guy working with meadows dad. A lot more people are willing to talk to me and i start finding out so much that its mindboggling, staggering i realize this has to be a book, it can be an article. Its as though everything going wrong in American Education all colluded to let this happen. I ended up taking leave of absence at the Manhattan Institute because i couldnt not write this book and it needed to be fulltime endeavor. Unfortunately explaining the significance of the book requires explaining the shooters life. You saw this no notoriety thing. Dont say his name dont talk about him, its a doubleedged sword. It also shields attention away from what went wrong and why. Andy and i had to fight for every single biographical detail about his daughters murder in order to figure out why his story the was the way it was in order to show the story to make something good come out of it. From a policies perspective theres these two joint forces that were happening simultaneous and came together. One is this pressure to educate students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment to be inclusive. Which makes sense with the physical impairment, is dyslexic. Its quite another thing when the disability is if he is emotionally and behaviorally disturbed. Which is to say he is a crazy kid. You look at this kids records, he was kicked out of private prek, he had to be in a harness when he was in prek and Elementary School. He could never last for more than a few months and Elementary School in a normal classroom. They try to put him into Traditional Middle School because middle and high school you only have two choices in the public system. A Normal School super max facility they tried them in the Normal School his behavior become so bad halfway to seventh grade year that he is suspended every other day. He is fixated on guns, detailed records his teacher takes where he talks about guns every day hes in the class and hes only in the class every other day because hes talking about guns hes pulling the fire alarm, throwing his desk, jumping out from behind kids. Everybody was terrified of him at the school. He required security escort to walk from one class to another. He eventually required his mother to accompany the security escort to walk from one class to the other. Teachers tried to bar their door against him. I spoke to one staff member at west blaze, when they heard of the shooting and heard it was him they didnt believe it. Not because they didnt think he could do that but because they couldnt understand how he was ever sent to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. West clave is a middle school, it took them a year to send him to the Specialized School. A full year to do something that every single adult and kid in the school knew needed to be done because in order to respect the rights of a student with disabilities, you have to go through this profoundly a that requires all prudent human judgment. He makes everybody suffer. They sent him to a Specialized School where as andy said his behavior was so troublesome the therapist and psychologist said the letter to his private psychiatrist at the end of the next school year. The next year, october to may hes doing better. As you would hope a kid like him would do better when hes in a 2 a1 student to adult class with superintendents supports around him. He was exactly where he needed to be and making progress. Because he was making progress they decided, lets send him to traditional school. He was always talking about the military. Maybe he wants to join the military lets put them in jrotc. They decided mainstream his Stoneman Douglas for two classes, one semester. The staff there, we know this a aa little bit as he said but part of his under deposition, did it read his records. They didnt really know who was coming into their school. One individual tried to object records, jump up and down saying this kitchen come here. She was overruled. In High School Kind of record we found in middle school doesnt exist. We hear the same things we heard about him in middle school but there is no documentary evidence of it. Because by this point in time the other pressure the leniency pressure that andy is talking about has fully set and within the Broward County School District. We hear these brought to the Office Every Day we hear he came to school in full, we hear he has the words i hate the and word written on his backpack we hear that he brings knives to school we hear that he carried swastikas into longshoreman tables. Hes only officially disciplined once in his first full semester as a fulltime student and on that day his usual assistant principal is absent. Because if youre an assistant principal you are judged by how few suspensions there are how few incidents there are you have absolute bureaucratic administrative imperative to not record things and also to not arrest kids by the time he got into Traditional High School the system was so sick that there was nothing that could catch that pathogen. The t cell count was so low because of what andy refers properly to exist politically correct answer, the leniency policies combined with the disability policy. That obviously hold them entirely morally responsible but the weirdest thing is you can understand why they did what they did. If one single individual in the Broward County School District made one single responsible decision about him it couldve been avoided. You cant call what happened a failure exactly because every irresponsible decision actually makes rational sense. The reason this matters outside of parkland is as andy and sarah alluded to is because parkland became the model for the nation. Broward became the