Crowd rallies for West Rocks principal
Protest comes amid rumors of removal
NORWALK — A crowd of more than 100 students, parents and community activists rallied in front of City Hall on Tuesday in protest of rumored plans to remove longtime West Rocks Middle School Principal Lynne Moore.
The signs they carried and the messages they delivered spoke to the disservice it would be to West Rocks students and the Norwalk community if Moore were removed.
Among them was Elisabeth Beausoleil, a West Rocks parent who organized the rally and created a petition to keep Moore at the school in response to the rumors. As of Tuesday, nearly 700 people signed the online petition.
“She is there night and day. You can go by there at 1 o’clock in the morning and she’s parked outside there, working,” Beausoleil said. “I don’t know what we can do, but fight for Dr. Moore.”
District spokeswoman Brenda Wilcox-Williams said she is not able to comment on personnel matters, which is the same answer the West Rocks school governance council received when they asked to have a meeting with the district upon hearing about Moore’s rumored removal, council members said.
This is not the first time Moore’s employment has been called into question, according to Connecticut Association of School Administrators Chairman Anthony Ditrio, who worked in the district for 47 years. He said he’s come into the central office for charges levied against Moore on a monthly basis, including a time she got written up for replacing an old rug at West Rocks.
“She’s gotten in trouble for so many things when she’s just trying to do the right things for the kids. She’s being a good principal,” Ditrio said. “She tells you exactly what she’s thinking and she acts on it. But behind it all are always the kids are what counts.”
While Ditrio and others admitted Moore can be “cantanker- ous” at times, they believe her strength as a leader has been misinterpreted over the years. Since becoming principal in 1998, Moore has faced lawsuits and four letters of reprimand for insubordination.
She was sued by three former West Rocks teachers, who were all white, for racial discrimination, among other counts, in 2004 and 2005. Both cases, which quoted newspaper articles from Wisconsin and New York that told of controversy surrounding Moore’s management style and some racerelated conflicts, were eventually dismissed.
Between 2009 and 2016, Moore received four letters of reprimand from the district for what Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski described, in his letter of reprimand in 2016, as insubordination or attempts to undermine the district.
Adamowski wrote a letter of reprimand against Moore for discussing middle school redesign at a scheduled parent meeting in 2016 despite being advised not to by Chief School of Operations Frank Costanzo, since plans were not yet developed by the committee. Moore denied these claims and took Adamowski and the Board of Education to court in 2017, but was unsuccessful in her challenge against the letter of reprimand.
While West Rocks PTO President Blaire Anderson declined to comment on the lawsuits, on the basis of not having enough information on the matter, she said the several letters of reprimand reveal a district vendetta against Moore.
“There is a definite vendetta. They definitely don’t want her in that school,” Anderson said. “That’s what happens because she doesn’t do things in the way that they want her to do them.”
Moore could not be reached for comment.
“There is a definite vendetta. They definitely don’t want her in that school. That’s what happens because she doesn’t do things in the way that they want her to do them.”
West Rocks Middle School PTO President Blaire Anderson