The investigation into alleged grade-altering at Hillhouse hit a snag as the high school’s principal and the Board of Ed’s investigator failed to agree on terms for an interview.
Floyd Dugas, an attorney hired by the Board of Education to look into an administrator’s allegations of up to three instances of grade-changing, asked Principal Kermit Carolina to sit down for an interview.
Carolina’s legal advisor, attorney Michael Jefferson, responded that Carolina would do so only if reporters could be present.
Jefferson told the Independent that his response grew out of a desire for transparency in the process. Carolina has argued that the Board of Ed is railroading him out of a political vendetta on the part of Mayor John DeStefano based on “bogus” allegations raised by an administrator he was disciplining. DeStefano said politics have played no part in a straightforward probe into serious allegations. (Click here for a full story on that subject.)
“Why doesn’t he have a right to have this investigation done publicly?” Jefferson said. “I want the media there. We don’t have anything to hide. Why do they?”
He also said Dugas threatened that Carolina would be charged with “insubordination” if he didn’t submit to the private interview.
Dugas called the request “unheard of, highly unusual, and not the way I conduct investigations.”
“Any school employee can be ordered to participate” in an investigation, Dugas said. “The refusal to do so can be construed as insubordination. I sincerely hope we don’t have to go down that road. I hope [Jefferson’s] client reconsiders his decision.”
Only one of the three allegations raised at Hillhouse has been made public. They concern a student who took summer courses at Riverside Academy. Carolina said that the school system’s computer system — notorious for having trouble registering information like grades transferred from other schools — was having trouble reconciling the course codes from Riverside and Hillhouse. All that happened was that the transcript was eventually updated to include the student’s summer courses, Carolina said.
The allegations prompted an unprecedented “emergency” Board of Ed meeting on 24 hours and 52 minutes’ notice the Friday night before Christmas.
2 Suspended
Meanwhile, in an unrelated case, the school system has suspended two Hillhouse administrators following a complaint made to the state Department of Children and Families (DCF).
The two staffers worked as part of a new team of “deans” and other adults brought into Hillhouse to try prevent kids from dropping out. (Read about that effort here.)
The complaint came several weekends ago, according to school system Chief Operating Officer Will Clark.
A mother contacted Principal Carolina about a fight involving her son and another boy and the role of the two adults who were present.
“Kermit followed the appropriate protocol. He immediately referred it to DCF and immediately referred it to the [school board’s human resources] department,” Clark said. “The folks were immediately put out on leave so they wouldn’t have to come back to the school.”
One of the adults involved is a unionized full-time staffer; he was placed on paid leave. The other, a part-timer, was placed on unpaid leave.
Other details were unavailable as the investigation is continuing. Carolina was unavailable for comment.