April 14, 2011. The Miami Herald.
Twenty Broward churches, members of a consortium called Bold Justice, put government in the hot seat April 7 for the fourth consecutive year during the group’s annual demand for action against social ills.
“We’ve identified problems and provided solutions. The solutions are simple but can make a major impact,” said the Reverend Robes Charles of St. Clement Catholic Church.
The Wilton Manors church overflowed with nearly 1,700 Christians who waved signs and shouted in unison “For justice” whenever speakers ended a sentence with the word “Bold.”
This year, the group asked Broward School Board to institute a program they say will improve student reading scores. They also asked lawmakers to make it easier for courts to put chronic drug offenders into drug rehab programs instead of prison.
Led by the Reverend Simon Osunlana, of St. John United Methodist Church, and the Reverend Keith Spencer, of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pembroke Pines, the group went prepared with research, testimonials and suggestions garnered by committees that met during the last year at 54 house meetings with input from 550 members.
The education committee was tasked to combat Florida statistics that put only 72 percent of all Florida third graders with passing FCAT grades of 3 or higher. More than half of Broward schools scoring on the bottom half of average, the committee found. Further, the committee identified 23 Broward elementary schools with less than 55 percent of children passing the FCAT with a 3 or higher.
“These schools are in a crisis state and this is unacceptable,” said Sashalee Johnson, of the education committee at Holy Temple Holiness Church in Lauderhill.
Johnson said 59 percent of all first year college students require reading remediation which costs the state $70 million.
“We’re paying to educate our kids twice all because they didn’t learn to read the first time,” Johnson said.
Bold Justice asked School Board members to spend instead $700,000 on a program called Direct Instruction — Reading Mastery and start that program as early as next school year in five of the county’s lowest achieving schools.
Only School Board Chairman Benjamin Williams, board member Nora Rupert and outgoing Superintendent James Notter attended the meeting. When called to the church altar and asked “yes or no” if they would support the idea, find the money to fund it and put a high ranking school official in charge of the move, Williams and Rupert said “Yes.” Notter refused.
“I cannot and will not commit to spending money that we do not have,” Notter said. Notter is in a lame duck situation anyway. On March 29 he announced his resignation effective June 30.
For the drug court issue, Bold Justice provided more of an update than demand because many lawmakers went on board with the solution months ago. None attended the meeting but two sent aides.
The problem? The organization’s Drug Court Action Committee claims that 80 percent of prison inmates nationwide are drug or alcohol abusers. Of them, most non-violent offenders likely landed in trouble with the law because of the hardcore nature of addiction.
Florida drug courts have the ability and $19 million to send repeat drug offenders through drug court programs instead of prison but “too much red tape keeps the program from being effective,” said Rev. Osunlana.
Osunlana estimated that the money is enough for 4,000 offenders to go through drug court programs but as of November 20, 2010, only 650 had been admitted.
Seven Florida House representatives and five senators have formally responded.
State Representative Darryl Rouson, of Pinellas, was the first to respond by filing House Bill 81 that would loosen criteria for drug court programs and expand the eligibility pool of non violent offenders for treatment instead of incarceration.
“Faith based groups all across the state have been engaged in this all along and I’m pleased about that,” Rouson said. Bold Justice was one of five such church consortiums statewide to support the change.
Representative Elaine Schwartz and Representative Perry Thurston, both of Broward, co-sponsored the bill.
The bill was passed by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The companion Senate Bill 400 was passed on April 6. The final step will be approval by Gov. Rick Scott.
Osunlana is prayerful that the bill will become law.
“We want to see a system that rehabilitates people and turns them into productive members of society, rather than a system that traps them in a revolving door of addiction, crime and incarceration,” Osunlana said.