model for the nation. Incompetent superintendent Robert Runcie came to broward from chicago where he used to do it for arnie duncan who became obama secretary of education. Never been a teacher never been a principal. An it guy with a business degree. Leaves the sixth largest School District in america with a 4 billion budget courtesy ab largely because his boss was a secretary of education. Arnie duncan was still impressed by what was happening in broward he thought, this is great we should do this everywhere. We have suspensions down we have expulsions down. We have arrests down and all across the country there are higher rates of discipline for African American students and students with disabilities. We know as progressive bureaucrats that this is because they are racist and because they are able lists and now we know the solution from Broward County. This should be everywhere. The Obama Administration took the suite of leniency policies and broward and enshrined them in this Dear Colleague letter sent to School Districts across country if you have desperate rates of discipline by race or disability or anything else we are going to assume you are discriminating. Its not if you treat a student differently its if students of different groups get discipline to different rates. Then we will come after you and we are going to try to take away your federal funding and investigate you until you agree tob all these policies abto adopt all these policies. So now according to one National Survey i think its extremely modest estimate. 42 percent of americas schools of this Restorative Justice stuff. I think thats the lower side of it. The reason why this matters is that the tagline of the book which sounds as though its crazy if fear mongering but entirely true the parkland School Shooting was most avoidable mass murder in american history. And the policies that made it inevitable are everywhere. They spread to your kids school. Is it going to lead to your kid getting murdered . Probably not. Does it increase the likelihood of Mass Shootings in and outside of school . Yes. Look at the date and shooter. He had a kill list, rate list, he never got arrested. We have a deep problem in this country with disaffected angry young men who need to be tacked who deserve to be in the socalled school to prison pipeline. Who should fail a background check because they are psychotic felons but if we dont let juveniles get records and background checks are worthless and then this policy to reward school administrators, district administrators to not take action increases the odds of this happening but also destroys the environment for schools in the literature on this is entirely unambiguous everywhere teachers have been told locally they said this does not work. A National Poll came out the other week, 70 of teachers say they got these rates down at suspensions by underreporting. 70 by higher tolerance everywhere looked at student surveys you see a higher percentage of students say i dont feel safe i dont feel respected. In these policies are spreading everywhere because they make the bureaucrats feel good and because its framed in terms of racial justice. Which to go back to a term that andy pioneered politically correct cancer that has infected our schools. Its kind of turned against itself and is very difficult here because parents have limited control over it. It said by outside activist groups to push the agenda, bureaucrats to get rewarded for not doing their jobs and parents dont really know when their kid gets bullied and beat up they dont think to themselves, this is because of a National Policy or because of local policy they just think, some bad stuff is happening with my kid at school. Our hope is that this book awakes parents up. The only thing that can actually change this is taking action at a local level talking to your teacher, your screw School Resource officer. Asking about what is going on. Is the stuff we described that happened in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School happening in your Kids High School and middle school . If it is you have to take action. Your teacher is not to take action she scared of retaliation. No politician is going to help fix your school board has to be on the parents. Like andy said, we failed in broward to do that. I think broward is irredeemable and boot deplorable. Hopefully this book can inform parents to take action in their schools to make their kids safe. Its very much analysis of the common core. I rather hope it is. Which is to say that the Obama Administration spread it everywhere across america without parents knowledge or teacher consent. One day parents start to wake up somebody explains a little bit and theres a grassroots rebellion against it. Its not quite overturned but at least somewhat neutralized and our hope is that when parents read this book they will know what to look for and they will know what they need to do. They will have the manual to keep their kids safe. Thats how we got to this place and as andy said, unfortunately its still only one side of the political spectrum that seems to have any interest in the fax. Parkland was according to the Associated Press the biggest story of 2018 but to them the big story was a couple teenagers yelling at republicans. The big story wasnt why these kids got murdered and what you need to do. Some people recognize the sun sentinel got the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a fraction of what we have this book but i can tell you for a fact that education were supporters producing cells seem to regard the judgment of the Pulitzer Committee far lower esteem or proprietary and far less that which talking points