Baker Acting students on rise in Polk County Florida
FROSTPROOF — On Sept. 7, 2018, Chris Medley's 16-year-old autistic son was in a regular classroom during class change at Frostproof High School, sitting at a desk with his head down and wearing noise-blocking earphones because he's sensitive to loud sounds and chaos.
A girl bumped his desk and, being prone to emotional outbursts, he yelled, “STOP IT!”
His 22-year, special education teacher was unaware that the boy's Individualized Education Program allows for him to step out of the classroom to gather his emotions if he's having an outburst. The IEP is a legal document tailored to an individual student's needs, and federal law requires schools to adhere to it at all times.
Instead, the teacher told him to sit in the back of the classroom. Then several boys in the room started bullying him and the teacher argued with him, further escalating the situation. According to Medley, the incident went on for 15 minutes. It was all too much for the autistic student to handle.
And that's when Medley's son said he was going to shoot them.
Under Florida's Baker Act, if someone is deemed a threat to themselves or others, they can be taken into custody for up to three days. In addition, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act prohibits a person from “making, posting, or transmitting a threat to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.” If someone makes a threat, law enforcement can petition the court for a risk protection order “to prevent persons who are at high risk of harming themselves or others from accessing firearms or ammunition.”
The boy also was not allowed to call his mother as the school resource officer questioned him without either parent or an attorney present for two hours. District policy states that whenever an incident happens with a student, parents must be called immediately.
“I'm not defending what he said — but if you read about Autism Spectrum Disorder, they don't even remember what they said,” Medley said. “He gets marched down to the office and the school resource officer starts interrogating him. Under the Marjory Stoneman Douglas law, you have no rights.”
Medley complained that the deputy has no training in dealing with autistic children. Although he could tell that Medley's son was special education, the deputy kept interviewing him.
“Over two hours has gone by and my wife and I have yet to receive a phone call. You don't get a call for over two hours — that is a problem. The principal is supposed to call you immediately,” Medley said. “(My son) finally just told the officer he just wanted to get a belt and hang himself.”
Although the school only suspended Medley's son for one day over the incident, the deputy Baker Acted him.
Records obtained by The Ledger from Polk County Public Schools show that Medley's son was one of 258 students committed under the Baker Act from a school campus last school year — more than double from the 2017-18 school year, when 128 students were taken to a mental health facility. In 2016-17, that number was 133 — down from 183 the year before. By mid-September in the 2019-20 school year, 46 students had been Baker Acted from their school.
Neither the school district nor any law enforcement agency in the county differentiates in their reports whether a student or juvenile is autistic.
PCPS Superintendent Jacqueline Byrd noted that the district serves 105,000 students, striving to give each of them the education and services that best meet their individual needs.
“When it comes to mental health, we use a variety of assessments and interventions,” Byrd said in a written statement. “Ultimately, the school district does not have the authority to issue a Baker Act; that authority lies with law enforcement. We collaborate closely with law enforcement, providing information and insight to assist them in making their determinations. In every case, we advocate for what we feel is the best outcome for the child.”
When asked whether the district has come up with a better way to deal with autistic students rather than Baker Acting them, school district spokesman Jason Geary said the decision to Baker Act a student is not made lightly and is a last resort to protect the student and others.
It is “made after a careful evaluation process and is meant to save lives,” Geary said.
He added that student services personnel, including counselors, psychologists and social workers, conduct assessments of students, taking into account:
• Whether students have previously made threats that involved a moderate or high risk of school violence.
• Whether those students have proper forms of support or need additional resources.
Geary said the aim is “keeping our campuses as safe as possible. ... A student's exceptionality would be one of the considerations when completing the assessment.”
He added that the district had approximately 118 threat assessments last year and, “so far, our reviews have not required any of these previous threat assessments to be referred for additional resources or support.”
Counseling services are available to any student through school counselors and school psychologists. PCPS has approximately 200 school counselors and 38 school psychologists to work with 105,000 students — or one school counselor for every 525 students and one psychologist for every 2,763 students. That's substantially more than the national average of 482-to-1 school counselors and more than double the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association.
Geary said the majority of in-school service is provided by the school counselors.
In addition, the district refers many students and families to community service providers. In 2016-17, approximately 7,000 students were seen by community service providers.
