2 resign as Valley Forge Military faces questions on grades

Citing an alleged grade-changing scandal and a new "trustee agreement" that would "stifle . . . debate" among alumni worried about the future of Valley Forge Military Academy & College, two top academy officials have quit in protest in the last six weeks.

Richard E. Robitaille, a former dean, quit Aug. 26, alleging that he had been ordered to change several students' failing grades so they could graduate. In one case, his resignation letter states, he also received "harassing" phone calls from the father of one academically struggling cadet.

The other official, John R. Rapp, president of the VFMAC Alumni Association, resigned from the academy's board of trustees last Friday, saying he was refusing to sign a new trustee agreement because he felt doing so would "stifle or discourage open debate among the Alumni."

Copies of both resignation letters have been obtained by the Daily News.

For months now, alumni, parents and cadets of the academy, in Wayne, have been buzzing on the Internet and via e-mail about charges that a top academy administrator ordered that some students' grades be changed at their parents' requests.

The school says an independent investigation found the allegations to be "without merit." The executive committee of the board of trustees met Friday to review the investigation and agreed with the conclusions, said Jen Myers, director of marketing and communications for the school.

Myers did not identify the investigator, saying only that he was a former member of the VFMAC board of trustees.

But alumni members chatting on a "Save Valley Forge" Internet discussion board dismissed the idea that an independent investigation could be conducted by a former board member.

The following posts were found on that discussion board yesterday:

"A former member of the Board of Trustees was tasked to investigate the allegations of 'Grade Changing.' Let us know what you think. Was it real? Or just a way to 'whitewash' the whole affair."

A reply to that message said:

"This sounds a little like asking the Klu Klux Klan to [enforce] the civil rights bill."

Robitaille, former interim dean of the academy and former associate dean of the college, wrote his blistering five-page resignation letter Aug. 26. It was addressed to academy president Tony McGeorge and later was distributed to the board of trustees and many of the alumni.

Robitaille, who now works at another school, cited nine cases in which grades allegedly were changed after their parents contacted the administrator.

In seven of the nine cases, Robitaille said that he was the person who had been ordered to change students' grades. Two other cases involved other instructors.

In a copy of the letter obtained by the Daily News, the names of the cadets are left blank.

In one case, Robitaille said a student had "14 unauthorized absences" and had received an "F" in the course. He wrote that the cadet's father "made "harassing phone calls . . . demanding that I change his grade."

Robitaille said he had refused, so the father called an administrator, who then ordered Robitaille to "change his grade from an 'F' to a 'B'.

"I disagreed with this decision and voiced my objections for nearly an hour to such an act," he wrote.

Contacted by e-mail, Robitaille replied, "I assure you that my letter is totally true." But he and other sources said academy officials have contacted his current employer and are trying to discredit him.

"I have been warned not to speak to the press," he wrote to the Daily News.

Contacted yesterday, Rapp said his resignation had nothing to do with the grade-changing allegations.

He said he resigned because he believed he could not adequately represent alumni members' concerns if he agreed to sign a new trustee agreement.

"The letter speaks for itself," Rapp said.

"My decision to resign . . . is also based on my belief that my honesty and outspokenness in representing Alumni concerns became a bone of contention between us," Rapp wrote in the Oct. 5 letter addressed to Bill Floyd, chairman of the VFMAC trustees.

"I felt that Alumni deserved to know my honest opinion when asked. Signing the new Trustee Agreement would have prevented that," the letter said.

By phone yesterday, Rapp declined to elaborate on what the new agreement required. *