today stick to and were convenience what becomes inconvenience for what you heard. The last thing i will say, and i will get to questions. This is very much like chernobyl. The hbo documentary of what led up to the massive meltdown in the Nuclear Power reactor in russia where is a series of unbelievably incompetent decisions that all have to go together in order for there to be the small town. But each unbelievable decision makes total sense if your soviet apparatchik. And none of it wouldve been exposed if not for a couple people who stood up and made sure of it. In soviet russia because of the action of the scientist to tell the story to get it out there to get the tapes out there they fix their nuclear reactors. They are safer and it remains to be seen whether or not we can do that with American Education. Thank you. [applause] we are going to take questions now for the next 15 minutes or so. I want to start with the first question. May be sheer selfishness on my part but i will say as far as parental activism is concerned for those of you in the audience you have kids who are interested in whether or not policies like these are working in your school, for the first time, i consider myself fairly converse in education policy, i sat down and read the disciplinary handbook cover to cover has a direct result of this book. It really is about educating yourself on what is happening in your kids school before its too late. Its very easy, you both identified this, to point the finger at the gun lobbys. Everyone says the guns of the problems its an easy convenient solution. Are there other organizations, other organizations that are outside the machinery of the Education Department that you think were involved in what happened here . And other was because im on twitter and they call me out all the time. Theres a couple of them. Aclu and they are just horrible group of people. In the southern poverty law group. The law center. I will tweet something and they are all for these policies and not interested in the facts. Like a lot of people. Its pretty sad because we have the fax and the more they push these types of policies the more they are going to ruin Public Education and the more segregation there is going to be in this country because, and its happening. I met with the department of education this week they see the pattern of charter schools. They see the pattern of private schools and homeschool. If parents dont do something now about it, Public Education is just going to keep going down. Like i tell parents, dont do what i did thinking that your kid is going to be safe at the school. Its up to you to put them in the right environment and they have no excuse to do that. I will just add to that a little bit. I think the argument that was made about the nra could have been true if there were any policy relevant point you could point back to the nra. The nra lobby, they try to influence policy around the store. If it were the case that something they pushed had connection we would be here telling you that. But whats not true of the nra is true of the Southern Poverty Law Center. They use litigation they used press releases, they used their allies in the media to basically operate by telling School Districts the world will adopt our policies or else we are going to sue you or label you as racist. Him matter is absolutely not what these policies due to students and matter is absolutely not what the policy due to black students. We know what they do to black students, they hurt them but this is how the Southern Poverty Law Center makes money. This is what they do to the bureaucracy and the ideology of Public Education. The pattern the path of pathology starts there and infects education bureaucrats. Andy alluded to this in his comments but im going to spell it out a little bit more. There was a series of meetings that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Closeddoor meetings the superintendent made sure only one School Board Member was allowed to speak because if two spoke would have to be Public Record and minutes would have to be taken. They are called sunshine laws. There these four meetings Stoneman Douglas parents are not happy with the School District for all sorts of reasons. A couple weeks later the superintendents pulls another hold another Public Meeting at a neighboring high school and has his deputy email out various activist groups and says we just did a series of closeddoor meetings that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School we havent heard rhetoric and desegregation was enforced please come to the School District and support your superintendent. So we reached important Public Education we are kicking it murdered in school and if you ask why or try to hold people accountable you will be called a racist . And nobody will really care. Back to my mind goes back to the Southern Poverty Law Center and politically correct answer they exported and infected the School System with. Hi, im deborah weiss. Im so sorry for your loss thank you for coming today and sharing your story. Im actually a former juvenile prosecutor from new york and i dont know how things work in florida or other places but theyre really not doing the a a favor either because at least in new york the juvenile system unlike the adult system is designed to rehabilitate them and give them therapy and help them get better. I wanted to make that point what would you suggest for parents who would you suggest that they send their kids to private school or Religious School and can i assume those same crazy policies dont apply to private schools . Id like to answer in a couple phases. One is i dont hear School Shootings going on at