Bellport board members call for ousters

Three members of the South Country Central School District board of education have called for the ouster of their own president and vice president after a preliminary report said Bellport High School officials inflated a football star's grades to help him gain a scholarship.

The board members, Lisa DiSanto Grossman, Jeannette Mistler and Rob Powell, also demanded the suspension of district employees who are found to have played a role in the "grade changing scandal" in an open letter sent Tuesday to the rest of the nine-member board.

"In order to restore true leadership to the South Country Central School District, we call upon both the board president and vice president to resign their positions," read the letter, written by Grossman on behalf of the other two members. "Both have failed to carry out their elected duties when they failed to reveal the initial allegations about grade changes to the entire board."

Board president Victor Correa and vice president Kevin Kirk could not be reached for comment.

The missive is the latest development in an alleged grade-fixing scandal that erupted after Kevin O'Connell of Patchogue claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired by Superintendent Joe Cipp Jr. from his position as principal of Bellport High School because he did not take steps to inflate Ryan Sloan's grades.

Sloan, now a freshman at Syracuse University, has said he improved his grades on his own.

The letter was crafted as a plea "to every member of the board to move beyond personalities and preconceived notions so as to focus on what was, and is, in the best interest of all the children of our district."

It cited specifically Correa and Kirk, asking them to step down, while declining to single out district employees for suspension. The letter also did not mention Cipp, the top administrator at the center of the scandal.

It said Correa admitted that he "provided the confidential report to the subjects of the investigation prior to the contents being leaked to the press and disclosed to district residents."

Neither district officials nor the attorney representing the district could be reached for comment.

But the independent investigation into the matter preliminarily found that Cipp "must have been involved or must have known what was going on," adding that he "created an atmosphere of pressure upon the administration to make sure Ryan Sloan got the NCAA scholarship."

The letter concludes, "We unequivocally believe that any position related to education is a sacred trust. The current board majority and members of the school district administration have clearly broken that trust."