Case against three Montville school administrators continued to June
All are on leave after failing to report classroom fights
The case against three Montville school administrators charged last month with failing to report classroom fighting in the fall has been continued to June 7.
Initially scheduled for arraignment Thursday morning, Superintendent Brian Levesque, Principal Jeffrey Theodoss and Assistant Principal Tatiana Patten plan to plead not guilty next month, attorneys said. The trio did not appear before a judge Thursday.
Richard Brown, an attorney representing Theodoss, said the continuance will allow the state time to turn over evidence to the defense attorneys.
All three administrators are on paid leave and charged with failure to report suspected abuse under the state’s mandated reporter law.
Brown said there’d been a good deal of “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the case, which was sparked after the April 12 arrest of substitute teacher Ryan Fish, who allegedly refereed at least four high school classroom slapboxing bouts between September and October.
Administrators admittedly never notified police or the Department of Children and Families of the incidents. In December, a DCF social worker alerted authorities that a student said he’d been beaten and robbed. The agency then began its own inquiry and referred the case to the state attorney’s office.
But the administrators’ attorneys were quick to point out that no parents reported any injuries after the incidents.
Dado Coric, an attorney for Patten, said “a ‘fight club’ is not what this was. Worst-case scenario, it was some slapboxing. I don’t see where there’s criminal liability in this case.”
Brown said, “This is not a blatant case. If it was obvious, they would have reported it.” He said there should be “more education for each and every” educator related to mandatory reporting.
Last week, acting Superintendent Laurie Pallin instituted more mandated reporter training for all staff, including administrators and substitutes.
“There’s a fine line and they haven’t been given the benefit of the doubt,” Brown said. “These people love students. They love teaching.”
In a brief interview, Theodoss declined to comment beyond saying he would “let the process” play out.
Levesque, who was emailed video footage of classroom fighting in October, fired Fish four days later. He said he was only aware of one incident at the time and would have alerted police and DCF had he known of the number and severity of the classroom fights.
Police noted the incidents left one student with a bloody nose and another with mental trauma. Another student vomited into a trash can as a result of the fighting, police said.
Attorney Christian Sarantopoulos is representing Levesque. Sarantopoulos’ office said he was unavailable until Tuesday, and he did not immediately respond to an email.
Fish, 23, was a substitute for 20 days between April and June and then rehired in August. He worked as a substitute for 14 days in the fall.
School officials said his mother, Cheryl Fish, a math teacher at the high school, had no role in his employment. But she wrote him a letter of recommendation in the summer and observed her son’s professional performance last spring, according to application materials The Day received in a Freedom of Information Act request.
Pallin said Cheryl Fish was not evaluating or supervising her son in any official capacity.
Ryan Fish is due back in court on May 8.