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An attempt by Board member Steve Colarossi to have the Board of Education discuss the performance of some of its administrators was rebuffed at last night's school board meeting. Colarossi had placed on the agenda the "Discussion of the performance of Fay Ruotolo, Tony Dadonna, Suzanne Koroshetz, Alaine Lane, and Bruce Morris in response to learning of the recent arrests of people associated with the Norwalk School District."
In the past two weeks, an art teacher at Brien McMahon High School and a substitute teacher at Briggs High School were arrested, separately and charged with child abuse related crimes. Ruotolo is Norwalk's human resources administrator, Dadonna is the assistant superintendent, Koroshetz and Lane are principals at the affected schools, and Morris is the district's human relations officer.
"There are a lot of legal issues here," said Mayor Richard Moccia who sits on the board as an ex officio member. He tried to dissuade discussion of the topic. "We have to proceed very carefully. We're on dangerous ground when we're dealing with peoples' rights." Moccia questioned whether the administrators had been given official notice and whether they had a right to legal representation if the meeting went into executive session.
Colarossi responded that the board's attorney had been consulted before putting the matter onto the agenda.
"These are all very good people," said Colarossi, "but we have to make sure that the policies are being followed. That's why I wanted to have this agenda item discussed in executive seesion." Colarossi said he learned in April about the complaints against Dina McNelis, the substitute teacher who was arrested last week.
Other board members, however, were reluctant to have a discussion at all because the investigations into each alleged incident are on-going.
Interim Superintendent Michael Nast said that he didn't understand the purpose of having a discussion about the staff's performance. "We have an excellent staff who did their jobs well," said Nast. "I don't think the discussion should go beyond that. Nast said he hasn't receieved any e-mails from the community expressing concern about the arrest.
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