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She Took Teacher's Paperwork, Got Jobs, Sarasota Police Say

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By ANTHONY CORMIER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: July 10, 2008

SARASOTA - One day last year, Susan Davidson Bell was copying her resume and struck up a conversation with a teacher who was doing the same thing.

Bell told the teacher about job openings at a local charter school. She was headed there the next day for an interview and offered to take the teacher's resume along with her.

But instead of helping the woman find work, Bell stole the woman's identity and her teaching certificate and used them to persuade administrators at the Suncoast School for Innovative Studies to give her a job as a teacher, according to the Sarasota Police Department.

A felon, Bell taught first grade there in 2007, earning $14,000. But school officials got suspicious, fired her and called the police.

A few weeks after being fired, Bell got another teaching job at the private Brickhouse Academy by using the same resume.

Police have been looking for Bell since February, when they obtained an arrest warrant for the fraud at Suncoast School. Detectives finally found her when the warrants division got a tip that her car had been repossessed.

She was arrested Tuesday and charged with identity theft, fraud and using a counterfeit teaching certificate. She was released from jail on bail a short time later.

"It's not the first time she's done something like this," said Detective Jack Carter.

Bell has been charged at least nine other times with fraud and larceny.

In fact, she was convicted in 2002 when she gave Sarasota County School District officials forged recommendation letters and a phony teaching certificate when she applied for a job at Opportunity High School. She was not hired.

Later that year, she was arrested for taking out a credit card in her ex-husband's name. She spent $14,000 on the card at local pawnshops, court records show. She was caught when her ex-husband was rejected for a loan.

Both cases landed Bell on probation. It is not clear whether Bell has hired an attorney after her arrest. A man who answered the phone at her home Wednesday hung up when a reporter called.

At Suncoast, the Bell incident led Daniel Rey, the school's new executive director, to tighten the way applicants are reviewed.

The school has about 250 students and 13 teachers.

Rey, who was not the director when Bell was hired, said charter schools sometimes hire teachers who are working toward a certificate or who have obtained certificates in other states.

He said the school will now make sure its teachers are certified in Florida before they start the job. "Some charter schools have that reputation. We have made a lot of changes, however," he said.

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