BY DENNIS JOYCE
The Tampa Tribune
Published: December 28, 2010
Updated: 10:21 am
TAMPA - A teacher who allowed her sex offender-boyfriend to volunteer with her students at Clearwater High has been recommended for a five-day suspension without pay.
The Pinellas school board will decide at its meeting Jan. 11 whether to approve the suspension for Roseann Sheppard, the school's chorus teacher.
"Ms. Sheppard permitted an unregistered volunteer to work at events both on and off campus," according to a memo to the school board from schools Superintendent Julie Janssen. "The volunteer had a criminal background that would have made him ineligible to volunteer in Pinellas County Schools."
Sheppard told News Channel 8 in October that she didn't know about the criminal past of Cliff Barrineau at the time she allowed him to volunteer with her students. But she said she should have had him register with the school, as required of all volunteers.
"I did the wrong thing by not filling out that form," Sheppard said then. "I admit I made a mistake."
Barrineau spent two years in jail awaiting trial on rape charges in Osceola County before he was judged guilty in 1995 of lewd assault on an 11-year-old girl. His name does not appear on the state's sex-offender registry because the registry wasn't created until 1997.
The memo from Janssen, provided to News Channel 8 following a request under Florida's public records law, caps an investigation by the school district's Office of Professional Standards.
The investigation found Sheppard's offenses included insubordination, defined as failure to obey a direct order, as well as conduct unbecoming a board employee "that brings the district disrepute or that disrupts the orderly process of the district."
A five-day suspension would cost Sheppard $1,050 in pay.
Janssen's memo does not specify how long Sheppard knew about Barrineau's record before she alerted her principal that a man with a criminal past had been working with students.
She told a reporter in October she had had nothing to do with Barrineau for several months, since some time after the couple visited his mother in New York.
"As soon as I found out about Cliff's past, I broke ties with him," Sheppard said then.
But Sheppard didn't tell her principal until after she was approached by News Channel 8.
Here's the sequence of events spelled out in the memo:
"A local television reporter contacted Ms. Sheppard and asked her about an individual that she permitted to volunteer at events held on and off the school campus.
"The reporter had informed Ms. Sheppard that he was familiar with the volunteer and his criminal background. The reporter informed Ms. Sheppard that he planned on running a story about the volunteer and suggested that if she had not informed her supervisor about the situation, she should do so.
"Ms. Sheppard did inform her supervisor and the supervisor immediately informed the Office of Professional Standards (OPS)."
School district officials said they believe no harm came to students through Barrineau's contact with them.
His volunteer work included serving as master of ceremonies for the chorus' medieval dinner in October 2009, helping with the chorus' school year finale, and taking part in a Clearwater High reunion performance.
News Channel 8 revealed in November that Barrineau had been moving freely among children in Pinellas County as a volunteer with Clearwater High and as a videographer working both at horse shows where young people compete and at a youth dance program's production of "Glee."
A prosecutor in Osceola County said Barrineau started working again with children as soon as he was released from jail 15 years ago, landing a job then at a local "Discovery Zone."
Based on the victim's account and the evidence in the Osceola County case, the prosecutor had filed charges including capital sexual battery, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison.
But the victim and her mother agreed to reduced charges on advice from a counselor after repeated trial delays in the case.
Barrineau has declined requests for interviews, but in an e-mail to News Channel 8 he said he never touched the girl or harmed any child. He said he is now the victim of a witch hunt by the girl's mother.
"I AM NOT A MONSTER," Barrineau wrote.
Contact Dennis Joyce at djoyce@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7604.
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