School favored athletes, report says
Miramar high changed grades, allowed cheating
Miramar High School officials allowed cheating, questionable grade changes and favoritism toward football players in 2014, a new Broward County school district investigation has concluded.
The 30,00-page report, which recommends a demotion for the school’s former principal and suspension for an assistant principal, was based on 80 witness statements and it details problems including:
The grades of nearly a quarter of the students in one graduating class were changed. The grades of at least three football players were changed to make them eligible to play. Lax computer security made it tough to know who made many of the changes.
A reported battery by a football player was reduced to aminor discipline offense.
An assistant principal never reported allegations of cheating on the ACT (college entrance exam) to her supervisors or the testing company.
Parents said they paid former football coach Matt Strout for equipment and services their children never received.
Some football players transferring from outside the Miramar High attendance zone were placed in the school’s aviation magnet program, despite not meeting the academic requirements.
Strout submitted a fraudulent resume and transcript in February 2014 when applying towork for Miramar High.
School district spokeswoman Tracy Clark declined to answer whether anything was done to keep such problems from happening again. Shewould say only that the district is “taking the Miramar investigation very seriously.”
The two administrators — former principal Brian Faso and assistant principal Cornelia Hoff— say the district misconstrued many of the things that happened at the school and unfairly blamed them for issues they had no knowledge of. Both say they plan to fight the discipline.
“I’m hurt that there is a black cloud over myself and a lot of great staff at Miramar High that worked their butts off to try to create a better life for students,” said Faso, who now works as director of strategic achievement for the district. “I’m insulted and offended.”
Faso hasn’t been informed yet what his job would be if he were demoted, said Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants’ Association.
Investigators recommended a three-day suspension for Hoff, but district Superintendent Robert Runcie wants to increase that to 10 days, according to a letter she received Aug. 18. The School Board must approve any discipline for either administrator.
Hoff said the findings of the report are “inaccurate, because we treat all students equitably. There is no favoritism toward football players or any athletes that Iwas involved in.”
It is unclear whether anyone else faces discipline as a result of the investigation. Strout, who was blamed for many of the issues in the report, was forced to resign in October 2014, right before the investigation started.
After Strout’s departure, he documented for the Sun Sentinel numerous violations of school district and Florida High School Athletic Association rules. The school ended its football season early that year, vacating its playoff berth Nov. 12, 2014, after acknowledging some wrong doing.
Faso is criticized for instructing assistant principal Kaila Rivera to alter the discipline record of an athlete to remove a reported battery and change it to disruptive or unruly behavior.
Rivera told investigators a football player threw a jelly bean at the athlete, who “got mad and got up and grabbed the kid and the kid didn’t hit him back. This was truly a battery.”
Faso defended his decision this week in an interview with the Sun Sentinel.
“This youngmanwas going to be arrested and expelled. That’s a very serious thing,” Faso said. “When we looked at what happened, it wasn’t a battery. It didn’t meet the definition of being unprovoked. This was provoked, mutual combatants.”
The football player was later arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery for a second incident of violence against a classmate that happened after he turned 18. He was sentenced to a court-ordered anger management diversion program.
The report also blasts the school’s frequent use of grade changes, saying they were used not just for athletes, but were pervasive at Miramar for years, affecting the academic outcomes for students throughout the high school.
In one recent graduating class, 24percent of students received grade changes. Faso said that number of grade changes isn’t unusual, given that the change could happen for any term in any of the four years a student is in high school.
The report doesn’t say what is considered a normal number of grade changes.
Guidance counselors, office staff and teachers often shared the same log-in credentials, and investigators couldn’t figure out who made many of the changes. The report said the school has since tightened security to ensure employees don’t share log-in information. The district also has updated its grade-change request forms to require an explanation for changes.
The report concludes that some grades were changed in the fall of 2014 specifically to allow three football players to remain eligible to play.
The school removed two math courses from one player’s transcript; entered three classes from the wrong year for another player; and incorrectly substituted a weight-training elective for a state-required course for a third player, documents show. But it’s unclear who made those changes.
Faso said he had no knowledge of any grades being changed to benefit athletes. He said the changes could have been made for a variety of reasons. Incomplete grades are often changed after students turn in work. District policy allows a variety of credit recovery options, he said, and the school had left grade changes up to the discretion of teachers.
Thereport faults Hoff for how she handled allegations of cheating on the ACT. At least 14 students, three of whom were football players, were caught cheating on the test, with one student caught in the hallway with answers on
his cellphone, the report says.
“Ms. Hoff acknowledged that despite being made aware of these cheating concerns, she did not take action or speak to ACT, her former or current principal,” or others, the report says. “She did not feel itwas the school’s problem if students were cheating.”
Hoff said a staff member complained about a student’s ACT results to her in the fall of 2014, but never mentioned cheating.
“I was walking through the office when a staff member said out loud, ‘I don’t know why this person got a high score on the ACT and a low score on the FCAT,’ ” she told the Sun Sentinel, referring to a state standardized test.
Hoff told investigators that ACT was leasing the site and hired an on-site coordinator, and that concerns about cheating are normally addressed directly to the testing company, not school administration, the report said.
A testing coordinator at the school directly witnessed cheating another time the test was given at the school, in November 2014, and notified ACT, but
it’s unclear what the outcome was. A spokesman said the testing company, which is based in Iowa, doesn’t release information about its investigations.
The report also interviewed at least three parents who complained of paying Strout money for football equipment they never received. One parent filed a report with the Miramar Police Department but chose not to file charges after Strout repaid her the $422 she had given him, the police report states.
Other players were given improper gifts, such as shoes, equipment, money and rides — all of which Strout acknowledged in his allegations against Miramar, the report says.
The report also found that the school’s aviation magnet program was used to enroll football players who didn’t live in the Miramar High attendance zone. Students are not supposed to be recruited to a school for the sole purpose of playing football. But they can attend a magnet program if they meet the entrance requirements, such as a passing score on a state test and a 2.5 grade point average. But the aviation
program accepted football players without these requirements, the report found.
The administrators said they had no knowledge these events were happening, and it ’s unclear whether the students faced any consequences.
The report also confirms an earlier Sun Sentinel investigation that found Strout provided a fraudulent resume and transcript to the school district, falsely claiming he had graduated from Ohio State University. The investigation blames Faso for this.
However, his representatives argue the vetting of resumes is handled by the district’s human resources department and police department. District officials acknowledge this in a lawsuit Strout filed against the district.
Strout sued the Broward school district last year, claiming he was fired after objecting to rampant rules violations related to Miramar’s football program. The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year.