Special education students who have counseling needs identified in their IEPs have access to mental health counseling through a contract with Bay Care.
School Board member and longtime teacher Sarah Fortney says at every board meeting that she wants a psychologist in all 150 schools in the district. But the price tag for that could reach in the tens of millions of dollars.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act requires collaboration among adolescent mental health treatment facilities, state and local support systems, and school districts. In that collaboration, school districts should provide educational programs, while state departments and agencies administering children's mental health funds should provide treatment and residential services when needed.
But the state legislature hasn't provided sufficient funding for increased mental health counselors in schools. According to data with the Florida Department of Education, Polk County received $2.4 million from the state to hire 21 mental health facilitators and pay for supplies, inpatient care and outpatient counseling. Another $126,240 was allocated for charter schools.
“We don't have any money dedicated to paying for mental health counseling for non-ESE students,” Geary said.
According to the 2017 study “Autism Spectrum Disorder and Violence: Threat Assessment Issues,” autism applies to a range of neurodevelopmental disorders that “are not mental illnesses or personality disorders ... but impairments in the development of the brain or central nervous system that typically manifest in early childhood and lead to personal, social, academic, or occupational difficulties.”
The report states that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder account for less than 1% of the population and that “most individuals who fall on the spectrum of ASD are neither violent nor criminal.” Instead, some people, like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, have a mental illness or personality disorder, in addition to being autistic.
According to the report, out of 73 lone shooter cases, there was strong evidence or some indication for autism in 24 cases. The Sandy Hook shooter “seemed to involve psychopathic callousness and sadism,” in addition to his anxiety, severe obsessive compulsive disorder and autism. The report's authors also wondered whether the shooter's early fixated interest in violence became “ominously amplified by psychopathy, with his (severe) obsessive compulsive tendencies further energizing his preparatory actions for violence?”
According to the report, the shooter was a rare breed of someone with autism who is also a psychopath.
The decision to Baker Act a child is not made by the school or district office, but by law enforcement.
According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, since 2016, nearly 2,250 individual juveniles were Baker Acted 3,439 times — with some being institutionalized more than once.
“The policy is to follow the law and if we think — if our investigation suggests — that they are a harm to themselves or others based upon their conduct, then our job is to look out for their best interest and well-being. That's why the Baker Act was created,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
“And I can't speak specific to autistic children. We don't Baker Act based upon a medical condition, we Baker Act based upon conduct that we believe is indicative to hurt themselves or someone else.”
Judd said they train every deputy on how to deal with people who have mental health issues, sending them all to crisis intervention training.
“We are one of the few agencies in the nation that train 100% of our law enforcement officers — both in detention and law enforcement,” Judd said. “We are very cognizant and sensitive to those who have mental health issues or disabilities.”
The sheriff said they don't target anyone but are, instead, responding to a call for help.
“A Baker Act is not a proactive venture — it's a reactive venture because someone has called us because someone has communicated or shown a proclivity to harm himself or others and there is an immediate need to receive intervention,” Judd said. “All of these events are because we are called there because someone is displaying irrational behavior of some description. All we are is an emergency stop gap to protect people from themselves or others.”
Medley's son was also charged with disrupting a school function. Those charges were reduced and he is currently on probation.
Furious with how his son was treated at Frostproof High, Medley filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education after he said his attempts to work with the school failed. His was one of 57 complaints about Polk County Public Schools filed and found to be credible in the past 10 years.
“By this email, I request immediate copies of any and all documents that are possibly on file, on a post-it note, paper airplane, coffee cup, napkin or any other form for my three children,” Medley wrote in an email to Frostproof administration 10 days after the incident.
He then hired Orlando lawyer Kendra Parris. He said he has incurred about $30,000 in expenses fighting this, including lost wages, attorney fees and other costs.
“The actions of the school thus far have thwarted the parents' rights under both state and federal law. More egregiously, these actions are hindering the student's fundamental right to a free and appropriate public education,” Parris wrote in a Sept. 17 email in an attempt to get Medley's son's discipline record. “Please govern yourself accordingly. This is as polite as I get.”
The incident happened Sept. 7, but the district was still trying to schedule an IEP team meeting in late November 2018 so district officials and the Medleys could discuss how to handle their son in the future.
“Get a meeting scheduled ASAP for this case,” Shelly Magruder, district special education senior manager, wrote in a Nov. 27 email, provided by Medley to The Ledger.
