Charles S. Rushe Middle School

Charles S. Rushe Middle School is a Pasco County Public School located in Land O' Lakes, Florida. It serves students in grades 6 through 8. The school was built to relieve overcrowding at Pine View Middle School. It is located in the Concord Station development adjacent to Sunlake High School, where most Rushe graduates will attend. It was the district's first three-story school and the district plans to repeat the design for future middle schools. The school opened in 2007 and was named after Charles Rushe, who served as the school district's chief finance officer for nearly twenty years and died in October 2006 after a short battle with lung cancer.
Controversies
The school received international attention after substitute teacher Jim Piculas claimed that he was fired for performing a magic trick in front of students, specifically, making a toothpick disappear. Shortly thereafter, he received a call from Pat Sinclair, a supervisor in the school district's human resources department who told Piculas he was accused of wizardry. An assistant superintendent said that he was removed for other reasons, such as not following lesson plans, using inappropriate language in front of students, allowing students to play on computers, and telling a student peer she was in charge of the class. The incident was even profiled on Comedy Central's Colbert Report with school board member Kathryn Starkey being interviewed for the story and being turned into a frog. Piculas filed a lawsuit against the school district because of the damage to his reputation and his inability to get a job.
In March 2009, language arts teacher Kylene Nelson appeared intoxicated at school and was dancing in her classroom. A blood-alcohol test found she had a level of 0.26, more than three times the legal limit. She ran off campus and was chased through a nearby neighborhood by an employee relations supervisor. She passed out by a recreational center pool. In her class, students took pictures and videos with their cell phones, although they were told to erase them by school administrators. A student, whose identity was protected to avoid getting in trouble, told a local TV station that Nelson reeked of alcohol and was making strange faces during her first-period language arts class. Later, music was turned on and, students say, Nelson began grabbing them and demanding they dance and threatening to fail them if they didn't. "I haven't had sex in twenty years, at least dance with me!", she said. Nelson partially exposed her buttocks while dancing with a 13-year-old boy, without wearing underwear. She was placed in protective custody at a mental health facility and hospitalized under the state's Baker act. She resigned shortly thereafter, and told her story to a national audience on Inside Edition in which she apologized for the incident. This was not her first incident. In October 2006, while teaching at Seven Springs Middle School, she did not show up for a third period class. She was found in her car passed out by two assistant principals and the school resource officer. Bottles of wine were throughout the car. Superintendent Heather Fiorentino considered firing her, but let her take an unpaid leave of absence and complete a substance abuse class. She transferred to Rushe the following school year when it opened.

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