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April 4, 2007 in Community, Deaf, Deaf-Blind, Education, Employment, News

FSDB president challenges report

By RICHARD PRIOR
Wednesday, April 4, 2007

A recent story about felons being allowed on the campus of the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind contained “errors and omissions (that) shaded the actual truth,” according to the school president.

“The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind is unique within the State of Florida, and the procedures in place to control access to campus are second to none,” Elmer Dillingham wrote in a message posted Tuesday on the school’s web site.

A shortened version of Dillingham’s 3‡-page “guest column” appears on today’s editorial page.

The St. Augustine Record reported on March 25 that, on at least four occasions, FSDB had allowed construction workers and roofers with felony records on the campus.

On a fifth occasion, FSDB could not complete a background check on two foreign nationals. The Hispanic men were told to take an oath, in Spanish, that they had not committed any crimes.

Two of the incidents happened in April and August 2005, according to Howard Jones, a former employee of the FSDB Police Department. Continue