TEACHER SAYS SHE'S BEEN OSTRACIZED OVER DRUG TEST

A lot of Wayne Hills High School teachers no longer speak to their
colleague Susan Ammerman. Some see it as a sign of loyalty to popular Vice
Principal Joseph Graceffo, who faces dismissal after he disagreed with
Ammerman over whether a 17-year-old student had been smoking marijuana in
January.

Graceffo decided not to order a drug test. The student, Nicholas Lucatorto,
died two weeks later from a heroin overdose at a house party.

Ammerman, a district physical education teacher for 22 years, took the
stand Friday at a tenure hearing at which the district is seeking to fire
Graceffo.

School officials charge that Graceffo violated local and state policy that
requires a school administrator to order the testing of any student if a
teacher suspects that student of taking drugs or notices behavioral changes.

Graceffo's lawyer, Robert Schwartz, has presented evidence of
inconsistencies in carrying out the policy by other staff members who were
not reprimanded in the past.

The hearings, which began early this month, are not near completion and
will continue Monday.

On Friday, Ammerman said before Administrative Law Judge Mumtaz Bari-Brown
that she has been ostracized by numerous colleagues since Graceffo was
suspended in March from his $99,000-a-year job.

Testifying for the district, she said that on Jan. 21 she went before class
to speak to Lucatorto about past absences when she noticed a strong odor of
marijuana on him. Ammerman said that she immediately summoned the school
nurse, who, together with Graceffo, came to the hallway, and "told them
that he [Lucatorto] reeked of marijuana" and that his pupils were dilated.

But on cross-examination, Schwartz challenged Ammerman on her memory. He
said the nurse, another teacher, and a substance abuse counselor whom he
deposed weeks before the hearing said Ammerman did not mention that the
teen's pupils were dilated when she relayed the incident to them. Ammerman
maintained on the stand that she did.

Ammerman said Graceffo took Lucatorto to the main office of the school,
then returned to her class a few minutes later. He told her that he had
alerted Lucatorto's mother about the incident and that she had said he was
on prescription medicine.

"He said there were no behavioral changes that warranted a drug test," said
Ammerman. "I was upset because he wasn't going to test him."

Ammerman said she didn't want to go over Graceffo's authority by telling
Principal Gene Sudol of the incident. After attending a dance team
competition in Orlando, she did complain two weeks later to the "core team"
- -- a group of teachers who monitor students believed to be at risk for drug
use.

Two days later, Feb. 6, Lucatorto was found dead at an overnight house
party from a heroin overdose.

"I didn't sleep for many days," after hearing of Lucatorto's death,
Ammerman told the court. "I felt I was to blame . . . because I didn't go
higher."

When she met Graceffo days after Lucatorto's death, Ammerman testified,
Graceffo said to her, "If we could only turn back the clock." The morning
after Ammerman suspected Lucatorto of drug use, Robert Flower, head of the
physical education department, also reported to Graceffo that he smelled
marijuana on Lucatorto that day. But Schwartz has argued that Graceffo
thought Flower was referring to the incident with Ammerman and assured
Flower the matter had already been taken care of.

Prior to the incident with Lucatorto, Ammerman said, she had reported
suspected student drug use to administrators on four occasions. All were
tested. Three of the students tested positive for illegal drugs or alcohol.
The fourth was on prescription medicine.

Ammerman was one of several Wayne Hills teachers who drafted a petition
asking the Board of Education not to punish Graceffo in the wake of
Lucatorto's death.

"I like him and respect him," she said.

Still, said Ammerman, "the faculty is split" in its loyalties, and "A good
percentage hasn't spoken to me in months."