State suspends two Boca teachers for wrongdoing

Two educators from Boca Raton area schools won’t be allowed to work in a Florida classroom for at least a year.

One is accused of allowing students to cheat on a test, the other is alleged to have made inappropriate comments to students.

The state’s Education Practices Commission recently suspended the licenses of Gabriel De Simone, a science teacher at Boca Raton Middle, for questionable comments he made, and Lisha Daigle, a kindergarten teacher at Hammock Pointe Elementary, regarding testing and class supervision issues.

Daigle said she’d been advised not to comment other other than to say, “I love teaching and love my students.”

De Simone, 33, could not be reached for comment.

In both cases, the tough action by the state followed minor discipline by the school district.

In De Simone’s case, some seventh grade girls accused De Simone in January 2015 of saying, “I’ll give you a nickel to tickle my pickle,” according to a state report.

De Simone denied making the exact comment. He told his principal, Peter Slack, that the students were engaged in tongue twisters and he said, “Lick a pickle for a nickel,” a state report says. He said he didn’t use the word “my” and a there was no intent to have the phrases construed in a negative way.

Slack gave De Simone a verbal reprimand.

While there’s no indication the district conducted a formal investigation, the state reviewed the case and De Simone’s history. A state report says he was also counseled by Slack in October 2012 “regarding complaints from female students that he stared at girls’ buttocks and chest area and engaged in inappropriate conversations with them.”

After reviewing his file, the state commission decided to revoke his license for a year. De Simone resigned from the school district in October 2015 in the midst of the state investigation.

In Daigle’s case, she received a reprimand in January 2015 for allegedly giving students the answers to a test. But the state decided recently to suspend her license for a year.

She was fired from the district March 17.

Daigle assessed her kindergarten students in the spring of 2014. Ten out of the 13 students got much lower scores when they were assessed again in the fall, which the district called “beyond a statistical anomoly,” according to a district reprimand.

“The evidence is clear and convincing that you knowingly and willfully falsified student assessment records,” Principal Carol Crilley wrote in January 2015.

District and state investigations found she provided students with answers to test questions rather than have them do their own work.