private schools. They dont deal with these emotionally disturbed kids. They dont have to deal with these policies. I made a mistake i got to live with it. I shouldve set my daughter to a private school. She would be alive. If i read this book 2 years ago before this, my daughter would be a lie. I didnt touch on another person that im kind of hes on my target list too. He is the District Attorney in florida and broward. Hes actually trying to murder case against the murderer his name is mike sachs hes been there for about 30 something years, maybe 40. Hes trying to case but when i started doing my research into these policies his signature is on this Restorative Justice document. So why do the righteous thing and set a meeting up with this District Attorney. I want to know the facts i want to take it in. I set up a meeting with myself, my attorney, and some other parents to give him a chance. A chance of accepting accountability for having a role in my daughter getting murdered. So what he told us was so despicable that, im going to tell you, i have my lawyer with me and he said hes never heard of Public Officials say what he had. For all the years he knew they had this Restorative Justice program he knew that the School District was obstructing justice and he didnt want to be the one to end it because he was scared they would call him a racist. Thats what he told the parents who had kids murdered at that school. In my eyes this guy is part of the problem and broward. And of course the party that he happens to belong to is the democratic party. Another one. Im going to hold him accountable so you will see something in the news, i am for the the Death Penalty but i cant let someone do that to my daughter and not be held accountable or accept responsibility. Thats whats going on in broward too. The da signed onto these too because he is elected official. He was worried they were going to call him a racist but it was okay for the school to obstruct justice. He knew how bad the policies were. He knew what it was doing to these children not pointing them, setting them up for success. Parents, dont get into the political stuff. You got to stay out of it. You are responsible for your kid. These programs are going on. I dont want to hear from any parent. I couldnt fix the school board and my daughter was murdered. Im not the average parent. An average parent that has the kid, you could go look into it and make the right decision for your child. And thats what i would tell every parent and theres options. Do whatever you have to do i dont care what you have to do to afford it or move. Thats your options. sgot the microphone. Thank you very much for being here and for your frankness. If you like no words are appropriate except we do agree with you. It hurts to hear your story. We appreciate what you are doing and spreading the message. The question centers on some of the difficulties it seems you have in the us versus them environment it seems between parents and bureaucrats, Public School officials. Do you have some practical advice on how to get results . I know you are disappointed with what happened in broward and the other places but 90 of all kids go to Public Schools. So do you have some advice for parents or other people that want to try to make changes to School Boards or to other areas of Public Education once they start asking questions it seems like you dont always even get honest answers so how can people be more effective at advocating for these policies . Is this on . When i got into this i didnt know anything about politics. My message was, i want to make the school safer. I want to arm the schools with more security. I wanted security at the school. I wanted teachers safer, student safer. I got labeled republicans conservative. If thats what they will label me, im okay with it. Label me republican conservative. I dont want to debate people when they took out the World Trade Centers there was a debate of guns at the airports. Everyone, lets just fix the airports. I took the common sense approach. I dont want to debate for 200 years with democrats or whoever any bureaucrat over guns. What can we do to make the school safe . Got labeled. I will own up to it im up proud republican conservative. I dont have after dealing with the people i dealt with, and proud to be republican. I really have the time to or patience to deal with those type of people. But parents, i did everything human possibly to fix Broward County and i couldnt get it done. So like im going to answer you, like the average parent i dont know if they will be able to fix their school board or make a difference. They could try. They could read my book and see what happened and talk to the resource officers. Talk to the teacher but most teachers most of them like in broward are spineless. They get no money they dont speak up for themselves. I dont have tons of sympathy for them because when we read the School Board Race we ran better pay get rid of the policies of discipline so you can have a better work atmosphere they were nowhere to be seen these people. I saw four teachers out of 2000 trying to help us. The parents look into it and then you will have options. Because nothing is worth, 90 , then 90 percent got to look into it and make changes. Theyve all got to get together and make a difference. Strength in numbers or move, charter school, home school or roll the dice. If you want to roll the dice every day then they roll the dice. I will just say one more thing, schools are only this way because parents let them be this way. The only people that education bureaucrat School Board Members hear from our organizations like the Southern Law Center like the aclu and