Bellport: Board prez fires back at 'attack'

The president of the South Country Central School Board, in a letter he read Wednesday night on behalf of six board members, accused three other members of violating ethics rules for writing an open letter last week calling for him and the vice president to resign.

"President Victor Correa, and Vice-President Kevin Kirk, as well as the 'majority of the Board' have come under attack by trustees, Lisa Grossman, Rob Powell, and Jeanette Mistler," said the letter, which was read by Correa after a budget meeting. "They have committed a deliberate and overt violation of the Code of Ethics For Board of Education."

Signed by six board members, the letter is a tart response to one that Mistler, Grossman and Powell wrote and sent to area media outlets early last week.

The charges are being traded as the district awaits the final independent report on an investigation into whether administrators at Bellport High School collaborated to change a star football player's grades last year to help him secure a scholarship.

The grade-change accusations surfaced when former Bellport High School Principal Kevin O'Connell filed legal action alleging he was fired because he did not make an effort to enhance gridiron star Ryan Sloan's grades so the student could get a scholarship to Syracuse University.

A preliminary report of the investigation found the grades were in fact inflated and that Superintendent Joe Cipp "must have been involved or must have known what was going on."

The three members who wrote last week's letter said Correa and Kirk "failed to carry out their elected duties when they failed to reveal the initial allegations about grade changes to the entire Board," a charge that Kirk flatly denied when the letter was released last week. Correa declined to comment.

The letter released Wednesday night also accused Grossman, Mistler and Powell of "grandstanding," with an eye toward two members' re-election campaigns. "The result of this cowardly act is the formation of a kangaroo court in the media that has attempted to convict some us of withholding information," it read. "This is completely untrue."

Joanne Long-Merrill, a resident for 25 years, gave the board a petition she said was signed by 119 people. It demanded the resignation of Correa and Kirk and the suspension of Cipp, as well as the ouster of building administrator Greg Miglino. Kirk told her that she does not know what she is talking about. "You have some nerve," he said before telling her to go back to her seat.