SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. — Sumter County Schools Superintendent Logan Brown greeted reporters at the door first thing Monday morning and made no secret of his reasoning to call a rare press conference at the small district: a need to show change was coming as he focused on rebuilding trust.
“We can’t hide kids,” he said. “We have to educate them to the highest standard, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do going forward.”
Less than a year into his tenure, Brown accepted responsibility and blame for a scheme made public by a 53-page report released by the Florida Department of Education last week that said for six years, the district falsified student records in order to boost its ratings and funding.
The plan centered around a program named SOAR. According to the report, the district moved approximately 200 low-performing students out of classrooms in their zoned school and into virtual classes. The investigation found that in some cases, the district never notified parents.
Brown said several staff had been terminated and the administrators involved had left before he took over.
He said the district would not have to give any money back.
“This is something that happened in the past, and we want to go forward and focus on the great things that we’re doing,” he said. “The only thing that I can commit to you as the leader of the school district now is that this will never happen again.”
Online and in-person Monday, residents celebrated the notes of transparency the district was sounding. Mistrust has run deep in some corners of the county, and the response suggested Brown was moving the district in the right direction.
Ironically, three of the four schools involved increased their ratings after SOAR ended and students returned to their normal classrooms. Two of the schools are now A-rated.
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