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COLLIER COUNTY SCHOOLS PRINCIPAL REMOVED FOR SEX IN EMAILS

HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL RON MILLER EMAILS >> << Warning Graphic verbiage

District investigation: Miller removed as principal due to steamy e-mails
By KATHERINE LEWIS

Originally published 01:45 p.m., December 18, 2007 - Updated 01:12 a.m., December 19, 2007

About a month after he was removed as Barron Collier High School principal, the school’s community finally knows why Ron Miller was suspended and then terminated.

Documents released Tuesday by the Collier County School District show Miller was removed as Barron Collier High School principal after the district determined that he engaged in inappropriate behavior, including sending and receiving pornographic e-mails.

The district said it began investigating Miller after it received complaints of a hostile work environment, said Allun Hamblett, executive director of human resources.

At the end of the investigation, district officials brought six charges against Miller and five were sustained.

The five charges that the district sustained:

-- Miller engaged in sending and receiving inappropriate e-mails from his work computer that were pornographic in nature. They included e-mails he traded with Jennifer Schmidt, a secretary at Barron who’s no longer there, and English department Chairwoman Carolyn Welty.

In one e-mail sent Friday, June 29, Miller talked of subjecting Schmidt to a “pretty thorough body cavity search.”

In another e-mail sent June 29, Welty wrote Miller: “Yes, and all this month I have worked on my body, and I think you will be pleased.”

In another e-mail, a woman district officials have identified as not working for the district sent Miller a photo of herself that revealed her breasts.

-- He was alone in his office on multiple occasions during and after school hours with female employees and encouraged such behavior.

“You can see a pattern in the e-mail where he would be at the school after hours and meet with them,” Hamblett said.

-- Miller interviewed one of the women in the inappropriate e-mails for a position at Barron when he wasn’t allowed to do so because she wouldn’t have reported to him.

“When someone interviews for a job, their direct supervisor does the interviews and never alone. We encourage a team approach. When we asked him about the interview, there were no notes available. There were no notices of an appointment,” Hamblett said.

-- He investigated a sexual complaint against a faculty member at Barron but there was no evidence of the complaint. By investigating such a complaint on his own, he placed the district at a legal risk, school officials said.

-- Miller was evasive and perhaps untruthful with investigators about the circumstances at Barron Collier.

A sixth charge that wasn’t sustained was that he wrongfully touched a female employee who no longer is with the district. School district officials said they found no evidence to sustain the allegation but could reopen the issue if they could find evidence to sustain it.

“Clearly this is inappropriate conduct involving an administrator at the high school,” said Hamblett, who conducting the investigation. “The types of behavior we expect from students and from our faculty were violated here.”

Hamblett said the district made its decision after receiving complaints, looking into the e-mails and interviewing Miller and Schmidt.

Hamblett said the district has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment or creating a hostile working environment. He also said Miller clearly violated the district’s e-mail policy.

“It is at the bottom of all of his e-mails to these women,” he said.

The policy reads, “Pursuant to School Board policy and administrative procedures, this e-mail system is property of the School District of Collier County and to be used for official business only. In addition, all users are cautioned that messages sent through this system are subject to the Public Records Law of the State of Florida and also to review by the school system. There should be no expectation of privacy.”

Hamblett said while the messages are sexually suggestive in nature, the district didn’t find evidence that Miller had sexual relations with any of the women while on Barron Collier’s campus.

The Collier County School Board voted last Thursday to terminate Miller, who took over at Barron Collier High School after former Superintendent Ray Baker left the school for an administrative position.

Miller made $103,065 a year, according to the School District.

Longtime educator and former Naples High School Principal Gary Brown has been named interim principal of Barron Collier High.

Miller will challenge that the district had a right to terminate him. The district received a letter from Mark Herdman, Miller’s attorney, requesting an administrative hearing to challenge suspending Miller without pay and his termination.

The School Board’s attorney said the board has the right to suspend Miller without pay pending a ruling on the administrative hearing from the judge.

Attempts to reach Herdman were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Hamblett said no punishments have been brought against Welty or Schmidt, but added the investigation is not complete.

“We are not done with the second phase,” he said. “We had enough information to move forward with the charges against Mr. Miller, and we have removed the individual from the school. There are other issues we are exploring.”

Hamblett said Schmidt has been removed from the school, but said she still is working in the Collier County School District.

© Naples News

Pupils Say They Saw Teachers Have Sex in classroom

By JOSH POLTILOVE The Tampa Tribune Published: Jun 8, 2006

TAMPA - Two Hillsborough County middle school teachers have resigned after students saw them having sex in a classroom, a report released Wednesday states.

Foreign language teacher Frances J. Sepulveda, 30, and physical education teacher Bryant J. Wilburn, 29, quit two days after the May 22 incident at Coleman Middle School, 1724 S. Manhattan Ave.

Sepulveda's classroom door was locked and paper covered its window, but a boy and a girl saw the teachers through the window, the report states.

Hillsborough school district spokesman Steve Hegarty said information about the incident will be sent to the state Department of Education.

"These teachers showed appallingly bad judgment," he said. "We dealt with it quickly, and the teachers are no longer welcome in the Hillsborough County classroom."

According to the report, the boy told a school district investigator Sepulveda appeared tired when she opened the classroom door and was stressed during class.

The girl told Principal Mike Hoskinson that "Ms. Sepulveda had pulled her out of her next period class and told her to keep quiet and not to say what she saw," the report states. Hoskinson told the investigator he interviewed the teachers and they denied having sex.

Wilburn told the investigator he was eating lunch and doing a crossword puzzle in Sepulveda's class while she worked.

Sepulveda initially said she and Wilburn were just friends but later acknowledged twice having sex with him in the classroom, the report states. Wilburn said they had sex in the room during work hours "on one or two occasions."

The two teachers could not be reached for comment.

Sepulveda joined the district in 2000 and started at Coleman in July. Wilburn had been at the south Tampa middle school since being hired by the district in 2001.

In 2005, Wilburn received an outstanding mark for establishing and maintaining standards for student behavior.

In a 2002 evaluation while teaching Spanish at Jefferson High School, Sepulveda was commended for working well with students.

Coleman parent Ari FitzGerald said her son, who wasn't a witness to the incident, thought Sepulveda was a good teacher.

"Obviously [the incident] reflects bad judgment," FitzGerald said.

Contact Josh Poltilove at (813) 835-2105 or jpoltilove@tampatrib com.