Torres: Flying to Venus would be quicker than this Brevard Public Schools' investigation

You could have successfully completed drug rehabilitation or flown a spacecraft to Venus in less time than it has taken Brevard Public Schools to complete its investigation into whether school board member Gene Trent lied about being arrested on his employment application.

I'm not kidding.

On average, it has taken 130 days for spacecraft leaving our planet to reach our closest non-moon neighbor, Venus. Interestingly enough, that's also the estimated time to get clean and sober as an outpatient.

It's been 130 days (give or take) since BPS spokesman Russell Bruhn confirmed that the district's HR department was looking at whether Trent disclosed details of his arrests in the 1990s for battery and a violation of an alcohol-related ordinance on his job application or not. For those keeping score at home, we reported that on Oct. 26, 2022, just a few days before Trent was elected to the school board.

We already know the arrests happened, and Trent willingly answered a FLORIDA TODAY reporter's questions about them in the run-up to the election. No convictions followed. One was an arrest for battery, in which Trent has said he was trying to protect his spouse from a bartender who was behaving inappropriately. The other was for violating an alcohol ordinance about serving beer after hours to an employee after the restaurant they were working in was closed.

So, it's just a matter of digging out Trent's 2015 employment application to see what it says. Was he honest or not?

Sounds simple, right? Certainly not as complicated as having to fly to Venus or kick a drug habit.

"This investigation is still open and we do not comment on open investigations," Bruhn informed me this week via email. A few weeks ago he sent this: "The investigation is still open. I do not have a timeline on when it will be completed ―although I am hopeful it will happen within the next two weeks. After that, like any BPS investigation, the employee has the ability to appeal. If an appeal is filed, the investigation remains open until the appeals process is completed."

More:Brevard schools removes Cocoa councilman as substitute; complaint came through Gene Trent

In both emailed responses to my queries, Bruhn did not address my requests to know what the investigation entailed beyond pulling Trent's job application and eyeballing it. I didn't want to be critical in case the investigation was much more involved.

But then I heard about LaVander Hearn's case. You know, the firefighter and Cocoa City Councilman who made it out of the rough streets of his youth to make himself a success. Well, it seems that Trent passed along a complaint on Jan. 13 claiming Hearn was not completely honest about his BPS application to work as a substitute teacher.

BPS investigated as it should. That investigation took BPS five days to complete and impose a one-year ban. Hearn said he "didn't recall" withholding anything about his record on any application to BPS, where he said he has been a substitute teacher since 2020 at Cocoa High, Endeavor Elementary and Golf View Elementary.

Hmm. So in the time it takes your hamburger to go from yummy guilty pleasure to fecal matter, routinely two to five days, BPS investigated and banned Hearn from the classroom.

Double-standard?

I'd like to give BPS the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to think that nothing nefarious is happening and this is just a case of incompetence. But you know that nagging feeling in your gut that just won't go away? I would urge whomever BPS is using to "investigate" (look at Trent's job application) to stop what they are doing and employ the same procedures used in the Hearn investigation.

For some reason that method proved to be a lot more effective.

Contact Torres at 321-242-3684 or at jtorres@floridatoday.com. You can follow him on Twitter @johnalbertorres or on Facebook at facebook.com/FTjohntorres.

Support local journalism and become a subscriber. Visit floridatoday.com/subscribe

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard schools probe into Cocoa councilman, board member differ, why?