BRADENTON – The recommendation of an Administrative Law Judge to terminate former Manatee High Assistant Principal Greg Faller failed to go through at Tuesday's school board meeting, with Bob Gause and Mary Cantrell voting to not accept the judge's recommendation, and Karen Carpenter dissenting from the majority vote.

Instead, Faller's contract, which was not renewed in July 2014, will stay that way, and no back pay will be given. That decision among the three voting board members was unanimous after Carpenter argued against back pay. Charlie Kennedy abstained as he advised he would at the last board meeting, due to what he felt could be perceived as a conflict of interest, as he was an educator at Manatee High while Faller was an assistant principal. Dave Miner announced his recusal during discussion, saying only that he had received specific information since the last meeting that had persuaded him to abstain from voting.

Faller was among three former Manatee High principals that were charged with failing to report the child abuse that former assistant football coach and parent liaision Rod Frazier pleaded no contest to in April of last year. Of the three, Faller was the only one to be given a misdemeanor conviction. Matthew Kane and Bob Gagnon were acquitted of their legal charges, but were still recommended for termination by Superintendent Rick Mills for violating school district policy.

Kane was allowed to resign from the district, despite a separate ALJ opinion that he be terminated with cause. An ALJ opinion was issued in favor of Gagnon who was given back pay for the time in which he has suspended until he was non-renewed at the end of his contract when his position was eliminated in a staff reorganization. 

Explaining her decision to vote against the recommendation, Cantrell said, "He was not renewed, so he will not be back. [Not terminating] allows him to preserve his retirement. "I have spent hours [thinking about this vote], and I want to put this behind us. Eventually I want the five of us to be united behind our Superintendent and behind our legal counsel, but at this point, I will not be able to support the motion."

Carpenter said that the board needed "to bring some degree of finality" to deciding on the recommended order for Faller. The decision, which had originally been scheduled for a vote during last year's October 28th meeting, had been tabled four times due to board members requesting more time to contemplate the issue.

Arguing that the board should heed the recommended order as the judge found the witnesses that testified against Faller to be credible, Carpenter added that "the benefit of having an Administrative Law Judge is that [he/she] is out of the district, independent, and provides that objectivity to us, so that we're not colored by our associations."

Gause said he found "a variety of bits and pieces" of the judge's written document to be questionable and felt that the witness testimony given was also questionable. He noted that the board has not adopted recommended orders from administrative law judges in the past, and said that the board's decision on the item should hinge on doing "what we think is the right thing."

Gause said that he believed there was a neglect of duty on Faller's part, but that it was not willful. "If you look at the findings of fact, Mr. Faller did take some action. Whether I agree that he did enough is certainly for me a topic of discussion for what the punishment should be - did he get the job done to the level that I expect? I would say no." 

The board ultimately decided that Faller should not be given back pay and that the status of his non-renewed contract would stay the same, but spared him termination.

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