Local

Osceola school dean says school board member intimidated him

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — A high school dean in Osceola County just filed a complaint against a school board member, calling her a bully and claiming she intimidated him when he simply wanted to look at her personnel file.

He also claims that board member's personnel file may have been tampered with and wants the state attorney's office to investigate.

Stuart Singer, the dean of the ninth grade at Osceola High School wanted to take a peek at the personnel file of school board member Barbara Horn.

Singer was looking for a letter of reprimand from 2007.

"And when I got a copy of the file I was in shock. There was no letter of reprimand," Singer said.

The district is investigating to try to find out what happened to the letter.

"To the best of my knowledge the only outsider who ever had access to that file was Barbara Horn," Singer said.

When Singer went to look at the personnel file, he wasn't alone.

Singer claims Horn and the school board attorney were both at district headquarters ready to review the file with him.

"She wanted to exercise control. She wanted to restrict me. She wanted to make me uncomfortable," Singer said.

He said he refused and left.

Horn said in an email the file was to be produced in the large board room to give Singer space and said the board's lawyer was there to assist Singer in the process.

Channel 9 asked the president of the First Amendment Foundation, Barbara Petersen about this.

"It may not be illegal to have the attorney there but it certainly has a dramatic chilling effect on the constitutional right of access to public records," Petersen said.

Singer and Horn haven't been on good terms for years.

The letter of reprimand he was looking for went back to Horn's days as a school bookkeeper when she allegedly broke ethics rules.