the essex
September 27, 2018 • The Essex Reporter •
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{ Thursday, September 27, 2018 }
District fires teacher accused of sex crime Special educator spent 18 months on paid leave By COLIN FLANDERS A special education teacher who spent more than a year on paid administrative leave following accusations that he molested a child in his home has been officially fired from the Essex Westford School District. Last month, the EWSD School Board upheld recommendations from superintendent Beth Cobb to fire 45-year-old Mark Zizis, of Shoreham, who stands accused of
fondling a young boy during a sleepover at his home in 2011. Zizis was arrested in February 2017 after the boy’s mother reported the alleged abuse to investigators in Addison County. Zizis pleaded not guilty to a charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and is currently awaiting trial. He had worked as a behavioral specialist and special education teacher at Albert D. Lawton for 11 years when district officials placed him on leave. They said at the time they would hold off on a decision on Zizis’ future employment until either his criminal trial concluded or until they received substantiation of the abuse, correspondence
obtained in a public records request shows. In her recommendation to fire Zizis, Cobb pointed to a report from Vt. Department for Children and Families that she said substantiates the allegations. She charged Zizis with engaging in behavior “unbecoming of a teacher” and argued for his termination during a 90-minute executive session last month. Zizis fervently denies any wrongdoing. He appealed Cobb’s recommendation and pleaded his case to the school board in a highly personal letter, which he shared with The Reporter last week. In the letter, Zizis recounts a “mental, physical and financial battle” over the last
18 months to defend and maintain his reputation. He calls the allegations a “fabricated tale” from an “emotionally disturbed child” and named the investigation a “modern day witch hunt.” He urged the board to not act in haste. “I ask that you please allow me the right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law, instead of prematurely acting as a judge and jury,” he wrote. When Zizis returned a teaching contract to the district earlier this year – signaling his intent to remain in his position despite the ongoing criminal case – Cobb informed him that he must provide evidence See FIRED, page A3
Parents question delay as board, admin work on new bus policy By AMANDA BROOKS Now that full bus service is up and running for Essex Town students, school leaders face a major question: When new drivers come on board, which students should reap the benefits? Administration and school board members believe they need to go back to square one and rewrite their two-year-old transportation policy, passed in 2016 before the Essex Westford School District merger took place. Some parents, however, feel the policy is fine and that district leaders are merely delaying making a decision on how to allocate the new drivers. The question arose at last week’s school board meeting after Jamie Smith, EWSD transportation manager, presented ridership and ride time data. He pointed to some successes within the system, but said some parents are still unsatisfied with the level of service. Now, with five drivers in the pipeline, district leaders have a decision to make. “Do we add service [to the village], or do we try and improve these issues to the students that we’re already serving?” Smith said. “Those are questions that we’ll engage going forward.” It’s up to the administration to answer those questions, but district leaders have asked the board for guidance, claiming the current transportation policy is too broad. “That's the hard part – we're still trying to play with a policy that you can drive a truck through, that you can kind of do anything you want with that policy,” EWSD chief operating officer Brian Donahue said last Tuesday night. “The effectual work for the administrators is [to] make everyone happy ... but I still need some direction.” The current policy says EWSD will furnish transportation for school district
Youth agencies turn focus to e-cig 'epidemic' Local organizations work to bolster prevention efforts while retailers hold steady on benefits of legal use PHOTO BY MADELINE CLARK
David Wojtyna displays an e-cigarette from Valley Vapes in Essex Jct. He says vaping helped him with smoking cessation and he'd like to help others quit smoking too.
See BUSING, page A8
By MADELINE CLARK The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declared youth electronic cigarette use an epidemic. For local prevention centers, the statement has inspired increased conversation about the product and new tactics to inform local teens of the risks associated with tobacco use. According to Milton Community Youth Coalition executive director Tony Moulton, the prevention-based nonprofit is working with local schools and police departments to introduce a “One Voice Youth Empowerment Program,” to school curriculum to inform teens about the risks of tobacco use. “If we can put this in place, it works to empower kids, not scare them,” Moulton said. “We know scare tactics don’t have any impact; if anything, it’s the opposite.” While youth tobacco use in the U.S. has decreased among high school and middle-schoolers over the past six years, e-cigarettes have become the
most commonly used tobacco product by teens, according to the 2017 National Youth Tobacco Survey. Vermont teens’ use of e-cigarettes is anticipated to follow this trend, Moulton said. “I would say it probably is an epidemic [among youths],” Alexandra Morano, owner of Valley Vape in Essex Jct., said. “Their friends have them and pass them.” Although Morano asks young patrons for ID, she said she can’t stop them from giving e-cigarettes to minors when they leave her store. Morano fears the concerns surrounding ecigarettes and teen users will harm her ability to help legal-aged smokers use the product to wean themselves off of traditional cigarettes. She said ecigarettes aided her efforts to quit smoking, and she hopes to help others experience similar successes. But Moulton is not convinced the product is aimed at smoking cessation. Moulton said he was gratified to read FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s statement about the teen vaping epidemic. See E-CIGS, page A8
New parents stretch out in Essex Jct. prenatal, postnatal and family yoga studio By MADELINE CLARK Susan Lucey knows a thing or two about parenting. She also knows about yoga. In her newly opened Evolution Prenatal and Family Yoga Center in Essex Jct., Lucey looks forward to growing her Burlington-based business and being a resource for new parents outside the Queen City. Lucey said she received feedback over the years that there weren’t many childbirth education, prenatal and postnatal facilities outside of the city. It became a driving force behind her Essex Jct. expansion. “It’s really important to encourage people to take a class when they’re pregnant so they can learn more about having their baby,” she said. “To be able to offer that outside of Burlington opens up the resource to so many more people who maybe wouldn’t
travel into Burlington.” Lucey has instructed yoga since 2001. She moved to Vermont from New York City in 2004 and found out she was pregnant shortly thereafter. “Right at that time where I found myself new to the community and wanting to reach out and find jobs teaching yoga, I was offered jobs teaching prenatal yoga because I was pregnant,” she said. “I learned with my students.” Like her now 13-year-old son, Lucey’s business has grown, as has her experience. Lucey obtained formal training in prenatal, postnatal and family yoga as well as childbirth education. She took her skills to Evolution Physical Therapy and Yoga in Burlington where she worked as the director of yoga for nine years and now runs the studio there independent of the Physical
Therapy business. “We were able to just really grow what we were offering and build on the child education piece,” Lucey said. In one of Lucey’s classes, “Everybody Yoga,” parents can bring their kids and let them run and play in the studio while the adults follow Evolution instructors in a yoga class. It’s part of Lucey’s effort to help busy parents re-center their lives. “We can’t wait for it to be quiet and perfect and serene to take care of ourselves,” Lucey said. “It gives them [parents] the permission to take care of themselves while doing their other job, too, of being a parent.” But, there are a wide variety of classes at Evolution Yoga. If running toddlers and kids isn’t your speed, there are classes for See YOGA, page A2
COURTESY PHOTO
A mom and her baby share a stretch and a smile at postnatal yoga.