Parents and ESE staff raise problems with Broward's new Focus student system as board hears rollout update

Broward County Public Schools officials told the school board on Aug. 27 that the district-wide switch to the Focus student information system has delivered major new capabilities but also serious operational problems for schools, parents and staff. "While nothing is perfect, things have gone very well and exceeded our expectations," said Emily Copa, the district's director of data intelligence. Copa described a large training effort that included in-person "hot labs," virtual office hours and a parent support page on browardschools.com/focus.

Still, multiple board members and public commenters detailed concrete breakdowns. Kim Ponzia Libieri, director of threat assessment, said her team has completed 145 threat assessments in Focus so far and is maintaining compliance only by working around some functional gaps. "We are identifying concerns with the system and trying to work around to ensure that we're in compliance with state rule," she said. Ponzia Libieri and other ESE staff explained that certain IEP and SSMP (support plan) steps require users to exit and re-enter modules, creating extra work for principals and ESE specialists.

Parents and advocates at the meeting said the technical problems are causing real harm: delays accessing transportation for homeless students, difficulties obtaining interim IEP reviews and added hours of manual work by ESE staff. Jacqui Luscombe of Coral Springs, chair of the district's ESE Advisory, told the board "there's a colossal amount of issues that are not just teething problems" and warned that the district must not deprive families of federally protected rights by preserving only archived IEP documents.

District officials said they are tracking failures and expanding support. Copa said a dedicated parent support email (focuscommunications@browardschools.com) and a parent portal went live the day before the meeting; staff reported 83,215 parent portal accounts created and nearly 60,000 completed back-to-school forms. Superintendent Dr. V. "Wanda" Paul told the board the vendor has been on-site to help and that the district will continue training and targeted technical fixes. "We have to work together to make sure we're helping parents and schools," she said.

Board members pushed for outcome-focused metrics rather than activity counts — asking for measures such as percentage of schools able to file a threat assessment in Focus, parent portal linkage rates, and time-to-resolution for ESE help tickets. Several asked the district's attorneys to verify contract obligations for vendor-provided training and whether the vendor must cover additional support costs.

What happens next: staff said they will continue hot labs and training, publish a clear list of known deficiencies and provide regular status updates to the board. They also said they are planning for the state-mandated migration to a statewide behavioral threat management system in mid-2025 and will work to ensure data exchange between Focus and the state portal.

Provenance: This article summarizes the Focus rollout presentation and subsequent public and board questioning that occurred during the Aug. 27 Broward County School Board workshop (presentation by Matthew Bradford and Emily Copa; Q&A and public comments featuring Kim Ponzia Libieri and ESE advocates).