Superintendent recommends firing five administrators

Manatee County School District Superintendent Rick Mills has recommended firing five school administrators based on findings from a misconduct investigation of a former Manatee High School assistant football coach. 

The district, after a two-month internal inquiry, determined the administrators, a list that includes Bob Gagnon, an East County resident and assistant superintendent who formerly served as assistant principal at Lakewood Ranch High School, poorly responded to groping allegations against Rod Frazier, the football coach. 

Mills also recommends terminating Scott Martin, a staff attorney and former assistant superintendent; former school district investigator Debra Horne; and former Manatee High assistant principals Gregg Faller and Matthew Kane. 

The five administrators have been on paid leave since August. 

“All employees of this district are expected to make students their primary professional concern,” Mills said in a statement. “Moreover, as leaders, district administrators have a paramount responsibility to meet the expectations of providing a safe and secure environment for students and staff. Unfortunately, the findings of the Frazier investigation reflect that these administrators failed to fulfill these obligations; causing me to lose all confidence in their abilities to serve as administrators in this district. I further found that just cause exists to terminate their employment.”

The district’s inquiry supported a police investigation that concluded with Frazier being charged with seven counts of battery for alleged lewd behavior toward students and staff at Manatee High. 

Frazier resigned from his post in July. 

In August, the state charged Gagnon, Horne, Faller and Kane with failure to report child abuse, a third-degree felony in Florida. 

Gagnon, Kane and Faller were also charged with lying to police.

All have pleaded not guilty.

Gagnon, also a former principal of Manatee High, was briefly the interim superintendent of the district after Tim McGonegal resigned last September. 

The termination of the administrators will be considered by the school board at its Oct. 14 meeting.