Only the Community Can Rescue Our Students From Their School Board
Posted
Dennis Maley
On Tuesday night, the Manatee County School Board took the first step toward clearing the path to begin bringing back former administrators
who’d been ousted during the district’s scandal-ridden years of 2011-13,
by voting to move forward in amending former OPS director Debra Horne's
resignation in order to allow her to once again apply to work in the
district.
In 2012, allegations surfaced that Manatee High Parent Teacher Liaison
and assistant football coach Rod Frazier had been systematically using
his position to sexually abuse young female students at the school.
These allegations, as well as concerns voiced by faculty who said they’d
witnessed inappropriate and/or suspicious behavior, were passed along
to various administrators.
In addition to concerns voiced by the school’s faculty, some of whom
would later testify that they reported them to multiple administrators
at the school, the mother of one of the victims delivered a letter
outlining a litany of allegations that ranged from Frazier groping the
young girl, to granting her special privileges at the school and
requesting she send him naked pictures of herself using her cell phone.
Despite a new state law that required educators to immediately report
such allegations to the state, the district made the decision to handle
it internally.
At the time, the district had a one-person department
called the Office
of Professional Standards that was ostensibly set up to handle internal
investigations of employees. The department’s investigator was Horne, a
former assistant principal. Horne, who had no experience or training
whatsoever as an investigator, reported to the attorney’s office, which,
at the time, included John Bowen and Scott Martin (the latter of whom
would later be promoted to Deputy Superintendent before resigning
himself under the same terms as Horne).
According
to police reports, Horne conducted a brief investigation that lasted
only a few hours, while Frazier was suspended with pay for one work day.
She did not interview any of
the alleged victims, and after discussing it with two of the school’s
assistant principals, reported back to Martin that the allegations "were
old news that had been reported to and handled by administrators."
Horne then said that Martin directed her to end the investigation.
Frazier was sent back to work the next day, which happened to be the
football team’s first playoff game in a season in which it was
undefeated and vying for a national title.
It wasn’t until the Herald-Tribune broke the story months later–after
the girl and her mother, frustrated at the district’s complete lack of
response, went to the press–that law enforcement was made aware of the
allegations.
The Bradenton Police Department conducted an extensive
investigation and recommended that Horne (along with several other
administrators) be charged with violating the state’s failure to report
law. Once that happened, the district began its own investigation, this
time under Superintendent Rick Mills, who had been hired after the
incidents had occurred.
Horne and Martin both resigned from their positions before any
punishments for failures in their capacity as employees of the district
could be issued. They were allowed to do this under the agreement that
neither would be allowed to apply for jobs with the district in the
future.
Rather than face the felony charge that resulted from the
Bradenton Police Department and state attorney’s office, Horne entered a
pre-trial intervention program. When she completed it, including
community service and cooperating with other related investigations, the
charges were dropped, as per the terms of the program.
Later, the school board would use this procedural event as a nonsensical argument as to why taxpayers should reimburse Horne for her legal fees in defending herself–not against
accusations by the district or information found in its
investigation–but against criminal charges filed by the state attorney’s
office as a result of a police investigation.
State law requires a
district to cover the legal expenses of an employee who incurs charges
or suits in the discharge of their prescribed duties. However, by not
following state law or school district policy, Horne lost that
protection. Had she successfully defended herself against the charges,
that would have opened the door for reimbursement; however, she chose not to face the charges and enter the PTI program instead.
Nonetheless, members of the school board who have been consistent in
defending a clique of former administrators that have been caught up in
the scandals, came to Horne’s aid and voted to reimburse her anyway, or
at least have taxpayers do so.
Current members Charlie Kennedy, Bob
Gause and Dave Miner (joined by the late Mary Cantrell) argued that
since the charges were dropped at the end of the PTI, it was somehow
like they’d never existed, or at least equated to having successfully
defended herself against the charges.
Both the board attorney and the
district’s attorney explained that was definitely not the case,
but it didn’t matter. Despite both lawyers and Superintendent Mills’
recommendation, the board voted to do it anyway with only Karen
Carpenter dissenting. I covered this portion more extensively in a
column that can be found here.
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On Tuesday, Kennedy, Miner and Gause tried to argue that because the
Florida Department of Education did not find probable cause to initiate
steps to strip Horne of her ability to teach in Florida schools, it
again somehow left her vindicated, now only more so. They presented a
narrative in which there were basically two investigations: a flawed one
done by the district, and an infinitely better one by Commissioner Pam
Stewart.
Of course, the FDOE’s investigation as to whether to take her
teaching certificate had nothing to do with whether Horne violated district policies. It also had nothing to do with the deal she made in order to
avoid facing punishment for what they would find.
Their narrative also left out the fact that the district investigation
only took place after (and directly because) a police investigation had
recommended Horne be charged with a felony, as well as what was said in
the two administrative law judge’s recommendations to fire the assistant principals that were also charged with failing to report, in terms of Horne’s role
in the administration's failure to act on allegations and suspicions of
abuse against students.
In addition, there was Horne's troublesomely
similar disinterest in another sex scandal involving an employee getting a student pregnant that followed the
incident with Frazier, who ultimately plead no contest to multiple charges.
