Introducing: The finalists for St. Johns County school superintendent

The St. Johns County School District is on the hunt for a new superintendent, and the School Board is getting closer — they’re down to just four finalists to succeed retiring Superintendent Tim Forson.

Of the finalists to lead the highly rated school district, one has served briefly as superintendent in another Florida school district, and another has been at the center of controversy after complaints about his behavior.

Scott Schneider

Scott Schneider currently serves as Duval County Public Schools’ chief of schools. Before that, Schneider was a regional superintendent overseeing high schools including Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Before that, Schneider worked as a principal and a teacher.

Schneider has consistently received promotions during his career at Duval County Public Schools. He was pormoted twice in two years, rising from a principal’s job to a position in the superintendent’s cabinet.

He also touts his work in “exceptional student education,” or ESE.

But he also has been at the center of controversy.

In 2021, an individual calling himself John Smith filed a harassment complaint against Schneider and asked that the district investigate Schneider’s behavior.

Smith alleged that Schneider abused his position of authority to obtain his wife’s personal phone number and that he texted her unsolicited messages complimenting her on her appearance. 

Smith also claimed that his wife was not the only subject of Schneider’s behavior. 

In addition to Smith’s complaint, the district received a second complaint about comments Schneider made to women around the same time. The school district’s investigation into Schneider included interviewing a number of female staff members from the district.

One interviewee said she received an unsolicited message of a “poster of a scantily dressed female with blonde hair” with a message that read, “Every time I see this picture, I think of you.”

Records obtained by Jacksonville Today indicate that the district never interviewed Smith’s wife because Smith was told she would not be able to remain anonymous. Documents show the final email in correspondence between Smith and the district came from Smith.

“Just checking to see if you received my previous 3 emails,” Smith wrote. “No responses have been sent since I provided screenshots of Scott Schneider’s Facebook messenger with time stamps to prove this isn’t a made up story.”

The investigation wrapped up in 2022. DCPS Supervisor Reginald Johnson wrote that because Smith declined to set up an interview between school district staff and his wife about the allegations of sexual harassment, the district could not corroborate them.

“As of the date of this report,” Johnson wrote, “Mr. Smith had not responded.”

He also did not respond to Jacksonville Today.

In the investigation, Johnson wrote that there was no evidence to support the allegation that Schneider had “engaged in inappropriate communication.” 

“The allegation is ‘Not Substantiated,’” Johnson wrote. “However, the alleged pattern of behavior by Mr. Schneider is concerning and should be addressed by his supervisor.”

Schneider told Jacksonville Today that then-Superintendent Diana Greene did not agree with Johnson’s suggestion. But he believes that leaders should reflect on their past actions. 

“As a true leader, you should always reflect on anything. Whether it was an anonymous complaint or an anonymous allegation, you should still always reflect,” Schneider said. “Is there anything that someone might have viewed as being out of line? As a leader, you should always do that.”

Another source of controversy during Schneider’s Duval Schools career came while he was principal of Riverside High School.

Schneider was named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit by a teacher who alleged that Schneider singled her out because of her work with at-risk youth and for displaying a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom. 

Amy Donofrio led the EVAC Movement at Riverside (then known as Robert E. Lee High School), a program that allowed for students who had experienced violence, death and other traumatic incidents in their lives to share their experiences and work past the stigmas associated with them. 

Donofrio alleged in her lawsuit that the district had allowed Schneider to interfere with EVAC by removing her from a teaching position at the school. She also claimed that Schneider created a hostile work environment for her and a tense environment for some of her Black students when Riverside (and DCPS at large) followed the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s lead and banned clothing that acted as a memorial for people who have died. 

Donofrio was ultimately fired, but she reached a $300,000 settlement with DCPS. 

Schneider says the incident with Donofrio sparked “crucial discussions” at his school and at the district level about student expression, discipline, leadership and accountability.

“I just want to again emphasize the fact that my decision as a district leader has and has always been and will continue to be consistent with guiding the policy and safety of what I believe is best in the interest of teachers and the students at the time, for sure,” he said. “And that won’t ever change.”

Ultimately, with the controversy behind him, Schneider says he believes he brings a lot to the table as a candidate for St. Johns County Schools’ next superintendent. He says his close work with past DCPS superintendents has given him insight into the job.

“I know how to work with the board to understand the initiatives that the board feels are a priority,” Schneider said. “But at the same time, have one foot at the cabinet level … and then still have one foot grounded with schools in reference to being a practitioner.”

Schneider also previously applied in 2023 to be Duval County’s superintendent.

Brennan Asplen

Another finalist to be St. Johns County Schools’ next superintendent has experience as a superintendent himself. 

Deputy Superintendent Brennan Asplen spent nearly 15 years working with the St. Johns County School District before he resigned in 2020 and took a job as superintendent of Sarasota County Public Schools. 

Asplen served in that role for two years, leading the district through the tumultuous early years of the COVID-19 pandemic until the School Board ousted him in 2022. 

The 2022 election changed the makeup of Sarasota’s School Board, and the board’s conservative majority, led by then-School Board Member Bridget Ziegler, the cofounder of the conservative activist group Moms For Liberty, vowed to replace Asplen.

Asplen received positive evaluations and feedback during his brief tenure as superintendent, but the board’s new conservative majority thought Asplen — who is a Republican — didn’t do a good enough job enforcing the state’s newly passed parental rights laws. He also was criticized for his decision to enforce a COVID-19-related mask mandate despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order against doing so. 

The board repealed the district’s mask mandate just two months after it was passed. After the repeal, Asplen said that the policy had served its purpose and that keeping it on the books would risk involving Sarasota County Schools in a legal battle with the state.

The Sarasota County School Board didn’t fire Asplen, but the board agreed to end his contract ahead of schedule, functionally forcing him to retire. 

In 2022, WUSF reported that Asplen said the decision was just “politics,” and he stands by that today.

He hopes that St. Johns County will see his experience as a superintendent in Sarasota as a positive. In addition to the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asplen led the district through a major hurricane and the creation of a new comprehensive plan.

“Anytime you make decisions, especially back then during the political environment, there seemed to be a lot of people, one month they think you’re on the left, one month they think you’re on the right,” Asplen told Jacksonville Today, “and you can’t please everyone, and the superintendent position is not to please politically, but to do the best for students and the school district.”

After his ousting in Sarasota, Asplen returned in 2023 to St. Johns County, where he was hired as the district’s deputy superintendent of operations.

Two more candidates

Two additional finalists are in the running to be St. Johns County Schools’ next superintendent.

They are Marianne Simon and Kyle Dresback. Simon is Duval County Public Schools’ elementary region superintendent, and Dresback is St. Johns County Schools’ regional superintendent for secondary and alternative schools.

Simon spent years as a principal in Duval County and previously applied to be superintendent in Duval County and Sarasota County after Asplen’s job opened up. 

Dresback has worked in St. Johns County schools since 1996, starting as a teacher and working in a number of other roles from purchasing director to principal. Dresback served as Allen D. Nease High School’s principal for seven years until he took a job at the school district’s administrative office. 

Both Dresback and Simon have consistently received positive evaluations during their education careers. 

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People will have an opportunity to hear directly from each of the finalists during public School Board interviews starting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the St. Johns County School Board administrative building, 40 Orange St. The interviews also will be broadcast live online. 

More information can be found at the School Board’s website.

After the interviews, the superintendent finalists will travel to First Coast Technical College (2980 Collins Ave. in St. Augustine) for a public meet and greet event that begins at 6 p.m.