Saunders Gets Fine and Probation for Grad-Inflation Scandal
Posted
Staff Report
BRADENTON – Manatee County Schools Superintendent Cynthia Saunders has entered into a "Revised Settlement Agreement" with Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran for overseeing practices that falsely inflated the district's graduation rates. Saunders will be able to keep her education certificate, though she will be placed on a two-year probation period (which will begin if and when she returns to a position that requires one), pay a $2,000 fine, and have a letter of reprimand entered into her file.
The state found that the superintendent had directed employees to deliberately miscode dropouts as transfers resulting in the inflation of the district's graduation rates. A previous effort by Saunders to reach a settlement that avoided fines and probation was critically rejected by the state's Education Practices Commission in 2019.
Saunders will also have to take two 3-credit college-level courses in education ethics and at-risk students within the next two years. The agreement notes that the process employed by Saunders "may have interfered with educational opportunities for students." It did allow her, however, to neither admit nor deny the allegations and merely choose not to contest them.
Click here to read the settlement agreement in full.
editor's note: a correction to this article was made to reflect the fact that while the revised settlement agreement calls for a two-year probationary period against Saunders' education certificate, it is stipulated that it would begin if and when Saunders returned to a position requiring a certificate. Saunders' current role as superintendent does not require a Florida Educator’s certificate.
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