Boys & Girls Club fired Southeast High director. County now wants to cut off the money

Manatee County staff is recommending the Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County not be reimbursed for its after-school programming at Southeast High School for this fiscal year, because of problems that were revealed after the program’s director was fired.

The county’s neighborhood services department released a scathing report on Monday citing a serious lack of accountability and an overall lack of leadership, knowledge and supervision by the Boys & Girls Club at Southeast High. Neighborhood Services recommends which nonprofit agencies receives county funding, but the board of commissioners makes the final decision.

Exactly how much money the problems could cost the Boys & Girls Club was not detailed in the report.

The county started an investigation after the agency’s former club director, Wendell Faison, was terminated for making sexually inappropriate comments toward a female student at Southeast High School in April of this year. Because the student was 18 and there was no physical contact, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office concluded the incident did not reach a criminal level.

However, the Boys & Girls Club immediately fired Faison, who had to be escorted from campus a second time for returning to help with the school’s football team just two days later.

Faison is married to Southeast Principal Rosa Faison. He was often seen around her office during school hours after he was fired.

Principal Faison made the unusual mandate to require all student athletes, regardless of grades, to attend her husband’s program, but witnesses said the athletes were only required to sign in and then could leave in order to inflate the program’s enrollment numbers.

Manatee County’s report confirms that activity was taking place.

As part of its contract with Manatee County, which helps fund the program, students are required to sign in and out and are not permitted to leave without a parent or guardian signature. The county’s investigation showed the club was in noncompliance overall, and pointed directly to the accusations that student athletes were signing in and leaving.

“Students are required to sign up for the Boys & Girls Club program, as a condition of participation in the school’s athletic program, which is not part of the Boys & Girls Club program, students are signing into the program, but are not participating in any club activities, yet they are billed to the county as participants in the program,” the report states. “There also appears to be no mechanism to track the youth after arrival for participation in program activities, or to distinguish program participants so that only those are billed to the county.”

In response, county staff wrote they cannot recommend funding the program from October 2017 through May of this year because there is no way to verify the county would be paying for legitimate club participation.

The Boys and Girls Club “has failed to follow the agreed upon requirements of the contract,” the report states.

The Manatee County School District has also been investigating whether Principal Faison required all student-athletes to participate in her husband’s homework assistance program just to inflate the numbers. District spokesman Mike Barber previously said the district was waiting on the county’s report before proceeding, and he was not immediately available for comment on Monday.

Boys & Girls Club Director Dawn Stanhope also was unavailable for comment late Monday.

More issues than previously known

Under Wendell Faison’s leadership, the club program had many other issues relating to noncompliance with the contract with the county, and with the safety of students, according to the county’s report.

The contract requires students to follow a daily schedule, but county staff, who made three site visits following Wendell Faison’s termination, wrote: “Several students were observed leaving the program premises without being signed out and without knowledge of program staff.”

Also according to the contract with the county, the club program was supposed to operate from Monday through Friday, from 2:05 p.m. until 5 p.m. each day. However, the club was not operating on Fridays as required. In the report, the Boys & Girls Club acknowledged the club had never run its program on Fridays and admitted it was an oversight on their part.

The county report also indicated that the club did not follow its required schedule during operating hours, noting, “No discernible activities required in the funding agreement were visualized or documented by county representatives.”

Other concerns

The county report cited several other concerns, including a lack of staff supervision. The agency is encouraged to have one staff member for every 20 students, but noted that only one staff member was present for about 50 students. Although another staff member showed up later, only one staff member was interacting with the students.

Staff also were found to be, “unsure about the location of policy and procedure handbooks, and did not appear to communicate with one another regarding the schedule for the day, or any other matters related to the program,” the report states. County staff said it was important for club employees to, “know if the program is operating in compliance.”

Though the primary purpose for the program is for after-school homework assistance, the club did not follow a schedule for homework assistance. Students were left to ask for help and then sent to a different part of campus to receive the help.

“It caused all kinds of issues relating to knowing where students are and whether they are signed in or out,” the county’s report states.

This story was originally published July 30, 2018 at 3:22 PM.