Fired Bellport principal files lawsuit

The former principal of Bellport High School has filed a lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired for not taking steps to inflate a standout football player's grades.

Kevin O'Connell of Patchogue, whose last day as an employee of the South Country Central School District was June 30, 2011, last month filed the suit claiming he was wrongfully terminated because he would not either fix Ryan Sloan's grades so he could be eligible for a scholarship to Syracuse University or order the student's math teacher to do so.

O'Connell was dismissed "for his failure to participate in activities which were in clear violation of the law," reads the lawsuit, which names as defendants the South Country Central Board of Education, Joseph Cipp Jr., superintendent of the district and the former football coach, Nelson Briggs, assistant superintendent, and Victor Correa, president of the board of education.

O'Connell had sought to settle the matter through the school district. He was then asking for $51,000 in lost wages. The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Riverhead, seeks unspecified damages that would exceed that amount.

"Petitioner's dismissal was solely due to his failure to comply with the immoral, improper and unlawful requests and/or desires of" the defendants, it reads.

Gregory J. Guercio, a Farmingdale-based attorney representing the South Country Central defendants, said an independent investigation would be finished soon, adding, "The important thing is to get it right."

A review conducted by the district of the actions of the school's administrators, initiated by Cipp after media inquiries, found no improper conduct.

Attorneys for O'Connell could not be reached for comment but he said Tuesday that he stands by his claims.

"I know wrongdoing took place," he said when reached by phone Tuesday night. "I know those grades were changed."

O'Connell, now an administrator in the Roosevelt school district, said Cipp who was the school's football coach for 32 years until retiring last year, and other administrators pushed subordinates to raise Sloan's math scores to meet NCAA standards and to be eligible for the scholarship.

Sloan graduated in June and is a freshman at Syracuse and is a member of the football team.

The spat puts at odds a relatively new principal -- O'Connell was hired in August of 2010 --- and a Bellport legend with the distinction of winning more football games than any other coach in Suffolk history.

The lawsuit claims that the student's poor grades were brought to O'Connell's attention at a meeting on April 13, 2011, where it was decided that Sloan would receive extra academic help to boost his grades. He needed to do well in the final academic quarter in order to pass math and be eligible for the scholarship and meet NCAA guidelines.

Twelve days after that, he received a notice informing him that he would be recommended for dismissal at the next school board meeting. And three days after that, the lawsuit said, O'Connell received a letter telling him not to bother coming to work any more.

At that May 25 meeting, he was terminated.

With Mitchell Freedman

and Jo Napolitano