They punted.
A Long Island school board unanimously voted to appoint an independent investigator to find out whether a legendary football coach-turned-schools superintendent pressured subordinates to inflate the grades of a star player so he could get a football scholarship to Syracuse University.
The Bellport board’s decision to hire an outside lawyer for the probe came after dramatic arguments from the public both for and against embattled ex-Bellport HS Coach Joe Cipp Jr. — and avoided expected calls from some board members that Cipp be temporarily suspended as superintendent pending an internal investigation.
The move came as more than 300 people turned out for the meeting, some wearing jerseys and jackets featuring the insignia of Bellport’s football team.
The Post on Monday revealed that ex-Bellport Principal Kevin O’Connell was planning to sue the school district over his firing last summer which he claimed occurred after he resisted pressure from Cipp to change the grades of all-state lineman Ryan Sloan so that he could be eligible for a full scholarship to Syracuse.
In a deposition, O’Connell said that after a meeting which involved himself, Cipp, Assistant Superintendent Nelson Briggs, Sloan and Sloan’s guardians, unidentified school officials changed Sloan’s senior algebra mark from an F to a D.
He also said in the filing that Briggs ordered Sloan’s sophomore algebra and junior geometry final grades changed from D’s to C’s.
Cipp denied O’Connell’s allegations in an interview with The Post, and later said he would recommend the board conduct its own internal probe of O’Connell’s allegation. He reiterated those denials to the school board tonight.
After going into executive session, the schools board emerged into a public session voted 9-0 to to hire a Mellville, LI-based lawyer named Bronwyn Black to conduct an independent investigator of O’Connell’s allegations.
The board then listened to more than dozen speakers who spoke both in favor and against Cipp.
Black, who specializes in elder law, is a former prosecutor in the Suffolk County District Attorneys Office, and a former director of the Suffolk County Bar Association, according to the Web site of her family law firm, Black & Black.