Whistleblower alleges cover-up by schools

Complaint: District officials hid lack of punishment for Holocaust comments

Palm Beach County school officials tried to cover up their lack of punishment of a principal over his comments about the Holocaust by finding farfetched reasons to fire him after a community uproar, according to a whistleblower complaint.

Robert Pinkos, an investigator in the school district’s Human Resources department, filed the complaint with the school district’s Inspector General’s office, which investigates allegations of fraud and employee abuse. The office makes recommendations to the School Board.

Pinkos refused to pursue the case based in part on what he considered trumped-up charges that had nothing to do with the original anti-Semitism allegations against William Latson, former principal of Spanish River High in Boca Raton. That’s when he says retribution began, including his office location being changed from West Palm Beach to Boca Raton.

A supervisor told Pinkos, 65, a former teacher and school district employee recruiter, to limit the scope of his investigation to whether Latson had filled out the right forms for his

July vacation and whether Latson stayed in communication with his supervisors when he was gone. Pinkos wanted an investigation to look at what he saw as the key issue: the principal’s remarks about the Holocaust and whether he should face punishment for his comments.

Pinkos’s boss, Vicki Evans-Pare, told him Latson would be able to remain a principal, just not at Spanish River, according to the complaint.

“Mr. Pinkos voiced that Dr. Latson should not be a principal anywhere for essentially being a Holocaust denier,” according to the complaint. “Mr. Pinkos expressed his concern that it appeared rather disingenuous that district administrators, who knew about Dr. Latson’s comments for over a year and did not report the misconduct to HR, now were apparently filled with righteous indignation.”

The school district did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Latson was fired in October for being unavailable after his comments about the Holocaust generated a national uproar the previous summer.

In a 5-2 vote, the School Board accepted the recommendation of Superintendent Donald Fennoy, who said Latson had committed ethical misconduct by being unreachable when “all hell broke loose” after his emailed comments to a Spanish River parent became public.

The controversy stems back to 2018, when Latson told a parent, who was seeking information about Spanish River’s Holocaust curriculum, that he had to remain “politically neutral” — sensitive not only to advocates of Holocaust education but to those who deny the annihilation of 6 million Jews during World War II.

“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school

district employee,” Latson wrote to the parent, whose name is redacted from the emails released by the district.

Latson’s attorney said the district was punishing Latson for a “poorly worded email” and said there were multiple levels of culpability, including school district staff who knew about the emails for 16 months before deciding to discipline him.

Politicians from across the state were calling for Latson’s termination or resignation, as did the AntiDefamation League, a national civil rights group with an office in Boca Raton.

Latson is contesting his dismissal. He and several school district officials appeared this week before a state administrative law judge as part of his appeal. If the judge decides in his favor, the School Board would have to vote again on whether to fire him or bring him back.

When they found out about the emails, Latson’s supervisors chose to counsel him and work with him on improving Holocaust education at the school instead of telling the Human Resources department, according to testimony by Glenda Sheffield, his supervisor at the time.

Pinkos, a school district employee since 1985, told his supervisor that counseling Latson was not a substitute for the principal’s bosses reporting the incident. He believed those bosses’ actions needed to be investigated, too.

Pinkos started the limited investigation by interviewing Keith Oswald, deputy superintendent. Oswald is the boss of Pinkos’s wife, Margarita, who is an assistant superintendent. Realizing this conflict of interest, and frustrated by the narrow issues he was allowed to pursue, Pinkos requested to be recused.

“My moral compass, conscience, and sense of ethics does not allow me to continue,” he wrote to Evans-Pare.

Pinkos told her that so much time had passed since the initial incident

that Florida’s administrative code prevented an investigation of the anti-Semitism charges. He believed that was one of the reasons the investigation was being redirected to questions about Latson’s vacation.

That’s when Pinkos said officials began to retaliate. He attended a luncheon sponsored by the Hispanic Education Coalition but was told he should have requested time off from work, even though he had been attending the gatherings for five years.

Evans-Pare insisted he should have taken official leave. Pinkos tried to talk to human resources chief Gonzalo La Cava, who kept avoiding him, according to the complaint.

Evans-Pare ended up not requiring him to take a leave of absence for the time off. But then she and another director told him he was being investigated for insubordination and forced him to move his office to Boca Raton, 27 miles away. He had to remove his items from his cubicle immediately.

“The level of humiliation inflicted upon Mr. Pinkos by the methodic harassment of Ms. Evans-Pare and Dr. La Cava was now unbearable,” according to the complaint. “Mr. Pinkos did his best to keep his dignity as his colleagues helped load his car.”

Asked on Thursday to comment on Pinkos’s allegations, La Cava said in an email: “I am unable to respond to this inquiry as this is an open investigation.” Evans-Pare also declined to answers questions Thursday, citing the active investigation.

Pinkos still works for the school district and is seven months from retirement. His attorney, Fred Schwartz, said he hasn’t heard anything from the school district about the complaint.

“He won’t be part of a cover-up,” Schwartz said. “The crux is that had the district reported the incident to HR when it occurred, Latson would have been disciplined in some manner and we wouldn’t be where we are today.”