Sarasota Schools Overhauls HR After Investigation into Riverview High

The school district is moving misconduct investigations out of the human resources department to a new office to address systemic failures in how complaints are handled and investigated.

• •Sarasota County Schools is moving misconduct investigations out of the human resources department into a separate office.
• •A third-party report by Hultman + Joshi found that district leadership mishandled complaints regarding cheating, sexual harassment, and misuse of school resources.
• •The report identified a 'culture of fear and mistrust' where staff who filed complaints were sometimes investigated themselves.
• •One complaint involved a Spanish teacher in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program allegedly helping students cheat on oral exams.
• •A second complaint involved a teacher allegedly making inappropriate sexualized comments to female students.
• •A third complaint involved an IB coordinator allegedly profiting from a personal business using school facilities and resources.
• •The report author, Nikhil Joshi, acknowledged a prior business relationship with the IB coordinator whose conduct he investigated.
• •The district previously cleared the accused teachers in internal investigations starting in 2020.
• •The Spanish teacher accused of cheating no longer teaches the course in question.
• •The district did not publicly release the report, which was obtained by Suncoast Searchlight.