‘Tighten this’: Brevard schools find no pattern of bad installs; questions remain about the board that fell on Bellamy

Brevard Public Schools has finished inspecting more than 3,000 Promethean interactive boards in its classrooms and “found no pattern of improper installations,” Superintendent Mark Rendell told the School Board on Tuesday, Oct. 27.

The district has not released the final inspection report. It also has not said publicly what, if anything, was wrong with the board at Riviera Elementary School in Palm Bay that fell on 5-year-old Bellamy Dawkins-Morris on Oct. 7. He died later that day.

“While the investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to speculate about causes or conclusions,” Rendell said at the meeting, FLORIDA TODAY reported. The district plans an independent investigation using outside counsel, News 6 reported, and an outside group will do an additional inspection, according to FLORIDA TODAY.

A warning two days earlier

On Oct. 5, two days before the board fell, Bellamy’s teacher emailed the school’s technology support employee asking whether the board could be locked in place, according to an email obtained by The Space Coast Rocket. “The kids keep slamming it up and down and I’m getting kinda worried,” she wrote.

The reply said he could “try tightening the tension springs again” but did not think that would “hold up with kids hanging on it.” He wrote that he had already tried to get the board removed, but that because it was in an exceptional student education class, the move needed approval from the district and school administrators and would cost about $6,000, the outlet reported. It is not clear whether anything was done before Oct. 7. The district has not addressed the email publicly.

What the 911 call says

Palm Bay released 911 recordings from that day in mid-October. In one, as reported by WESH, a staff caller says: “I have a student who (unintelligible) a Promethean board off of the door off the wall and land on him.” She later says the child is unresponsive, and that she had asked someone to “tighten this the other day.”

News 6 described the call differently: the caller said they had asked someone to tighten the screen attachment a week before, and that the boy had taken the board off the wall and was kicking the screen after staff told him to stop. The call does not say who was asked or whether anyone did it.

In an Oct. 15 statement, the district said it “has listened to the 911 call” and that its “initial internal inspections after this tragedy did not identify any visibly loose screws,” adding that “an independent third party is conducting their own investigation.”

Bellamy had autism, his family has said. District officials said the board weighed 120 pounds.

What the district promised

The day after Bellamy’s death, the district said new Promethean installations were suspended and laid out three rounds of inspections:

• district education technology technicians would inspect every board;

• the contractor that installed the boards would check each one for proper installation and mounting;

• an outside safety specialist would also inspect each installation.

The district has not publicly released the contractor’s or the outside specialist’s findings, named the specialist, or said whether installations have resumed.

Family weighs lawsuits

Bellamy’s family has hired Maegan Bridwell and Michael Haggard of The Haggard Law Firm. “Our job now that we’ve been retained by the family is to identify anyone who was responsible for not only the design, but the installation and the maintenance of this heavy, heavy equipment installed in our classrooms,” Bridwell said, according to WFTV. She told FOX 35 that anyone responsible will be named in future lawsuits.

Palm Bay police are still investigating. No one has been charged, and no agency has announced a finding of fault.

321 Daily did not seek comment for this story. It plans to request any work orders or maintenance tickets for the Riviera board, along with the district’s final inspection report, and will report what those records show.