HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Last week, we reported that the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice shut down Lake Academy in Tampa after a girl died there late last month.
A D.J.J. spokesperson sent an email statement to the I-Team Tuesday indicating the department had ended its contract with the company that operated the facility, even before the investigations into the girl’s death were completed.
Now, the I-Team is hearing from two former teachers who were attacked while working at Lake Academy.
“I thought about it every morning since it happened”
“You never enter campus and look at razor wire and are not reminded of where we are and the magnitude of your job in a day,” said Heather Cleveland.
Cleveland is a Hillsborough County Public Schools employee who was assigned to work at Lake Academy as a math teacher last December.
She said she was promised safety and protection when she agreed to take the job.
Cleveland was attacked by a student three months into the job.
“I think I thought about it every morning since it happened,” Cleveland said.
Lake Academy is a 40-bed residential program where the state sends girls between the ages of 12 and 18 who have been convicted of crimes and who are identified as needing intensive mental health treatment.
Cleveland said TrueCore Behavioral Solutions, LLC, the private contractor that operated Lake Academy for the state before the contract was canceled, failed to maintain order.
“Definitely how the classroom was allowed to be run did not foster a learning environment,” Cleveland said.
She said through her role as a teacher, she was not supposed to maintain order or discipline students.
“It was just a complete downhill spiral”
“As a teacher, we are very specific. We are there for instructional delivery. We are not there for any type of discipline,” Cleveland said. “The staff is in charge because they know the girls, and they also have training that is specific to the nature of a residential facility.”
“It was just a complete downhill spiral the entire time,” said a former substitute teacher who worked at Lake Academy.
She is concealing her identity because she fears retribution from her employer, Kelly Temporary Services, which assigned her to serve as a full-time substitute at Lake Academy for nearly a year.
She said she observed staff members frequently on their phones, getting their hair done by students and worse.
“There was a staff member that would have a student massage her under her shirt. It was really gross,” she said.
The teacher also described troubling behavior by students.
“A student had peed in my trash can and in my desk,” she said. “And students would just cut themselves out in the open in class.”
“While you've got these girls who are breaking chairs and throwing furniture, and there's fights happening and one thing or another, you have a whole population of girls who are sitting in a classroom traumatized,” Cleveland said.
$31.5 million state Contract canceled
Both teachers said they rarely saw administrators and often observed the facility was short-staffed.
TrueCore Behavioral Solutions, LLC had a five-year $31.5 million contract granted in 2022.
Those total costs break down to approximately $157,500 per bed per year paid by Florida taxpayers.
Hillsborough County taxpayers are also paying for law enforcement to respond to Lake Academy an average of more than five times a month.
Records show there were 195 calls to 9-1-1 from the facility in three years.
58 were categorized as assault or battery, and 63 incidents were redacted, indicating they involved either sexual offenses or child abuse.
Both teachers we interviewed quit teaching at Lake Academy after girls attacked them.
“I was walking down the hallway. I had my back to her. Never saw it coming. She jumped on me from behind,” Cleveland said.
Cleveland suffered a concussion.
Her attacker was arrested and convicted.
“I had an incident where a student broke through my office and then tried to stab me with my keys,” the substitute teacher said.
But the incident that convinced both women to speak out was the death of a 17-year-old on May 29.
She was a student both women previously taught.
“I was heartbroken,” Cleveland said.
A Department of Juvenile Justice spokesperson said in an email that the girls at Lake Academy have been moved to other facilities in surrounding counties while the DJJ inspector general and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office investigate.
We called and emailed True Core Solutions, LLC about the teacher’s allegations, the law enforcement calls, and the girl’s death but did not get a response by our deadline.
If you have a story you’d like the I-Team to investigate, email us at adam@abcactionnews.com.
Florida man's journey to citizenship stalled by deportation
Yanara Perez-Sanchez spoke with ABC Action News about her family's struggles since her husband Felix was ordered to a 5 year mandatory stay in Honduras because of a missed immigration appointment in 2004.
