DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The former Mainland High School principal who had been placed on administrative leave was assigned to teach a class that never happened — but the students still got grades at the end of the year, a second investigation into the administrator has determined.

Dr. Cheryl Salerno retired from Volusia County Schools last week.

The second investigation found that she was supposed to teach a Speech I class with nine students, but investigators found that "no such class was taught and no evidence in the grade book exists of graded student assignments," district documents obtained by Spectrum News 13 show.

But all nine students got an A. The assistant principal told investigators that "all but one were senior athletes," the documents say.

“This is something I’ve never heard of and I’ve been in the business now almost 40 years,” Volusia School Board Chairman Carl Persis said Thursday.

Persis said he's uncertain what will happen to the credit that the athletes earned unfairly.

The second investigation also determined that Salerno assigned two teachers to counselor positions when they were not qualified to work as counselors.

“The real issue there was when they were referred to as counselors, when in fact, in no way shape or form were they counselors," Persis said.

According to the documents, county Superintendent Tim Egnor was going to recommend that Salerno be fired at the August 28 school board meeting based on those findings. But she submitted her retirement notice August 6.

Salerno will be entitled to her full retirement benefits, Persis said.

Salerno been the subject of two investigations, the first initiated after it was determined that fake AP exams were given to hundreds of students at the Daytona Beach high school.

The second probe came about after investigators looking into the AP test issue noticed discrepancies in the master schedule, which uncovered evidence of the bogus class and unqualified counselors.

We called Salerno for her side of the story, but she hung up.

“Dr. Salerno specifically really abused the power that she had at the cost of her kids,” parent Jen Reilly said.