“The Medley case has now risen to a new level based on the attached complaint sent to us today, on behalf of the parents from the Office of Civil Rights,” Kimberly Steinke, assistant superintendent for learning support, wrote in a Nov. 28 email to multiple high-level district officials, including PCPS attorney Wes Bridges.
“That meeting can be a part of a possible proposed resolution for some of the OCR complaint, but there is a strict timeline on the complaint that must be adhered to, so this has to be a priority.”
At the end of December, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights issued a 17-point order to Polk County Public Schools, including:
• Allow Medley's son to attend one of two other schools, with transportation provided by the school district.
• Provide a designated quiet room or safe space for breaks for him.
• Conduct a functional behavioral assessment of the student, including identifying triggers, maladaptive behaviors and coping mechanisms and share the study with the student's IEP team.
• Provide a one-on-one paraprofessional aide to accompany the student throughout the day.
• Allow the parents to observe the student's classes, with 24-hour notice to the district.
• Provide mental health counseling to the student.
• Require that two top-level special education district officials, including Steinke, attend all of the student's IEP team meetings for the remainder of his time in the school district.
• Provide de-escalation training for all school and transportation staff who have contact with the student.
• Extend an invitation to all school resource officers assigned to the student's school to attend de-escalation training.
• Provide training to administrators, teachers and staff at Frostproof High with the requirements of federal laws surrounding the education of special education students.
• Notify all parents in the district on how to report bullying, including providing a link to a page on the district's website with the appropriate form.
• Schedule a meeting with special education leadership, the office of safe schools and the Medleys to discuss best practices for working with autistic students in school discipline situations where there may be school resource officer involvement.
• Conduct a districtwide climate survey and include a specific section of questions for families of students with disabilities about bullying incidents.
Lee Daly from the Center for Autism & Related Disabilities at the University of South Florida presented an annual training for all school resource officers and school resource deputies in August prior to the start of school. SROs and deputies also attend a training at the annual Florida Association for School Resource Officers Conference when offered.
The district also had to write a letter of apology to the Medleys.
“Tensions escalated, both at school and in the school's relationship with you, which the district sincerely regrets,” PCPS attorney Wes Bridges wrote in the Jan. 31 letter. But he concluded saying, “nothing in this letter may be construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing, but rather as an unwavering commitment to your son's education in his new school.”
The Medleys sent their son to Roosevelt Academy in Lake Wales, where he is receiving every accommodation listed in his IEP.
Chris Medley said he thinks all of this is about money for the district and not the care of children. Per-pupil funding for students in Polk County was about $7,150 last school year. Special education students bring in more money — the amount depends on their disability. For some, it can be twice the average per-pupil allocation. School Board member Lisa Miller has long complained that principals are given the funding but are not required by law to spend it on the student that brought in the money.
“I would recommend anyone with an IEP problem call the Office of Civil Rights and complain. Huge millions and millions of dollars are pumped into the school district and they're not using that money for ESE services, and you know it and I know it,” Medley said. “But (now) my son is getting services and getting straight As. Imagine that.”
Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802-7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.
A look at the number of juveniles who have been Baker Acted in Polk County over the past four years. Neither the school district nor local law enforcement agencies track how many Baker Acted juveniles are autistic.
Juvenile Baker Acts
• 2016: 812
• 2017: 790
• 2018: 913
• 2019: 670
• Total: 3,439
Number of Individual Juveniles Baker Acted
• 2016: 551
• 2017: 509
• 2018: 557
• 2019: 410
• Total: 2,247
*-Source Polk County Sheriff's Office
Total Students Baker Acted from School
• 2015-16: 183
• 2016-17: 133
• 2017-18: 128
• 2018-19: 258
• 2019-20 (to date): 46
*-Source Polk County Public Schools
What is the Baker Act?
The Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, commonly known as the "Baker Act," allows the involuntary institutionalization and examination of an individual.
The Baker Act allows for involuntary examination (what some call emergency or involuntary commitment), which can be initiated by judges, law enforcement officials, physicians or mental health professionals. There must be evidence that the person: 1) possibly has a mental illness and 2) is in danger of becoming a harm to self, harm to others, or is self neglectful.
Examinations may last up to 72 hours after a person is deemed medically stable.
By The Numbers
