Abuse Cases Spur Policy Review

A version of this story appears in The Daily Norwalk

The Board of Education has begun a preliminary review of the district’s substitute teacher policy and child abuse policy, as a result of two recent teacher arrests involving inappropriate conduct with students.

At a meeting last Thursday, members of the policy committee, including Policy Chair Steve Colarossi and committee members Jodi Bishop-Pullan and Susan Hamilton, reviewed the current policies and discussed whether changes were called for.  “There was a consensus among the committee that we need to look closely at these policies,” says policy committee chair Steve Colarossi.  On the substitute policy, Colarossi says, he is not clear how subs are evaluated and the committee discussed raising hiring standards for subs and using on-line courses.

In May, John Tate, an art teacher at Brien McMahon was arrested and accused of having sex with a 17-year-old student. In the second case, Dina McNelis, a substitute teacher at Briggs, was arrested and charged with having "inappropriate" contact with middle school children.  Parents have questioned whether the school district has adequate policies to address abuse by teachers and whether they were appropriately followed.

According to Colarossi, the current child abuse policy has some practical limits in its reporting and the chain of command.  “As it stands, the current policy states that a person can only be removed after DCF [Department of Children and Family] has made a determination,” says Colarossi.  “But that’s not the way it happens in the real world.  Also, we need to figure out a stricter chain of command.  The superintendent should be notified immediately, not after DCF.”

Colarossi presented the committee with copies of Stamford and Darien public schools' policies that he called “excellent, comprehensive policies” which Norwalk could use as a template going forward.
“The next step is look at areas where we need to collect more information from Human Resources”, says Colarossi.  He adds that the comprehensive policy review is a “work in progress” and will take several meeting to finalize any changes.