The band director at Clearwater High School abruptly resigned Feb. 4, one day after his principal filed a report detailing concerns about the teacher’s “inappropriate relationship” with a student.
Matthew Olsavsky, 34, had worked at the school since August 2024. He has been tagged as ineligible for any other jobs in the Pinellas County school district.
District officials confirmed the action Thursday, and said they would not comment further. Olsavsky’s wife declined to comment or make her husband available when reached by phone.
Rumors have circulated on social media for the past week about what had happened to Olsavsky after students found they had no director for their band classes or activities. Few concrete details were available until the district’s investigation file became public.
According to that file, which was shared Thursday with the Tampa Bay Times, Clearwater High principal Robert Florio contacted the district Office of Professional Standards on Feb. 3 to report that he had learned Olsavsky had an inappropriate relationship with a student throughout the first semester.
The report stated that Olsavsky demonstrated “early warning signs of a teacher grooming a student.” Those included spending one-on-one time with the student, treating the student like a peer, providing private counseling sessions, privately texting the student unrelated to school work, communicating late at night, and hugging, according to the documents.
The report included 45 pages of photos of text messages from Olsavsky to the student, whose name was redacted. The messages had time stamps of 1 a.m. and later.
In some of them, Olsavsky asked the student about their feelings, at one point indicating the information would be “just between us.”
In one interaction, the teacher wrote, “Did you notice anything Friday before we left? Or feel anything … like emotionally”
“I’m not sure, I mean I felt like cared for and safe of course,” the student wrote back.
“Yeah, but no other feelings or connections or anything? Even before that day,” Olsavsky responded, according to the records.
Investigative notes from an interview with Olsavsky indicated that Olsavsky acknowledged hugging the student when no one else was around, in a comforting manner. He also told the interviewer that he was trying to create a safe space for kids, and that he felt guilty and realized the interaction with the student appeared wrong, according to the notes.
In other documents included in the investigative records, another teacher at the school wrote on Feb. 3 that he had concerns about the student’s communication with Olsavsky outside of school, including texting until 3 a.m. The teacher wrote that he advised the student not to contact Olsavsky any more outside of school and to avoid further contact until he could report it to the school administration.
The district ended its investigation after Olsavsky resigned.
This is a developing story. If you have information to share about the story, contact Jeffrey S. Solochek at jsolochek@tampabay.com.
Jeffrey S. Solochek is a reporter covering education as a member of the Tampa Bay Times Education Hub. You can contribute to the hub through our journalism fund by clicking here.