None
of that mattered. Tuesday wasn’t about a discussion of the facts or an
intellectual examination of what was ethically just anymore than the
discussion surrounding the legal fees had been. It was about a bunch of
empty suits twisting themselves into pretzels in order to at least appear as though there was some modicum of logic behind their actions.
Gause has already announced that he will not be seeking another term.
There’s no reason to expect that he would do anything different than
continue to protect and serve the good old boy network that got him into
and has kept him in office.
Kennedy, who was elected
in 2014 when he was teaching at Manatee High, has not showed any
willingness to go against any of his ex-coworkers no matter the
circumstances and looks to be a reliable replacement for Gause in terms
of looking out for the interests of that crowd.
The first-term board member spoke to our
"divided county" and the idea that amending the district’s agreement
would be a first step in helping to "reconcile" it. Scott Martin
similarly suggested it would be part of a "healing process," a sentiment
that was echoed by Miner, Kennedy and Gause at several points.
Board chair Karen Carpenter was the only one to question how
exactly exonerating Horne would heal anything and openly worried about
the message it would send to the rest of the county, that the board
would be "tearing at the wound" of whatever healing came courtesy of the
small amount of accountability that had been exercised by the district
throughout the long, drawn-out scandal.
It goes without saying that
erasing the past would do little to heal those who need it most, namely
the students who were abused by those charged with keeping them safe,
all while highly-paid administrators turned a blind eye to what was the worse-kept secret in the district.
*****************************
Dave Miner was elected to office in 2012. He nicknamed himself the "watchdog"
and railed endlessly against an administration that he said time and
again had created and sustained such an environment and promised, if
elected, to ensure that those working in the district knew that "our
children are not their playthings."
That sounds good. However, once elected,
Miner demonstrated no appetite for such reforms and has worked as hard
as anyone to see that those who failed our children were not held accountable, so long as they had the right connections. He's been a watchdog all right. He's just watching out for the wrong people.
On Tuesday, Miner talked a lot about having "the courage to do the
right thing," and of showing "integrity." It's been my experience as a journalist that those elected
officials who go on and on behind a microphone talking about things like
courage and integrity are
the ones least likely to ever show you any. Miner hasn't done anything
to change that impression, and I think most voters will feel the same
way when he comes up for reelection this August.
John Colon, who was appointed late last year as Cantrell’s replacement,
had little to say on the matter, noting that he was not on the board at
the time nor very familiar with the situation now, and had correctly
presumed that they would not be voting on a final action Tuesday night. Colon will now have a couple of weeks to catch up and let voters know
where he stands before he asks them to elect him to the seat in
November.
Despite Miner’s best efforts to ram through a vote
on Tuesday night, the board–under the advice of its attorney, James
Dye–decided it was best to wait until an amendment was properly
advertised, and the item came with a recommendation from the
superintendent, as required by Florida statute.
The fact that three of
the five members are so enthusiastic means it will still pass and hints that steps will be taken so that other members of the old gang can be brought back, but at least board members will be forced to repeat this embarrassing charade before pulling one over on the public.
*****************************
For her part, Dr. Diana Greene needs to take a position. The
superintendent was careful to say as little as possible on Tuesday, but
the fact remains that she was one of the three members of the district’s
discipline committee which unanimously recommended to
then-Superintendent Mills that Horne be fired following the
investigation.
Many of those who questioned
Greene’s experience when she was hired following Mills’ retirement
argued that while she had spent a lot of time on the education side of
school administration, she had precious little experience on the other
end.
Make
no mistake that it was the community and not the board that demanded Greene
be given a shot to lead the district. She needs to demonstrate that she
has the stomach for the more difficult part of the job. If she’s willing to stand up to
special interests for the sake of what’s best for the students in her
district, she needs to have a clear voice on these issues.
Dr. Greene would also probably be well
served to consider that any further missteps involving the public's
trust will only make it less likely that the district will be successful
when it asks that same public to tax itself to the tune of hundreds of
millions of additional dollars this November. After all, it will be she
who will be responsible for the district's performance even if it isn't
adequately funded.
*****************************
The Manatee County School District has a past that continues to
haunt it. For a long time, it was a bottom third district in a bottom
third state, despite spending more dollars per student than most other
places.
The reason was largely because it had devolved into a
quasi-patronage organization in which top positions were based on loyalty instead of competency. All the while, a seemingly endless number of
needless, high-paying administrative positions were created in order to
make soft landing places for well connected people. Those people were willing to
keep the gravy train rolling, as influential developers, consultants and
other vendors fleeced the taxpayers of much of their investment in
public education.
In the last two
years, the district has begun to experience a slow and still tenuous
turnaround. Those who benefited from that status quo have not taken
kindly to the spigot having been turned off, and have been hard at work
to get things back to the way they were. Students, teachers, parents and
taxpayers at large would be well served to pay close attention to who
is helping them and remember that as they head to the polls in November.
But
the real question here is who will look out for the children of Manatee
County. There are more than 40,000 minors in our public school system
who rely on us as a community to ensure that they are in a safe place
when receiving their education. Administrators at every level have
failed them time and again. The board has failed them time and again.
Until this community begins standing up for them by refusing to accept
this sickening status quo, they will be doomed to more of the same.
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