Cara Fitzpatrick
With the revelation this week that Suncoast High’s band director ran up a six-figure deficit on two international band trips and took at least six family members to Paris on the district’s dime, a harsh spotlight has been cast again on then-Principal Gloria Crutchfield.
Crutchfield, now a district director, drew fire during her short tenure at the Riviera Beach magnet school for what critics said was a dictatorial attitude and her frequent trips to training seminars in California, Nevada, the Bahamas and Canada.
Now, a special audit of the Suncoast band program has found that Crutchfield approved the requests of long-time band director Ernest Brown to take students to London in 2007 and Paris in 2008 – and, in both years, raided dozens of other school accounts to cover the excess costs when Brown failed to raise enough money.
The total bill for both field trips was $546,981. The total deficit was $107,895.
She also went to Paris with school money.
But it’s Brown, not Crutchfield, who faces disciplinary action.
Brown referred questions to his attorney, whom he hasn’t named. Crutchfield hasn’t returned calls for comment.
Superintendent Art Johnson recommended earlier this week that Brown be suspended without pay for seven days. District officials said it wouldn’t be “prudent” to discuss the reasons for the proposed punishment. On Wednesday, Johnson pulled the recommendation from board consideration after the office of State Attorney Michael McAuliffe said it planned to look into the case .
District officials also haven’t said why Crutchfield isn’t facing disciplinary action.
Crutchfield used the school’s advanced placement money to accompany students on the Paris trip, justifying the expense by visiting two International Baccalaureate schools while she was away, auditors found.
Students, many of whom couldn’t afford to go, had to pay $2,650 each for the Paris trip.
For the Paris trip, auditors found that Brown took his wife, son, two daughters, niece and nephew on the trip for “free or at little cost” by using nearly $15,000 in district money.
About half of the band’s students were able to go on the trip. Nearly as many adults as students attended. Many of the adults were “non-school related” people that school officials haven’t named.
The Palm Beach Post reported in 2007 that Crutchfield and school staff members traveled at least 81 times during Crutchfield’s first 20 months as principal, wracking up about $70,000 in fees, airfare, car rentals, hotel rooms, food, tips and entertainment.
The trips, which were paid for by the district, were for training, but caused a backlash among some parents.
RIVIERA BEACH — Drivers still wait in lines of traffic and obey police to reach the new Suncoast High School in the mornings.
But some residents say the Suncoast traffic is flowing better than it was during the first few hectic days of the school year. And the school district says the traffic jam between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. will be eased in mid-October, when a wider section of West 13th Street is scheduled to open.
Still, some residents remain frustrated by the congested mass of cars winding through their residential streets.
“It’s crazy,” said Erica Gonder, a parent who lives on 13th Street near the Suncoast entrance. “It’s not that we don’t want the school there. They should take a better route.”
Terrence Houvouras, a father of three who lives on 13th Street, worries about cars speeding by his house while his sons play basketball in the driveway.
Houvouras and other residents want speed bumps to be restored when the wider stretch of 13th Street near the school entrance is completed. The school district is not planning speed bumps, nothing that they pose problems for school buses.
“Their only concern is making everyone at Suncoast comfortable,” said Annette Simpson, a 13th Street resident who attended an Aug. 24 meeting with district officials to discuss traffic around the new school. Simpson says speed bumps are needed – especially now that the road in front of her house will be wider and filled with young drivers headed for Suncoast.
Riviera Beach officials are irked, too.
The city withheld water and sewer permits for the new high school last year because the district had failed to make road improvements to handle Suncoast traffic. The utility permits were granted in January after the city and district approved an agreement that called for several improvements: two stoplights, turn lanes on Congress Avenue and a widening of the stretch of 13th Street between Congress Avenue and Jake Lane.
The road work was supposed to have been completed Aug. 1. The city and the school district are working to extend the deadline to Jan. 7.
City officials also are negotiating with the district to pay for the hours that six Riviera Beach police officers spend directing traffic to and from Suncoast.
The acclaimed high school sits on a 70-acre campus that includes John F. Kennedy Middle School and Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary. The high school serves 1,394 students.
To reduce the number of students walking through construction and traffic to reach the three schools, the district recently added bus routes to pick up students at the Spinnaker Landing and Marsh Harbour developments west of Congress Avenue.
But on a recent morning, a student dressed in khaki trousers and a white shirt walked, apparently late for school, around backhoes and bulldozers working on 13th Street near the Suncoast entrance.