County cites problems in after-school program at Southeast High. Was principal at fault?
A day after a county government report criticized the Boys & Girls Club of Manatee for how it ran an after-school program at Southeast High School, the school district has resumed its own investigation — including of the role of the school’s principal in the controversy.
“The district is reviewing the information released by Manatee County pertaining to the Boys & Girls Club program at Southeast High School,” said Mike Barber, Manatee County School District spokesman. “Any action to be taken by the district resulting from information obtained in the report is yet to be determined.”
The county released its report on Monday, highlighting problems with how the Boys & Girls Club and its former program director, Wendell Faison, ran the program at Southeast and whether officials were properly tracking student attendance.
The Boys & Girls Club fired Faison earlier this year for making sexually inappropriate comments toward an 18-year-old female student.
Faison’s wife, Rosa, is the principal at Southeast.
According to Deputy County Administrator Cheri Coryea, the county allocates $610,000 toward the Boys & Girls Club after-school programming in the district. In question, is whether the county will reimburse the Boys & Girls Club almost $34,000 for the program at Southeast High School.
Staff will recommend to the board of county commissioners not to reimburse those funds unless the Boys & Girls Club can verify student attendance.
The school district conducted its own investigation after the revelation that Principal Faison had required all student-athletes to participate in the program run by her husband. The school district temporarily halted its probe until the county completed its report.
There is indication in the county report that student-athletes were only required to sign into the program, but were not required to stay.
Dawn Stanhope, Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County president and CEO, said there is no incentive for a club director to “pad the numbers,” but acknowledged that all club directors also, “are given annual goals for the program attendance and membership.”
Stanhope said her agency is fully cooperating with the county’s audit of the Southeast High School program and acknowledged the findings.
“While it became evident through this audit that our program compliance, training of staff on contract requirements, and internal control needs to be strengthened, we found no evidence of any intention to mislead or misrepresent our activities to the county in any way,” Stanhope said.
Principal Faison’s unusual mandate is a school district matter, Coryea said, and the county’s investigation was solely to determine whether the program was meeting the contractual requirements for county funding, which it was not. Coryea said the information pertaining to the student-athletes mandate was not specifically taken into account.
“We will not include that aspect in our report directly related to the principal, but we have noted that mandatory attendance by athletes is not a requirement of the contract with the county and B&G Club,” Coryea said. “We consider the requirement of the school district principal to have student-athletes to attend to be a separate issue.”
As school gets ready to begin, Stanhope said a new club director is being acclimated for the position and the agency is doing all it can to remedy the shortcomings cited in the county report.
“We are currently training staff on their respective responsibilities for contract compliance, as well as orienting our new club director for Southeast High,” Stanhope said.
Coryea said there is still time but all conditions of the contract must be met to receive the reimbursement funding.
“We will give them an appropriate time to complete this review,” Coryea said. “As reported in the report, we have made sure that the B&G Club knows that any mandate unrelated to its contract requirements to the county is not recognized as a viable (student) to bill for.”