A motion to fire Donald Paretta for lacking a coaching certification was passed unanimously at a Tuesday, April 7, meeting of the Shenendehowa School District Board of Education, despite a strong show of public support for the embattled part-time high school track coach.
Stevan Pupovac, a 2004 Shen graduate and athlete, called Paretta a father figure, saying Paretta taught him how to drive and golfed with him occasionally. Pupovac said the track coach strove `not only to make people better athletes, but better people.`
A plea to the board by Doug Shartrand, area lawyer and vice president of the Shenendehowa Track Booster Club, to invite Paretta back to the school as volunteer coach, was met with applause.
`I understand what the board has to do in this matter,` he said to the board. `But the next decision you should make is to ask Don Paretta to come back as a volunteer coach. … Even if you have to accept the fact that he cannot have a teaching certificate or a coaching certificate, you should immediately ask him back to be a volunteer coach for these kids.`
`I think that they have made a decision, and now they’re just trying to justify it,` said David Ehrlich, Paretta’s lawyer, in an interview prior to the board’s decision. He noted that Paretta was never convicted of a crime and said that a teaching certification is not a requirement for a coach.
`I have never sought to be employed as a teacher here, or anywhere else,` Paretta told the board at the April 7 meeting. `At the time that I began coaching at Shenendahowa, I did not need a coaching certificate to coach. Shenendahowa never notified me that I needed to obtain additional certification, and I did not know that it was necessary. I continued to coach without incident.`
Paretta then touted his 14 years of success as the Shenendahowa track coach.
`If he were teaching there, that would certainly be a lot more relevant,` said Ehrlich. `He’s been in the district for all these years, and there’s never been a single allegation or claim of wrongdoing on his part.`
Paretta said the media, in part, has been to blame for the way his situation has been handled.
`Those who make judgments based only on news reports do not have the whole story,` said Paretta, who went on to reference previous conflicts with Shenendahowa’s athletic director, and said Superintendent L. Oliver Robinson `had a different agenda.`
`I believe that if the superintendent of schools here at Shenendehowa had taken the time to look at this situation with open eyes, a different outcome would have resulted. Instead, I feel the decision was already made days ago and by press release,` he said.
The district became aware of the certification issue on Wednesday, April 1, and suspended Paretta without pay within hours, said Robinson. Paretta receives a $5,600 salary.
Robert Reese, a crime victims’ advocate, brought the matter to the attention of police and the state Department of Education.
Records from the Education Department indicate that Paretta’s state certification as a teacher of physical education was invalidated in 1995 as the result of an investigation into an alleged sexual relationship with a student.
Shenendehowa hired him the same year he lost his teaching certification, which also served as his authorization to coach. The Education Department sent out a blanket notice of the invalidation to schools statewide on Jan. 24, 1996.
Kelly DeFeciani, a spokesperson for the district, said that no Education Department notification of the invalidation is on file at Shenendehowa.
`All we can say is that we don’t have the notification on file,` said DeFeciani. `This was 14 years ago; none of the same people are even here.`
According to Tom Dunn, a spokesman for Education Department, all schools have access to an electronic database that will provide up-to-date information on an individual’s certification.
`If they put this fellow in they would know he was a bad customer,` said Dunn. `For 13 years, they’ve had the opportunity to look him up.`
DeFeciani said that the district uses the database to check the certification status of new hires, and periodically runs employees through the system. A check of certifications for teachers ` but not coaches ` was recently completed, she said. The district also checks staff fingerprints, as mandated by state law.
District officials will be considering the possibility of a policy change in the coming weeks, said DeFeciani.
`Any time something like this happens, we do talk about the situation and talk about ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again,` she said.
Paretta’s invalidation hinged on a 1992 investigation by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District into allegations he had `engaged in sexual activity with a student age 15 and 16 years of age on several occasions between November 1989 and December 1990.`
Paretta was a teacher and track coach at the Humanities High School in New York City during that time.
Allegations included charges that Paretta took the student to Aqueduct Race Track in November of 1990, and in the months afterward fondled him several times. The student’s journal told of sexual activity between the two, and investigators recorded a conversation that indicated Paretta `would like to sleep with the student again,` according to the report.
The student’s mother alerted authorities after reading accounts of the sexual activity in the diary.
Paretta gave the student a graduation card containing $20 and a note that said, `I will certainly miss your gorgeous face and great-looking body.`
Paretta admitted to having conversations with the teen about sexual orientation and fantasies, but denied any sexual contact.
Any clues to the student’s sex were redacted from the Education Department report, but a brief New York Times article detailing Paretta’s 1992 arrest for sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child indicates the student was male.
Paretta was not convicted on the charges.
`For a teacher to engage in private sexual conversations with a student, invite the student to his house, take the student alone on social excursions to the racetrack and elsewhere, and not rule out a sexual relationship with that student would alone indicate a lack of moral character on the part of the teacher,` wrote Education Department Hearing Officer F. Patrick Jeffers. `In my opinion, the facts clearly establish a sexual relationship existed between student and teacher and that the teacher was not averse to continuing that relationship after the student graduated. It is my conclusion that the Department has established that Donald J. Paretta lacks the requisite moral character to continue to teach in the public schools of the state of New York.`
Paretta resigned his position at the Humanities High School after disciplinary proceedings began.
Robinson asked anyone with information on Paretta to contact the state police, but Investigator Matthew Britton of the Clifton Park Barracks said no calls have been received yet, and there is no ongoing investigation involving Paretta.
`We have no criminal allegations at this point whatsoever,` he said.
Paretta is also an assistant men’s and women’s track coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute part time, an RPI athletic department representative said. He has been on staff since December of 2001 and has garnered no complaints.
It is unclear if Paretta intends to take legal action against the district. Aggrieved parties have 90 days to file a notice of claim, such as a wrongful termination lawsuit, against a government entity.
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