28 NJ Teachers Lose Jobs For Bad Behavior As Changes Demanded – Point Pleasant, NJ Patch

Twenty-eight teachers have temporarily or permanently lost their licenses over the past two months for bad behavior as lawmakers continue to demand for improvements to the state’s hiring system (see the list of teachers and their school districts below).

The teachers were removed for a variety of reasons, from helping students cheat on the PARCC test to sex abuse and drug charges.

The sanctions come as lawmakers continue to call on the Office of Attorney General to launch a probe after the recent revelation that a teacher was hired again after getting sanctioned for bad behavior. Efforts to reach the attorney general’s office were not immediately successful.

The teacher was arrested once, fired twice from teaching positions and allegedly was caught with pornography on his school computer. But he still found work this past school year in another town, an NJ Advance Media investigation found. Read more: Fired NJ Teacher Faced Porn Allegations, Got Hired Again: Report

The lawmakers were especially upset about the development since Gov. Phil Murphy signed “pass-the-trash” legislation just last year that was intended to prevent such mistakes from ever happening.

Sen. Joe Pennacchio, R-Morris, even sent a letter to State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal calling for an investigation. “Our hope was that this law would stop the dangerous hiring practice known as ‘passing the trash,’ and ensure that chronically-abusive teachers would no longer be able to move from school to school unchecked,” he said.

Here are the 28 teachers who have been sanctioned since August 1, according to the state Department of Education:

August

Eliana Aristizabal was accepted into a pre-trial intervention program for a period of 12 months after having been charged with endangering the welfare of a child in Union County. Aristizabal failed field sobriety tests and had a blood alcohol level of 0.17 percent after she was pulled over, according to the state DOE. At the time of the stop, she had two minor children in the car. Her credentials were revoked.
Salvatore N. Arrigo was indicted on charges of burglary and theft by unlawful taking. Arrigo and a co-defendant allegedly had unlawfully entered the victim’s dwelling and stole property, according to the DOE. His credentials were revoked.
Detlev A. Barsch was jailed in Ocean County on charges of sex assault and endangering the welfare of a child. His credentials were revoked.
Tyrone A. Bryan was indicted on charges of theft by unlawful taking and forgery by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. Bryan allegedly kept cash received from church offerings by changing deposit slips, wrote unauthorized checks and used the church’s debit card without authorization. His credentials were revoked.
Gerard Carroll submitted a fake letter, purportedly from an associate professor at Rutgers University, in support of his application for certification to the Department of Education. The professor confirmed she neither wrote nor authorized the letter and that Carroll had forged her signature. His credentials were revoked.
Dianne E. Ellis surrendered her Virginia teaching certificate in response to a petition for revocation out of Virginia. The petition alleged that on May 11, 2017, Ellis was under the influence of alcoholic and had consumed alcohol while performing her duties as a special education teacher. Her New Jersey credentials were subsequently suspended for two years.
Jasmine D. Hairston was charged with theft by unlawful taking after she allegedly took $5,738.10 from students and parents for the eighth-grade prom and graduation. Her credentials were revoked.
Peter Iappelli of the Closter School District was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct after he allegedly cursed and grabbed a 16-year-old flag football coach in a choke hold during a game when Iappelli became upset about coaching decisions. The participants on the flag football team were between 6 and 8 years old. Iappelli’s charges were downgraded to disorderly conduct. His teaching credentials were suspended for three years. He was the Closter Public Schools business administrator at the time of the incident.
Michael Leary of the Ridgefield Park School District engaged in “alleged unprofessional conduct” as interim business administrator, according to the DOE. His credentials were revoked.
Shauna Morgan ran into trouble in Brick when she pleaded guilty to charges related to leaving a cocker spaniel, known as “Sammy,” in a trash bag in 2013. Neptune filed tenure charges against Morgan in May 2012 alleging conduct unbecoming of a teaching staff member. Her credentials were revoked.
Wanda Reynolds of the Orange School District breached test security by influencing or interfering with assessment test-taker responses, according to the DOE. She allegedly provided verbal and non-verbal cues, failed to maintain the confidentiality of the student test booklets, failed to ensure the students were working in the correct test booklet section and failed to enforce and adhere to testing time requirements. Her credentials were suspended for six months.
Janeen Thomas was facing various theft and substance abuse charges in the Philadelphia and Burlington County area, according to Phiadelphia Magazine. “Thomas became locally infamous thanks to a string of thefts and other bad behavior inside local eateries in 2015,” the magazine said. Her credentials were revoked.

