Boca Raton Preschool Owner Arrested In Gifted Student Scam

 The owner of Royal Palm Montessori School in West Boca Raton is accused of providing fake gifted certification documents to the Palm Beach County School District. The fake documents led to multiple students being identified as “Gifted” and receiving gifted education benefits. Police arrested Royal Palm Montessori owner Dayami Rodriguez and charged her with multiple counts of fraud. She was arrested and released on $6,000 bond.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office was tipped to the alleged scheme by the Gifted certified instructor whose name was used on the forms. The teacher hadn’t worked for Royal Palm Montessori since 2001.According to PBSO which investigated and arrested Dayami Rodriguez, the forms all involved students now enrolled at Sandpiper Shores Elementary School in West Boca Raton. It was not immediately clear if the students are still enrolled in gifted education programs The School District does not discuss individual students.

BocaNewsNow.com obtained the arrest report which reveals details of the investigation. We are publishing the entire arrest report through a link at the end of this story. These are highlights from affidavit of probable cause:

“The Royal Palm Montessori Academy (RPMA), located at 12532 Cobblestone Way, unincorporated Boca Raton, County of Palm Beach, Florida, 33428, is a Pre-K school which educates children from the age of two to five who have not entered kindergarten yet. This is a private education institution and is not associated with the Palm Beach County School Board (PBCSB) school system. At the beginning of each school year, the RPMA holds an open house and usually invites a psychologist to provide information to parents about the Gifted program and how to have their child evaluated. The parents themselves make arrangements to hire a psychologist to have their child evaluated. If the child scores above a 130, they are classified as gifted. The psychologist will forward the evaluation to the parents of the child as well as the school the student is zoned for. In this case, the school is Sandpiper Shores Elementary.”

“Sandpiper Shores Elementary, not knowing any of the student’s abilities, sends a Gifted Characteristics Checklist (GCC) to the RPMA for the student’s teacher to fill out. The Gifted Characteristics Checklists (GCC) are forms sent by PBCSB schools to private institutions when a public school receives registration information for a future student that has been certified as gifted by a psychologist. The receiving public school sends the private institution this checklist to get an idea of the student’s aptitude and abilities. The GCC is to be signed by a Florida Certified teacher before it can be accepted by the PBCSB. If the student’s teacher isn’t certified by the State of Florida, the form can be co-signed by a Florida Certified Teacher along with the student’s original teacher. Once completed, the private institution emails a copy of the completed form back to the PBCSB public school. In this case, between 2019 and 2022, Owner and Principal of the RPMA, Dayami Rodriguez, received 8 GCC forms for 8 students who were evaluated as gifted by a psychologist and were being registered as new students at Sandpiper Shores Elementary. Rodriguez was sent GCCs for more information on the 8 students due to their gifted evaluation.

Of the 8 GCCs sent to the RPMA, 7 GCCs listed RPMA teachers along with a “Jennifer Wisnoski” and 1 GCC only listed “Jennifer Wisnoski” as the teacher. Wisnoski hasn’t worked for the RPMA since 2001.”

Gifted education certification in Palm Beach County is big business as parents attempt to enroll their children — who may not be that bright — in gifted programs which tend to have fewer students and, frequently, better teachers. Parents of young children often speak of Psychologists and programs in Palm Beach County that help parents obtain gifted certifications for their kids, regardless of the child’s true academic ability. The Palm Beach County School District routinely removes children from the Gifted program in third grade if they are under-performing. Whether Rodriguez’s arrest is representative of a larger effort to crush the alleged pay-for-play gifted credential system in Palm Beach County is unclear. It was also not immediately clear if parents were aware of the alleged scam.