SUICIDE PROMPTS OFFICER'S RETURN

Ridgefield Acts After High School Student's Death

RIDGEFIELD -- Town officials plan to put a school resource officer
back in the high school, a move prompted by the suicide of Ridgefield
High School senior Joey Lucisano.

Lucisano took his life Nov. 14, his mother Claudia Lucisano said,
after they fought over marijuana found in the boy's backpack. Claudia
Lucisano said her son told her that he got the marijuana at school.

"I have no guilt that I failed my child," Claudia Lucisano said
Friday. She believes school officials are the ones who failed him.
She blames the high school for her son's drug use, which she believes
led to his death.

"This is a loving family. He wasn't a boy who hung out on the streets
all night. He was a high honor student whose grades were slipping,"
she said. "He did confess to me that the only time he did anything
(with drugs or alcohol) was in the bathroom in the high school."

Lucisano's death has shaken this Fairfield County community, bringing
a renewed call for a returning a police presence to the high school.

"Yes, the request for the return of the SRO was a result of the death
of Joey Lucisano," said Superintendent of Schools Ken Freeston. "The
death is a centering event for our community. It is time for us to be
in agreement about the presence of an SRO at the school and end the
disagreement about who should pay for it."

The SRO, a police officer who is supposed to promote drug awareness
at the schools, was cut from the 2003-04 education budget. Freeston
said he and Police Chief Richard Ligi had been discussing bringing a
police officer back to the high school in the 2007-08 school year.

"But this event of Joey Lucisano's death brings some urgency to the
matter," Freeston said. "I asked that the Board of Education request
the town provide an SRO as soon as possible and the board complied."

Lucisano's parents spoke to the town's Coalition Against Substance
Abuse after their son's death to bring to the forefront possible
problems with drug and alcohol abuse at the school.

"I feel the school fails the students big time," Claudia Lucisano
said. "We give them our children five days a week, six hours a day.
We deserve better."

Lucisano said she and her husband, Frank, contacted the high school
last year when their son came home drunk. They were not happy with the results.

"Last year Joey got off the school bus staggering drunk," Claudia
Lucisano recalled. "He said kids keep liquor in the bathroom and peer
pressure is to take a shot."

One of the vice principals at the school contacted the Lucisanos, she
said, and told them he would keep them abreast of how the situation
was being handled.

"He didn't," Claudia Lucisano said. "I wasn't satisfied with the
answers I got."

Interim high school principal Jeff Jaslow said Friday that the
situation last year was taken "very seriously" and that school
officials "acted on everything that we heard."

Jaslow said because of privacy issues, he could not discuss what
actions were taken against the students who had provided alcohol to
Lucisano. But he did say that when substance or alcohol abuse is
heard about at the school, it is acted upon and disciplinary actions are taken.

Substance or alcohol abuse leads to suspension, or in cases of sale
or distribution of illegal substances, to expulsion.

"Needless to say, we are very concerned with the situation," Jaslow
said. "Our greatest concern is the well-being of the kids. We won't
be happy until substance abuse is at level zero."

Jaslow said discussions are under way to determine how best to
heighten the awareness of both students and teachers about the
seriousness of substance and alcohol abuse.

First Selectman Rudy Marconi said the Board of Selectmen voted last
week to allocate funds in this year's contingency line of the town
budget toward paying for an SRO to start work at the high school in
February. That would be about $10,000.

The Board of Education is also looking for funds in its budget.

Ligi, of the police department, is working up a financial prospectus
on how much money is needed for an SRO presence at the high school
from February to the end of this school year, and an SRO presence at
the high school and both middle schools in the 2007-08 school year.

That figure will be presented at the Dec. 13 Board of Selectmen
meeting in the Veterans Park Elementary School auditorium.

Meanwhile, school officials said they are considering bringing a
drug-sniffing dog into the high and middle schools to check lockers for drugs.

"It has been confirmed to me that children at the middle schools are
being offered illegal drugs," Marconi said.

Marconi noted that the Coalition Against Substance Abuse that he and
Freeston co-chair was formed three years ago, after the death of a
21-year-old Ridgefield resident from a heroin overdose.

The coalition was formed with community leaders who have since met
every other week to address the issue of substance abuse throughout the town.

"We need to be aggressive, to act and to find whatever answers are
needed to achieve the goal to end substance abuse in the community,"
Marconi said.

"We want to send a message to young people that if you do use, we are
here to help you," he continued, "and to send a message that if you
are dealing, we will find you and will prosecute you to the fullest
extent of the law."

The school board will hold an executive session in mid-December with
Freeston, Marconi, Ligi and the board's legal counsel to discuss use
of a drug-sniffing dog at the high school. Newtown High School began
bringing in that town's police K-9 Unit this school year.

"Our concern is how to use the dog effectively as enforcement and
protection while not violating our students' constitutional rights,"
Freeston said. "I'm sure there is a way and we will find it."