Report: 40 students’ grades altered by assistant principal

Seminole Ridge High investigation finds 2 other claims had merit.

An assistant principal at Seminole Ridge High in Loxahatchee changed 40 students’ grades in a credit recovery course intended to make up for courses they had failed once before, the school district’s Inspector General’s office has concluded.

The investigation into the athletics program and staffers associated with it began with an anonymous letter in August 2017. By the time it concluded, investigators said they also found that three coaches were paid more than $500 each to sponsor clubs that didn’t exist and that head football coach James Parson bought three pieces of equipment costing more than $200 without first getting the approvals required by the school.

While those three allegations were determined to be “substantiated,” another nine claims in the letter were dismissed, the report said.

None of the findings rose to the level of a crime, according to the report.

The office recommended the matter of grade-changing be forwarded to the district’s Office of Professional Standards.

The investigators say Assistant Principal Randy Burden, 38, who was hired by the district 14 years ago, changed the grades on hundreds of assignments in the credit recovery class called Edgenuity

over the summer of 2017.

The class allows students to make up poor grades by letting them retake a course online at their own pace, skipping the material they know and focusing on areas of difficulty. With altered grades, 13 students went on to graduate from high school, investigators reported.

Burden declined to comment for this story, but when confronted by investigators, he said he didn’t even know how to change a grade. He went on to suggest any changes may have been made by students who could’ve accessed the system when he stepped out of the classroom without logging off — a failing he admitted to his interviewers, according to the report.

The investigators said they found that explanation “incredulous” and “not plausible.”

They then turned to technical experts within the district to track the online changes. Despite Burden’s initial assertion that he didn’t know how to change a grade, those experts found he did it 256 times in two years — 19 times from an IP address they traced to his home. Only 11 of the 256 changes had a reason or justification noted within the records. On four occasions, scores went from 0 to 95.

Burden was also the administrator who oversaw student clubs in the 2016-17 school year, and in an interview with investigators, he “admitted that he did not require the teachers or coaches to provide the required documentation” needed to collect a stipend at the end of the year.

Investigators said 34 of 39 teachers or coaches listed as being a club sponsor didn’t have the documentation required by the school. The report singled out three coaches — associated with the football and basketball teams — for collecting $562 each for “clubs that did not exist.”

The report doesn’t detail what clubs they supposedly sponsored or why these three staffers were called out while others also lacked the necessary paperwork. The report notes that Burden said he didn’t physically monitor or verify that the clubs met. The report does not make any recommendations about what, if any, action should be taken as a result of the findings.

The final substantiated claim was that of a football coach who was reimbursed nearly $1,710 in outof-pocket expenses to buy gear for the program, ranging from $38 agility cones to $333 worth of plywood and screws. Four of those purchases exceeded $200 and should have been cleared by the principal first per the school’s internal policy, but weren’t.

Among the allegations that didn’t hold up: a claim that coaches recruited and fielded ineligible football players from outside school boundaries, the athletic director paid coaches who hadn’t gone through the requisite background checks, and that a coach kept fundraising money in an unlocked drawer or locker. Allegations that a teacher was paid to change football players’ grades and a claim regarding out-ofstate football camps also fell flat.

Another unsubstantiated claim: A coach was seen “inappropriately transporting two female students in his personal vehicle” — twice. None of the 20 staff interviewed observed such an incident, investigators said. The coach noted he has two teen daughters who play sports, attend the school and ride in his vehicle.