Mariner High School and the Lee County (Fla.) School District have placed head football coach Tyran Jones on administrative leave with just one week to go until the start of the school year.
WINK News reported that Jones was suspended following an overnight incident at a football team-building event.
The high school and school district administrators immediately launched an investigation into the incident to determine if students were put at risk or district policies were violated. School board chairman Armor Persons said that appropriate accountability and corrective action could be taken, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Persons also publicly stated that the investigation and subsequent suspension would not be on Monday night’s school board meeting agenda; however, parents told WINK News that they planned to take action and voice their opinions at the meeting regardless.
“It's not on our agenda because it's being investigated and It'll go through all sorts of processes there,” said Persons. “I imagine it could well be brought up during public comment though.”
Despite the district’s attempts to keep details of the investigation confidential, News-Press reported new information from student-athletes and families close to the incident. Allegedly, student-athletes were left unsupervised at a school lock-in and a hazing incident occurred. Those allegations have not been confirmed by school officials, but have been shared widely on social media.
“Well, when it happened, we were notified by the attorney that there had been a suspension of a coach for an incident that happened with some football players, overnight, that. So that's about all that as far as the details that I really know at this particular time,” Persons said.
