Aurora Public Schools superintendent finalist talks about connection to criminal investigation of former principal

The investigation into former Gateway principal Ron Fay and his office assistant Jill Watkins, accused of embezzling more than $100,000 has prompted former staff and students to come forward saying they knew something wasn't right, years ago.

Cary Smith was a teacher at Rangeview when Fay and Watkins worked there. The police report highlights concern about mishandling money and grade changes at both schools.

"If you had too many kids failing, he changed your grades," Smith said, "The time it happened to me he didn't even tell me until after."

Kira Nolan was a sophomore at Rangeview when Fay was in charge, she says concern about money and the treatment of his staff promoted her to launch a petition calling for his resignation.

"I tried to call him on it like seven years ago, as a 16-year-old," she said. "You would think that if I could have figured it out that, people in the district could have figured it out. But again, l don't know how widespread the involvement, but I do know that they were turning like a blind eye to what was really happening."

The Aurora police report includes an internal Aurora Public Schools audit and findings from a third-party auditor. 

Both found $60,000 of the money Fay is accused of mishandling was approved for a position at Gateway, a position that was never filled.

Then Chief Academic Officer Andre Wright approved that funding allocation but following up on how it was spent, he says, wasn't his job. 

"That's not something that I managed," Wright said 

"But who is supposed to?"  CBS News Colorado reporter Karen Morfitt questioned.

"The building principal, along with the people they work with from budget and finance," Wright responded. 

So, budget and finance should have followed that," Morfitt asked.

"Absolutely," Wright said.

The third-party audit report states that when asked, Wright provided initial information about what the money was approved for, "but would not commit to an interview time and ultimately stopped responding to requests." 

"I provided the data," Wright said.

"And then when they asked for the follow-up..." Morfitt asked.

"Yeah, at that point I said, 'No, I've told you what you needed to know,'" Wright said.

The same audit included information from teachers as well as many who claimed Fay pushed them to change grades.

An internal memo sent to Wright, obtained by CBS News Colorado shows Gateway recorded 484 transcript grade changes in 2019-2020, which was Fay's first year as principal.

That is a rate 53% higher than the next closest school. When concerns were raised, Wright says he, along with five others in various positions from the district, launched an investigation.

"Did you feel like there was any wrongdoing when it came to grade changing?" Morfitt asked Wright.

"No, not from what we found," he said. 

Wright says their investigation found many of those grade changes went from incomplete back to Fs and while some were found to be from other schools many of those left, they verified as changes made by teachers.

"No one ever expressed to you that they were told by Mr. Fay to do that?" Morfitt asked.

"No. No one ever did that," Wright said 

"And had that concern been raised, that would have been something you investigated?" Morfitt questioned.

"Absolutely," Wright added.

But the same memo sent to Wright that launched the investigation includes detailed cases from named teachers who say they were pressured to change grades and either left the school or were fired when they pushed back. 

Wright, when asked about the timing of all of this, says nothing is accidental. He also shared similar information about his involvement in the Gateway investigation to the APS school board Monday night as he vies to be the next superintendent.

Wright says looking back at the Fay investigation, he would like to see APS put new systems in place to flag inappropriate spending based on purchases, rather than a spending amount.

He also says following their investigation into grade changes, he recommended a change in reporting structure for the following year.