Tampa's Finest

Popular Principal Arrested In Drug Bust
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By KEITH MORELLI The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 23, 2007



TAMPA - Undercover police officers were in place around the lobby of Van Buren Middle School just before school got out Thursday, They posed as parents. Their target was inside the principal's office.

The officers were focused on the popular principal who, they say, arranged a meeting with a bogus drug dealer to buy crack cocaine in his office. The deal was made as students milled about in nearby hallways.

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But in the principal's office, events unfolded that made it Principal Tony Giancola's worst day. When he bought the crack cocaine, police said, he dropped another bomb. He told the undercover officer that he was going to smoke the rock right then and there.

"He said that he wanted to hit it," Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

The officer responded by saying he was uncomfortable with that. Whatever the gray-haired, goateed, 40-year-old principal wanted to do after he left was up to him. When Giancola escorted the undercover officer into the lobby to say goodbye, the other officers swept in.

McElroy said the arrest was as discreet as possible.

"We created the least commotion as possible for the students," she said. He was whisked out of the school and away from the students who affectionately call him Mr. G; from students he occasionally fed pizzas, paid for out of his own pocket; from the needy students he bought yearbooks for.

Giancola was taken to the police District 2 office, a few blocks east of the school, and shuttled to a jail cell. When he was walked to an idling patrol car, a throng of reporters asked him what he had to say to his colleagues, to his teachers, to the students.

"I'm very sorry," he said as he climbed into the back seat, hands bound behind him, a gray sport coat draped over his shoulders.

School officials say Giancola won't be back.

"We are being told the principal is resigning," Hillsborough County school district Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said late Thursday. "We are in full support of the position the police took in handling this."

"I'm very disappointed and upset," Elia said. "Obviously it's unacceptable. Everything that can be done will be done relative to charges. I'm extremely disappointed."
Addiction Began With Marriage Trouble

McElroy said the department's narcotics squad got a tip - not from within the school - about Giancola buying crack cocaine and approached him with a proposition.

Initially, Giancola wanted to purchase $200 worth of crack Thursday night, but something came up, McElroy said.

He changed the meeting to 3 p.m. Thursday at his office, the spokeswoman said. The undercover officer said he would only bring a $20 rock.

Giancola assured the officer that it was no problem meeting in his office, McElroy said. "He said, 'I feel safe in here; I feel secure.'"

He was charged with possession of crack cocaine, possession of marijuana, and solicitation to purchase cocaine on school property, which could add three years to a prison sentence if Giancola is convicted, McElroy said.

He was released on $10,000 bail late Thursday.

Giancola told officers he slipped into crack cocaine addiction a couple of months ago after experiencing marital problems, police said. His wife, Andrea, 36, is a comprehensive science teacher at Monroe Middle School, according to school records.

"He said he is having a lot of personal problems right now and that in December, he tried crack cocaine and became addicted," McElroy said. The principal was smoking $300 to $400 of crack cocaine a day, she said.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show no arrests for Giancola. Court records do not list him in any civil actions. Property appraiser records in Pinellas County show him living at 1406 Tyrone Blvd. N. in St. Petersburg with his wife. A woman who came to the door Thursday night did not want to comment.

Reaction to the arrest could be described in one word: disbelief.

Karen Bierce, who worked in the Van Buren Middle School cafeteria until about three weeks ago, was shocked by the news.

"No way," she said Thursday evening. "He was a good principal. I don't believe that. … He worked really well with the kids."

Bierce said Giancola was professional, and morale at the school was "wonderful."

"There used to be a lot of fights and stuff, and he got rid of a lot of riffraff," she said. "He did not tolerate that in schools."

But, she said, Giancola was compassionate and didn't just kick students out of school when they misbehaved.

"He was fantastic," said Daniel Guerra, who teaches English at the school. "That's all I really have to say."

Tracy Schatzberg, supervisor of school psychological services, said crisis teams would go today to Van Buren, on North 22nd Street south of Busch Boulevard, and the Dorothy Thomas Exceptional Center, where Giancola previously worked.

"They have a lot of questions, and it will be questions of how somebody they trust can do something like this," Schatzberg said. "We tell them that people that we love can and do make bad choices."
Arrest In Front Of Students Called 'Cruel'

Some students described Giancola as friendly and caring, holding pep rallies and buying pizza for the students for no particular reason.

"Our last principal was nice, but Mr. G was even better," seventh-grader Djakobi Brown said. "He paid for our yearbooks because a lot of the kids couldn't afford them, and he really wanted us to have one."

Some parents were upset that Giancola was arrested on the school campus and escorted out in front of students shortly before Van Buren's dismissal time.

"I can't believe they would humiliate him like that," said Shannon Bischel, a parent of a seventh-grader. "We all make mistakes, and to embarrass him like that is cruel considering all he's done for the school."

Bischel said Giancola helped counsel her daughter, Courtney, through difficulties at school.

Van Buren Assistant Principal Allison Edgecomb, daughter of school board member Doretha Edgecomb, will lead the school until a new principal is appointed. Letters will be sent home to parents today. A scheduled pep rally to prepare for next week's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test will take place, school district spokesman Steve Hegarty said.

Giancola graduated in 1990 from the University of South Florida with a bachelor's degree in physical education. He received a master's degree in education of emotionally handicapped students.

He taught emotionally handicapped children in 1991 at Young Middle School and continued working with special education students at Jefferson High in 1997. Two years later, he was appointed as a coordinator at James Exceptional Center and five years later became site administrator at Dorothy Thomas, where his work earned praise from Hillsborough County Children's Services.

Giancola also had glowing reviews in his personnel file, saying he is "dedicated … and willing to go the extra mile."

Some students worried how the arrest will affect the school's reputation.

"People already think we're a bad school," 11-year-old Cassy Estera said. "Now, no one will want to come here."

The news of the arrest changed at least one parent's mind.

"I'm looking around the area and was going to send my children here, but that's not going to happen now," Ed Kimbrough said. "This man has made poor decisions that will affect these children. This principal was a mentor to the children, and he has disappointed them."