The parents' group Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA) is a nonprofit group dedicated to K–12 education reform. PJI, a California-based law firm with affiliated attorneys across the country, represents FLCA in the case and has filed a public records lawsuit against Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) to determine whether it is exposing students to pornography.
After examining what students are exposed to in classrooms, FLCA provides parents with updates about the extent to which public schools are failing their children, frequently warning parents of various pornographic materials used on campuses.
"FLCA compiles lists of books geared toward K–12 students that FLCA believes are pornographic and attempts to find which public schools use those books," PJI informed in its press release Monday. "Many of the books on FLCA's lists contain detailed drawings of people engaged in sexual acts."
Two years ago, FLCA confirmed with BCPS that 82% of the books with this explicit sexual imagery were accessible to its students.
Smoke and mirrors
The district apparently has not cleaned up its act since 2019, as FLCA put together a new list containing 42 books before calling upon PJI to file public records requests to find out if BCPS has any of these books in its possession – and if so, discover their location. But PJI contends the district is intentionally delaying its response.
"BCPS has subjected FLCA and PJI's Florida staff attorney, Alexander Bumbu, to two months of multilayer bureaucracy without producing all of the requested records," PJI recounted. "BCPS has stonewalled FLCA by misconstruing the requests – despite Bumbu correcting them on multiple occasions and not informing Bumbu about which employee(s) are ultimately responsible for collecting the records requested."
This delay of complying with the records requests lasted five weeks – until an administrator from the district finally admitted that BCPS keeps a central database of its books before estimating that it would take just five hours to access the books through the system.
"The administrator said that he and his staff would begin the search immediately; however, despite Bumbu regularly calling and emailing that administrator over the next three weeks, no records were produced," the nonprofit legal group reported.
"A few hours after PJI filed the lawsuit, BCPS claimed to have the records ready, but still failed to fully comply with the public records requests."
Bumbu argues that under Florida law BCPS is legally bound to monitor materials used in its schools, stressing that Florida citizens have a clear right to review the materials bought with taxpayer funds.
"FLCA is doing what any parent would do if they were concerned about what their child is being exposed to in school," Bumbu insisted. "BCPS is undermining Floridians' rights to access public records, [and] it's imperative that a public example be made of BCPS – to show that public school districts can and should be held accountable for disregarding the right to access public records."
It was also revealed that a very broad public records law exists in Florida.
"All state, county and municipal records are open for personal inspection and copying by any person," the general state policy on public records reads, according to PJI, which noted that government records are accessible to public inspection – except if the records qualify for a specific legal exemption … which the requested ones do not.
PJI president Brad Dacus summarizes the legal battle: "Without question, Broward County Public Schools is breaching parental trust by their continued unwillingness to comply with Florida public records law. In a court of law, PJI's attorney, Alexander Bumbu, will hold them accountable for their actions on behalf of Florida's parents."