its framed so nicely that how could you not . At the School Board Meeting where a group of parents and students came to ask questions about these policies superintendent runcie looks at them and looks at people friends and children were killed inside i find it ironic that folks are coming to lecture us on her discipline peace when just the other day i got a letter from the aclu and they say im not going hard enough at this stuff. Basically. A very close paraphrase of word for word. If those are the only people you hear from than those of the people you listen to and we just have to hope that most School Board Members most superintendents arent as morally and mentally challenged as the ones in broward and that if a group of parents come to the School Board Members and say this is unacceptable, our kids are in danger our teachers are scared this is bad for kids at School Board Members want to help from schools well but are only told that they are told to hopefully take action based on that. And School Board Members are elected. Parents could join together and make a difference. We failed but thats broward. Thats another animal in itself. There are communities where parents could get together and people will make a change within the school board. There are counties in florida where i had friends run it and sheriffs of mind that her friends and he made the changes. The school dont participate in these programs. They are well aware of it. They dont put an ideology ahead of the childs education. And there are districts parents, thats an option too, move if you can. But with counties like this the options are limited. Hi, megan boyd, Senate Reporter with Cronkite News at arizona pbs. First, mr. Pollack, my deepest condolences to you and your family. I was curious in your thoughts, in the Arizona School superintendent said we need more Mental Health counselors and School Security officers, would you think about that . When it comes to security its a multitier, in florida we put in a bill for more Mental Health care. Like max said, with the Mental Health when they group kids emotionally disturbed and label them special needs, i dont think any Mental Health counselor is going to help a kid like that in the school. He should be put in a Different School because he is subjecting all the kids that want to learn to that destructive person. Also, im gonna hit the democrats again. Democrats talk about background checks day in and day out. You can put the tv on without them talking about background checks. There is laws in place. If someone is mentally ill and violent they need to be committed so they get a background check. Theres not too much to it. Thats all it is. You want mentally ill people that are dangerous off the street . At least commit them for the full process so it goes on their backgrounds. And then a background check dont work. Background checks are useless if we dont enforce the laws to protect us as citizens. Im just a father that lost a daughter, not a politician. Its easy with the Mental Health thing. Those kids that are disturbed like that they are in the Public Schools. Roll the dice parents if you want to send them or stand up and make a difference. Agusta cell zona, im so sorry for your loss and i feel especially bad because of what both of you gentlemen were saying today in terms of solutions to avoid this, i brought up in the year year 2000. If you look at my name most of it has been removed from google. You have to have a contact at the nra. Basically, i ran for school board Montgomery County maryland, which is been in the news lately, its usually in the news. Whether it be justice of the Supreme Court or whatever, i ran for school board in the year 2000, less than a year after columbine. I ran on my platform was three issues, the first one usual fraud and abuse even in a very rich system like Montgomery County which also has some of the best defense lawyers in the country. Defending the School System in the second issue was the problem of drugs, prescription drugs overmedicated kids, ritalin, and the School System and games. Regardless of immigration status. The third issue was less than a year from columbine since everybody was talking about guns in that year in that Election Year was School Safety. I had a plan, i had suggestions which i made on all three issues but after what happened after i became the First School Board candidate in u. S. History to be endorsed by the nra that nationalized, im serious, it nationalized the rate it basically ruined my career political career. I kept coming back. I had kids in that school in the Montgomery County School System. I taught them being a good nra member. I thought that things like that but basically do you all have any other suggestions other than what you already mentioned to sort of abin Montgomery County School System what they were doing back then was they were abi think it still the policy to mainstream mentally ill however defined kids. Disciplinary problems and they had a stream of lawyers to cover up for and you wont see it because they were juveniles, serious assaults, sexual assaults, regular beat up assaults. Now of course in the news lately, pedophiles and crazy people in the richest abone of the richest counties. If youre stuck in a politically correct environment, are there any suggestions you can make to parents other than running for school board or working with local Law Enforcement or federal Law Enforcement to identify these i would recommend home school. Thats what i would do. I wouldnt put my kid in an environment like that. You touched on what i learned also about the Mental Health and medication, is my daughters murderer was on fokalin. And its an