Shen suspends track coach

By MARK McGUIRE , MARK SINGELAIS AND RICK KARLIN, Staff writers Last updated: 5:50 p.m., Thursday, April 2, 2009

CLIFTON PARK — For more than 13 years Don Paretta has coached track and field at the Shenendehowa High School track despite losing his teaching certification in 1996 from a sexual abuse claim made in New York City more than three years earlier. School officials only learned of the revocation Wednesday, after being informed by State Police, the district said. Legal authorities were tipped off by a victims' rights advocate representing a man alleging Paretta abused him in the 1980s at Columbia High School in East Greenbush. Paretta has never been charged in any alleged incident there. There have been no reported incidents involving the coach during his time at Shenendehowa. Shenendehowa suspended Paretta Wednesday afternoon and intends to seek his dismissal from his $5,600 part-time coaching job because, technically, he is coaching without proper certification, the district's superintendent said. A lawyer for Paretta said the coach will fight the ouster. Paretta, 54, of East Greenbush, has never been convicted of any crime, although he has numerous vehicle and traffic charges, included an arrest March 13 on a charge of third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation. He is not listed on any sexual abuse registry. The 1992 case was adjourned in contemplation of dismissal after the alleged victim declined to testify, State Police said. A New York Times article detailing his initial arrest can be found on the Internet. David Ehrlich, an Albany attorney who said he is representing Paretta, denied all past abuse allegations. "It's just not true," Erlich said late Thursday afternoon. The attorney said the school district is selectively attacking Paretta, adding Shenendehowa officials falsely created an impression that a crime has been committed. The district posted an article on its Web site about the dismissal. "There is no open case," Ehrlich said. "By referring people to the State Police, they are implying that my client has committed some sort of crime — and he has not." The school was informed of his revocation in 1996 by the state Education Department as part of a blanket issuance of such dispositions. But because Paretta was not a teacher and only a coach, the district did not pick up on the ruling, current officials said. The school's superintendent said Paretta fell through a loophole, since he was not a teacher, not convicted of a crime and his hiring predates more stringent fingerprinting and background checks that came into effect in the early part of this decade. "It's a flaw in the system,'' said Superintendent L. Oliver Robinson, who was not in his current position in 1995. "That is the gap everybody is dealing with now … There isn't an updating of coaches.'' Paretta is being let go, Robinson said Thursday, because he had been authorized to run a team based on his teaching license, which automatically allows him to coach. Coaches can also earn coaching certificates if they're not licensed teachers. Once a coach is hired, the only requirement to remain in the position is to keep first aid, CPR and AED trainings updated, according to the district. According to State Police, a tipster informed the agency of the 1992 arrest. Police then informed the district. Officials said Paretta never offered notice of the pending action against him to Shenendehowa representatives when he applied for the position. "He didn't volunteer this information … that the axe was about to come down,'' State Police Investigator Patricia Donovan said "They hired him with no idea that it was hanging over his head. When it was revoked, he did not advise Shen.'' No criminal charges are pending against Paretta, the investigator added, although anyone with information may call State Police. Paretta could not be reached for comment Thursday. No one answered at his house in a quiet neighborhood on the East Greenbush/Rensselaer line. Robert Reese, an advocate and rape crisis counselor with the Albany Crime Victim and Sexual Violence Center, brought the information to State Police. Reese said a former Columbia High classmate from the 1980s reached out to him. Several years ago, Reese led the effort to revoke the teaching license of a different Columbia High School teacher who Reese said molested him. Paretta is also an assistant track and field coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. According to the college, Paretta will retain his position with the men's and women's teams that he has held since 2001. "We were obviously unaware prior to the issue with Shenendehowa,'' RPI sports information director Kevin Beattie said. "We look at it as an accusation, not a conviction.'' Beattie added there have been no incidents involving the coach at RPI. Nina Van Erk, executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, said her organization doesn't do background checks on prospective coaches because they are employees of the school district, not her organization. "We don't have anything to do with it,'' she said. "If a school reaches out and needs some assistance and guidance, we'd certainly offer help, but we have no jurisdiction.'' Lawyers for the State Education Department first took action against Paretta on Nov. 30 1994, noting he had allegedly engaged in sexual activity with a 15-year-old student and later resigned from his New York City job. But it took more than a year, until January 1996 for the state to actually revoke his teaching certificate. At the time, the Education Department contacted every school district in the state "notifying them that we revoked the certificate of Mr. Paretta (an other teachers, as well)." according to a statement from SED. They also noted that in 1993 the New York City Department of Education started procedures to fire Panetta. He resigned from Humanities High School in New York City on Sept. 30 1994, and by November the state brought a notice of "substantial question as to moral character," against Paretta, who went before the state without an attorney. Paretta, according to the records, denied have relations with students, State Hearing Officer F. Patrick Jeffers on Oct. 27 1995 recommended Paretta lose his license. ***** July 2, 1992 Teacher Is Charged In Abuse of Student A physical education teacher at a Manhattan high school was arrested yesterday and charged with sexually abusing a student repeatedly between November 1989 and December 1990, the police and school officials said yesterday. Using gifts of clothing and money, the teacher, Donald J. Paretta, "enticed" a male student at the High School for the Humanities into performing "sexual favors," said Sgt. John Garrity of the Brooklyn Special Victims Squad. Mr. Paretta, 38 years old, of 582 17th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, surrendered yesterday and was charged with sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child. The youth, who was 15 years old at the time the abuse reportedly began, is no longer in school, but the police did not know if he had graduated. Sergeant Garrity said the police had received no other complaints against Mr. Paretta but were continuing their investigation. The special commissioner of investigation for the school system and the special victims squad began looking into matter in late March, after the youth's mother told school authorities that she suspected her son had been abused, the sergeant said.