PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green has asked the superintendent of the Providence public schools to resign over his hiring of an administrator now charged with assault, a spokesperson said Wednesday.

Superintendent Harrison Peters has been under fire for hiring an administrator who has been charged with misdemeanor simple assault for allegedly giving a teenage boy an unwanted foot massage at a Warwick fitness center in April.

Peters acknowledged this week that he knew about a similar incidents in Hillsborough County, Florida, where Olayinka Alege was accused in 2009 of pulling on the toes of five male students as a form of discipline. He was not criminally charged.

“After conversations with Governor McKee and community members, yesterday the Commissioner asked Superintendent Harrison Peters for his resignation,” Victor Morente, a spokesperson for Infante-Green said in an email.

McKee and Mayor Jorge Elorza have also called for Peters’ resignation.

Peters and Alege had worked together in Florida.

“I thought I knew him,” Peters said at state Senate oversight committee this week. “But I was wrong. My hiring of Dr. Alege as a network superintendent for Providence Public Schools was an error in judgment. I want to sincerely apologize for any pain or worry this incident has caused students.”

Some lawmakers asked for Peters’ resignation.

A email seeking comment was left with Peters.

In the Warwick incident, Alege pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. His lawyer said “The allegations are not what they appear to be.” He also resigned from his job.

Peters was hired by Infante-Green in January 2020 to turn around a school system that was deemed one of the worst in the nation by an independent review. The state has taken over the city schools.