amphetamine, and novartis made it, and after the murder of my daughter, novartis changed the labeling on fokalin, it reads now increases homicidal ideation. If a kid is im not saying every works for 95 of probably kids on it but the violent ones, the mentally disturbed, emotionally disturbed, punching holes in the walls this mothers teeth out, killing animals. There could be kids at the school on that type of drug with that emotional disturbed on that type of drug, took my daughter to be murdered for me to find that out and you could fact check it if you want. The changed the label. So, thats what is in me Public Schools also. [inaudible] we found that out after its an ongoing process because of my civil suit. So in our depositions of these people that failed my daughter, i just one by one ive been getting them. Its hard to arrange for a deposition with 30 attorneys involved. Takes months. Well have more. We have more records and well expose them all. Every one that is responsible. Thank you. In your aware of the school to prison pipeline and the racial quota disciplinary concepts, underright that is the assumes the teachers are racist in applying the School Systems or schools have been dont operate on a casebycase basis in terms of fairness and an underlying prejudice becauseout get disparate ratios. Doesnt seem the the teachers in Broward County are probably racist, or in many in 97 of the School Districts in america you would fine or the population in general, probably more liberal. Look at the demographics of teachers. Isnt this sort of just a sort of a really terrible assumption . Do we know anything about that . We know from Academic Studies that argument is almost entirely false. When you start to control for basic demographic background variables that would affect behavior, that disparate shrinks dramatically, students from a single parent houstonhold, twice as likely to be suspended. Some groups more likely to come from single parent households than others. We know when a student is sent to the principals office, the program does not treat them differently because academics have been able to get at that question. You cant observe behavior directly but you can find ways to get at it, and we know that theres one study that suggests on you take into account prior student behavior, the entire Racial Disparity ceases to exit. Another study finds the entire disability gaps ceases to exist. Theres one study that finds that there is a slight differential in teacher referrals to the office on the order of if an africanamerican student were to have all black teachers versus all white teachers, 1 to 2 less likely to be sent to the office. So its not zero. But it is not the explanation. Unfortunately, this kind of Political Correctness were seeing it ever more clearly in places like the new york times. Everything is racism. Racism is the explanation for everything, and then we as these progressive ideology media people, bureaucrats, government officials, have to fix racism and it feels great to call somebody always racist and be the person who fixes them. Thats most of where its coming from, and unfortunately its a profoundly strong force in the people who have the levers of power. I dont really think andy and i see it maybe a little differentty. I dont think this is a 5050 issue. Think this is a 973 issue and just so happens the 3 think like this, and have this power. So the hope is that if we show the other 97 whats going on, they can hopefully find some way to counteract this blob. Unfortunately we have to wrap up for the day. This is a conversation that could most certainly keep going. A great thanks to our two guests today, thank you so much, andy pollack, andmax eden, we applaud you on writing a brave book. For those who will be watching this online, we encourage you to go to this archived lecture at frc. Org slash speakers. Share it on whatever platform is available to you so the information in this book can get out to the broadest audience possible, and buy the pick on amazon, youll fine yourselves tremendously enlightened and hopefully be consumers of information in your own childrens school. Its available on amazon, thanks again to andy pollack and max eden today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] heres a look at what is airing continue on boost would not prime time. A report on Oxford Universitys Mutual Administration Society who member among the first to receive full degrees. The life of former california governor and u. S. Senator, lee land stafford, founder of stanford university. A discussion of the metoo movement. Dill bert crater scott adams argues that peoples political and social belief are superseding reality. And the brookings institutions bruce ridele will cover the decision to send soldiers to beirut. Booktv covers book fairs and stilled around the country, heres what is coming up. The 2020 festival season kicks off in january with the Rancho Mirage writer festival in california and then the savannah Book Philadelphia in georgia, then in march the tucson festival of books and that month the virginia philadelphia of the book will take place in charlottesville. Former information but upcoming back fairs fairs and festival ad watch our previous festival coverage, click the book fair tab on our website, book tv door door. Its my flour introduce a dear friend of mine, and a fellow attorney, marlin hill moore lon hill. A longtime friend of the he has been volunteering at the fair for many years as well so without further adieu i introduce you marlon hill who will then go ahead and give the formal introduction of the author today. Thank you. [applause] good afternoon, miami. Good evening. [applause]