09/17/11 Central Middle School Principal Shelly Somers Had Closed Her Private Educational Facility To Avoid CT License Revocation Hearing Part 1

You Wont Read This In The Greenwich Time
Greenwich Board Of Education Screw Up

Parents Are Not Informed Of Central Middle School Principal Shelly Somers' Checkered Past

Children Were At Risk

Day-care Center Owner Gives Up Operating License

EAST GRANBY — The owner of the former Cornflakes Day Care Center has surrendered her day-care license to the state and agreed not to operate a facility within the state for five years.

In a settlement released by the state Department of Public Health Tuesday, Shelley Somers agreed to sever all ties with Cornflakes, which she operated for 11 years.

The center, in an old train station at 121 Hartford Ave. on the East Granby/Granby town line, closed in December after allegations concerning the care and supervision of children became public. Another day- care center called All Aboard has opened in the same location.

``We're pleased that the agreement has been reached to bring closure to this item,'' said Janet G. Chisholm, program supervisor for the day-care licensing division of the state health department. ``We are always concerned about the families and the children who need day care. We feel that this best protects them.''

Somers could not be reached for comment.

As part of the agreement, Somers neither admitted guilt nor denied the allegations. Those allegations include reports that she left a 2 1/2-year-old boy alone in a van for at least 45 minutes while children from the center attended a performance in Hartford; that Somers failed to notify parents that a preschooler may have ingested Advil while in her care and that she misled state officials in order to retain her license, according to health department letters to Somers.

The agreement further states that if she were to seek a child day-care license in the future, the department would ``deem as true the allegations against her in the statement of charges dated Sept. 21, 1995'' and ``construe as proven the allegations in the statement of charges.'' Under the agreement, Somers ``agrees the department shall have absolute discretion whether to issue, reinstate or place conditions on the license.''

This agreement concludes a case that started after a November 1994 incident in which about 20 children from Cornflakes day care went on a field trip to see ``Babes in Toyland'' at the University of Hartford. Somers apparently miscounted the children and left a sleeping toddler in her van. He was not discovered until the group returned to the van after the performance. The child's mother, Bev Violette, of Granby, said she was pleased with the decision, but would have liked the state to take a stronger role.

``It just kills me it's [worded as] accusations when every bit of it is true,'' she said of the agreement. ``I guess the thing that just kills me is she stopped the day- care under her own free will because she knew all this was coming down ... because of so much publicity, that there was no way she could run a day-care. I guess I would have rather had the state come in and say, `You are closed.'''

Violette was also upset that state employees talked to her son about the incident before she even knew what had happened and without her permission. Somers reached the agreement with the state health department Feb. 9. The agreement was not released until Tuesday afternoon, when the day-care licensing division received a decision from the state Attorney General's office about what information could be released to the press, Chisholm said.

UPDATE:

CMS principal taking leave during district investigation

Lisa Chamoff, CT Post Staff Writer

Updated 10:36 p.m., Thursday, October 6, 2011

The principal of Central Middle School is taking a leave of absence while the district investigates a report that she closed a day-care center she owned in Hartford County and surrendered her day-care license to the state 15 years ago after allegations were made concerning her care and supervision of children.

Shelley Somers, who was hired by the district in the fall of 2009 and took over as principal at CMS the following January, had operated Cornflakes Day Care Center on the East Granby/Granby town line for 11 years when she reached an agreement with the state Department of Health to sever ties with the facility and to not operate a facility within the state for five years.

...A reader brought the matter to the attention of Greenwich Time, providing a copy of a Hartford Courant story....

...."The Greenwich Public Schools take seriously its responsibility to assure that its school leaders are fit for that responsibility," district spokeswoman Kim Evessaid in an email. "At this point, we have made no findings, but rather we are investigating the situation as reported to determine the facts and the response, if any, by the Greenwich Public Schools."

Eves said that when the district hired Somers in 2009, it followed the standard hiring processes, including interviews, site visits, fingerprinting, background and reference checks. Somers' experience and affiliation with the day-care center was not disclosed to or otherwise discovered by the Greenwich Public Schools during the interview and hiring process.

Internet searches were not part of the district's background checks at the time Somers was hired....

...Superintendent of Schools Roger Lulow took over this past August and wasn't involved in the hiring process for Somers, but he said it was likely that because no formal charges were filed or legal action was taken against Somers, the case did not come up in the background check the district performed before she was hired....

....Before she was hired by Greenwich Public Schools, Somers headed the School of Arts, Communication and Technology, one of five small, themed schools at the 1,600-student Beaufort High School in Beaufort, S.C. She started out as an English and Spanish teacher at the Humanities School of Beaufort in 1999, according to the local school district. Somers then moved to Battery Creek High School, also in Beaufort, to chair the English department in 2000. In 2003, she became assistant principal for Hilton Head Island High School, in Beaufort County, and later spent a year teaching English at Robert Smalls Middle School, also in the county, before accepting the job at Beaufort High School in 2006.

Somers took over for Roger Stenz, a veteran educator who came out of retirement earlier in 2009 to replace former CMS Principal Carol Walsh on an interim basis after she was promoted to an administrator job in the district's central office.

PLEASE ALSO SEE:

11/13/09 Supt. Appoints CMS Principal

Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Sidney A. Freund, has announced the
appointment of Ms. Shelley Somers as Principal for Central Middle School,
effective January 1, 2010. See attached for more information....
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