September

David F. Alsieux entered a pre-trial intervention program in Ocean County for 12 months following heroin and cocaine accusations. The charges stemmed from an incident in May 2018 when Alsieux crashed into the car in front of him on a highway ramp. When police responded to the scene, Alsieux was unconscious in the front seat with the car still in drive and his foot on the brake pedal. Alsieux did not respond to the first several attempts to rouse him. When he awoke, he seemed confused and did not remember the accident. Police observed seven wax folds of what appeared to be cocaine in his vehicle. Alsieux also admitted that he had ingested two bags of heroin about an hour prior to the accident. His credentials were revoked.
Phillip D. Cerone of Maywood pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact. The teacher’s aide was charged after authorities say he sexually assaulted a young girl, Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal announced. His credentials were revoked.
Dennis M. DeMarino of Cranford, who served as the Woodbridge School District’s business administrator, was arrested after police say cocaine was found in his vehicle after a drug transaction in the parking lot of the district’s administration building. He strongly denied the accusations but accepted a deal for pre-trial intervention with a subsequent expungement. His credentials were suspended for two years.
James Dunckley, a tenured teacher in the Rockaway Township School District, allegedly touched two special education students and made them feel uncomfortable. Dunckley continued this behavior despite being asked by the students to stop touching them. His credentials were revoked.
Lorraine Dutill was charged in Pennsylvania with aggravated assault, possessing instrument of crime with intent, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person after she put her mother’s feet into a tub of boiling water, knowing that her mother could not move her legs due to a recent surgery. On December 10, 2013, Dutill pleaded no contest to simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. Her credentials were revoked.
Craig A. Forte had his credentials suspended for a year in East Orange after he was accused of breaching security protocol when administering the Alternate Proficiency Assessment exam because there were too many instances of similar or verbatim Language Arts Literacy responses across 22 student portfolios and four writing tasks.
Bernard E. Gmitter of Cherry Hill was charged with engaging in prostitution and cyber harassment. A representative for the Lenape Regional High School District said Gmitter had been a teacher for less than a year at the time of the alleged offense, according to The Burlington County Times. His credentials were revoked.
Chelsea L. Hahn was charged with three counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The former Ewing High School teacher admitted she engaged in sexual conduct that would impair or debauch the morals of a child, according to The Trentonian. Her credentials were revoked.
Paul J. Iantosca, a former Denville principal who was accused of sexting a former student, has been sentenced to probation, reports say. Iantosca, from Randolph, pleaded guilty to one child abuse charge as part of a plea deal that saw attempted luring and attempted sexual assault charges get dropped. His credentials were revoked.
Robert Klein: Howell reported that Klein resigned from his position in the district, effective December 31, 2016, following allegations that, at the 2015 New Jersey Education Association Conference in Atlantic City, he invited undercover journalists to his room and was filmed offering cocaine, describing how he keeps cocaine in his home and how he avoids being caught. In the video, which was posted on multiple news and social media sites worldwide, Klein can be heard making the following statements: “If you want blow you can have a bump. You can have whatever you want;” “Dude, if you want some I’ll give you a taste, don’t be embarrassed;” “Have some;” “You come to my home at night, you come to my room now. I have booze, I have water, I have blow at the house, whatever it is, whatever anybody wants, I have it there;” “Yes I’m a good host and I have this s*** at my house when you come;” “Like I work with the police in the school district with the drug dogs and they teach us, and they teach our kids how the drug dogs sniff out drugs;” “We’re not putting drugs in my car. Blow-different. You put it in your pocket, it’s nothing;” “Blow, people mix it with different things so it has different scents.” His credentials were revoked.
Michael Palladino was an elementary school teacher in Ocean County who faced serious charges of official misconduct and morphine possession after he allegedly snorted morphine at his classroom desk. Prosecutors say he ingested the substance at his classroom desk during school hours while around teachers and students. Palladino, 43, of Barnegat was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Palladino was a teacher at the Eagleswood Elementary School. He was convicted of possession of a controlled dangerous substance. His credentials were revoked.
James J. Savage pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon. His credentials were revoked.
Meghan A. Smith was indicted in Essex County for theft by unlawful taking following allegations that she stole jewelry, some valued at over $10,000 from her then-employer. On Feb. 13, 2018, Smith pleaded guilty to the charge. Her credentials were revoked.
Shawn Sypherd of Marmora was a Middle Township school teacher who admitted to defrauding New Jersey state health benefits programs and other insurers out of more than $2 million by submitting fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary prescriptions, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced. His credentials were revoked.
Thomas Weir is an ex-Paterson teacher who was sentenced to three years in state prison after admitting he tried to solicit sex acts from students for money, authorities announced. Weir, 56, of Paterson had “sexually explicit conversations” with three Kennedy High School students over Facebook and on text messages, said Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes. Weir wanted to pay the students to exchange for sex acts, Valdes said. His credentials were revoked.
Natalie G. Zeballos pleaded guilty in Union County to resisting arrest/eluding in addition to other motor vehicle violations, including driving while intoxicated. Her credentials were revoked.