Sharing teacher arrests
Attorney: Schools should notify parents case by case
GREENWICH — An attorney for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education said schools should have flexibility to decide whether to inform parents in the event of a teacher arrest.
These types of incidents can be complicated, and involve competing interests, she said, making them unfit for a one-size-fits-all policy or law.
“In these situations, school leaders have to act in the best interests of their students while
respecting the rights of the accused,” said Patrice McCarthy, deputy director and general counsel for the association.
McCarthy, who previously chaired the National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys, said the decisions are challenging, and best made on a case-by-case basis.
In a case that broke over the past week, a Stamford teacher, who previously had coached in Greenwich schools, was arrested for child pornography possession. The Stamford school district chose to send a letter home notifying parents; Greenwich did not.
Since the accused is no longer an employee of the Greenwich district, McCarthy said, “I do not think that prescriptive legislation would yield better results.”
Stamford police say Gregory Kelly, a teacher at Cloonan Middle School, was found in possession of 150 images of child pornography and “voyeuristic videos of two teenage female victims.” He was arrested Feb. 7 and charged with four counts of seconddegree possession of child pornography, two counts of third-degree possession of child pornography and two counts of voyeurism.
Kelly, 35, was not a current employee of Greenwich Public Schools, but he had recently worked for the school district as a coach. He coached the Greenwich High School freshman boys basketball team last season, from December 2018 to the end of February 2019. Prior to that, Kelly coached basketball for several years at Eastern Middle School, and later was the coach for Eastern’s baseball team in the spring of 2019, school officials said.
“As Gregory Kelly is no longer an employee of the district and is not a resident of Greenwich, we continue to rely on the police for any additional information that would be necessary for our families,” district spokesperson Sasha Houlihan said Friday.
The district still has been given “no indication of any misconduct with our students, but will certainly communicate with our families should we receive additional information,” she said.
There are no state laws that require school districts to notify community members when a teacher is arrested.
“But it is best practice to do so, which is what Stamford did,” said Peter Yazbak, spokesperson for the state Department of Education.
In his letter to parents, David Tate, principal of Stamford’s Cloonan, told parents that police do not believe any students were victims.
“I urge you to take this opportunity to open or continue conversations with your child about personal safety,” he wrote in the letter. “Open dialogue is the best defense for our children.”
State legislators representing Greenwich and Stamford had mixed responses when asked this week whether districts should be compelled to notify parents of arrests.
State Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-147, vice chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the issue deserves examination, but said legislators would need to talk to the experts before forming any state law.
“My belief is that any time a district has a reasonable basis to think that kids are at risk that parents have a right to know about it,” Blumenthal said. “We should always be looking at how best to inform parents and how to prevent potential harm to students in our schools’ care.”
State Sen. Alex Bergstein, D-36, said a law is not necessary, because there are other systems in place to make sure news of such arrests are in the public record.
“I haven’t seen a proposal for that, but that’s why we have the press,” Bergstein said. “That’s why we have a judicial system, so that someone is not seen as guilty before they are convicted.”
State Rep. Livvy Floren, R-149, declined to comment. State Reps. Stephen Meskers, D-150, and Harry Arora, R-151st, did not return requests for comment.