Administrators Say Saunders Directed Grad-Inflation Miscoding

BRADENTON – Several current and former Manatee County School District administrators have told state investigators that interim superintendent Cynthia Saunders personally directed them to falsely code high school dropouts as homeschool transfers in order to inflate graduation rates for the district.

The Herald-Tribune first reported on the matter after obtaining a copy of the Department of Education’s investigation into Saunders over the practice. The report includes statements from several administrators that contradict Saunders' claim that she was unaware that students who intended to drop out or pursue a GED were being pushed to indicate they were instead withdrawing to be home-schooled, which is counted the same as a student who moves out of the district, rather than as a dropout.

Of 121 high school seniors who withdrew for homeschooling in 2015, the state found that only six actually intended to homeschool. If coded correctly, the district's graduation rate–a metric it was pushing as a sign of progress and success–would have dropped significantly.

Former Manatee district supervisor of student demographics Danny Lundeen, who reported directly to Saunders, said in a sworn statement to investigators that she gave the directive to push the students into home education while keeping them on the books long enough to secure state funding by withdrawing them late in the school year. For example, 73 percent of the home-school withdrawals for 2015 took place on the final day of the school year.

Alicia Carrillo, choice program specialist for the district, called the home education enrollment a "dumping ground" for students unlikely to graduate. Andrea Dawsey, school registrar at the district's alternative school at the time, told investigators that it was Saunders who instructed her to code students who were dropping out as home-school transfers.

The report also found that many parents were not properly notified and did not know their children were being counted in the district's stats as homeschool transfers.

The Manatee School Board had been set to vote on giving Saunders a long-term contract as the permanent superintendent at its December 11 meeting but voted to push the item in light of the state's notification that it had found probable cause in its investigation. The board will discuss the issue at its meeting Tuesday, before taking up Saunders contract at the following meeting on January 22.