Dr. Robert Rossi, principal at Danbury High School for the past two years, has resigned and will return to Phoenix where he worked before coming to Connecticut.
The 53-year-old Rossi sent a letter to school officials over the weekend saying he resigned for "personal reasons," according to Kim Thompson, the district's human resources director and legal counsel to the Board of Education.
Rossi's resignation means that the high school of 3,000 students will face its sixth principal in about eight years.
"It was a very tough decision,'' Rossi said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. "I had tremendous support at the district level and from the school board. But personally, to live in Danbury and have my life on the other side of the world was too hard."
Rossi has family and a home in Arizona, where he has been since he moved from New York at 12 years of age.
For a principal whose tenure can only be viewed as controversial, Rossi wasn't that popular with the rank and file members of the high school (who predicted that Rossi would resign at the end of the year months ago) as well as students who are still upset over his very controversial change in grading policy this year.
I can't see this but anything but an utter failure by the leadership of the Board of Education who gave the green light to Rossi's hiring in the first place. In the wake of Rossi's resignation, and the list of other problems within the Danbury education system, maybe it's time for residents to focus their attention on the November elections and voting members of the Board of Ed out of office.
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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
