Family sues Sacred Heart School, diocese over alleged abuse

Parents allege bullying and harassment against son with disabilities

Norwich — The parents of a former student at Sacred Heart School in Taftville filed a strongly worded lawsuit against the school, a teacher and the Norwich diocesan school superintendent alleging repeated bullying, harassment and belittlement by fellow students and the teacher against their son, who has multiple physical disabilities.

Kathleen and Joseph Cote wrote in the suit, filed June 28 in Norwich Superior Court, that the school failed to protect their son, Patrick, 13, and that teacher Robin Wojtcuk worsened the problems, calling her behavior “indecent.” The suit alleged that she isolated him in class, exacerbated his classmates’ bullying and repeatedly and publicly ridiculed the boy’s writing, “despite knowing that he was born without thumbs and has had corrective surgeries on both hands,” the lawsuit stated.

“The conduct of defendant Wojtcuk intended to inflict emotional distress,” the suit claimed.

The suit said Patrick Cote suffered anxiety, depression and had suicidal thoughts as a result of the repeated bullying. He was found by teachers alone and crying on more than one occasion, the lawsuit said, including one time by the school nurse, who allegedly thought he had been hit in the face intentionally with a dodge ball.

Sacred Heart, a preschool through eighth-grade Roman Catholic school, is part of the Diocese of Norwich school system.

Diocese spokesman Michael Strammiello said he could not comment on the specific lawsuit, citing pending litigation. The school’s attorney has not yet filed a response to the complaint in court.

“Across the diocese, everyone involved is dedicated to educating the whole child, teaching children fairly, respectfully,” Strammiello said.

He said teachers and administrators all are dedicated to that mission.

“We have an excellent record of fulfilling that mission,” Strammiello said. “That’s who we are and what we strive to do every day.”

But in his lawsuit, Hartford attorney James Sullivan, representing the Cotes, wrote that Sacred Heart has failed in that mission.

“It advertises that the school fosters values of respect and sound moral focus toward each other and encourages its students to respond to the needs of other people like the sick and suffering while in fact it fosters and supports a climate of moral depravity like that depicted in the ‘Lord of the Flies,’” Sullivan wrote, referring to a 1954 novel about the behavior of British children stranded on an island, “where teachers and students individually and, in concert with each other, bully the weak and disabled.”

Reached by phone Friday, Sullivan said he has represented families in bullying cases as a father of a child who had been bullied. Sullivan said the Cotes would not comment publicly on the case.

“It’s revolting how they were treating this boy,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said Patrick will attend ninth grade at Norwich Free Academy next year, where his mother, Kathleen Cote, is principal at the Sachem Campus. The family has removed their younger son from Sacred Heart, as well. The younger boy, who also allegedly was harassed by Wojtcuk, will attend Williams School in fall, Sullivan said.

The parents met multiple times with Sacred Heart’s principal, Mother Christina, and assistant principal, Sister Cabrini, and with diocesan school Superintendent Henry Fiore, named as a defendant in the suit.

At one point, school officials offered to remove Patrick from physical education class, where he constantly was picked last for teams “and sometimes not picked at all,” the suit said.

The Cotes removed Patrick from the school for a time but he told his parents last August he wanted to go back for eighth grade. But the alleged harassment by Wojtcuk started a month into the school year, the suit said. After Patrick “begged” not to go back to her class, and expressed suicidal thoughts, his parents removed him from school for 2½ hours each day during Wojtcuk’s class.

Sullivan declined to say the amount of financial compensation, including for medical bills and lost tuition for the time Patrick was taken out of school, that the family is seeking in the lawsuit.

“We’re looking for just and reasonable compensation,” Sullivan said, “and that this doesn’t happen to any other student.”