In Wake Of Sexual Assaults, Long-Time Principal Removed

As the search continues to catch a sexual predator who struck six elementary school children at P.S. 89 in Elmhurst last week, the schools 74-year-old principal was removed from duty.
Pending a Board of Education investigation, Cleonice LoSecco, at the helm of the School District 24 elementary school for 26 years, has been transferred to a desk job within District 24. In the meantime, Casper Cacioppo will serve as the schools acting principal.
The move comes on the heels of last Mondays sexual assault, where a man snuck into the school through an unguarded freight entrance and molested four young students and sodomized another in a stairwell.
It was later revealed that a man, fitting a similar description had entered the school a week prior and confronted a child. School officials wrote the incident off as a prank and did not report it to the Board.
The incident has brought to the forefront the question of whether schools in northwest Queens neighborhoods are adequately protected. Monday, a united group of parents protested at District 24s Ridgewood office demanding more security agents, surveillance cameras, and door alarms.
Assemblyman Michael Cohen, who represents areas of District 24, has introduced a bill that he believes may help prevent similar incidents from happening. The proposed legislation would modify a current New York law modeled after New Jerseys Megans Law.
The current law states that after a sex offender is convicted, they are categorized in danger levels, with one being the safest and three being the most risky. While no community notification is required for level one offenders, police are given the opportunity to notify local entities such as school boards. However, in neither case, police are not instructed to post pictures of noted sex offenders inside public schools.
Cohen sees that as a recipe for disaster. His bill would require the police to disseminate both a description and a photo of all level three sex offenders.
Cohen, who attended Mondays meeting, put local police officials, who have buffed up security at the school on the spot. "We are covering the wagons inside the school, but must be vigilant in protecting the areas outside and around the schools," said Cohen, who himself graduated from P.S. 89.
Dorie Figliola, co-president of P.S. 113 in Glendale said posting pictures of sex offenders, a practice eliminated by the Board of Education several years ago, would greatly increase the safety of city school children. "A few years back, on the day before we were to take down all pictures of sex offenders, a parent came to pick up their child," remembered Figliola. "The man noticed a picture on my wall of a man listed as sex offender. He turned to me and said thats my tenant."
"Anyone can enter a school by displaying an ID," added Figliola. "We must do something to secure our schools. But nothing is 100 percent. It is our responsibility to educate parents on how best to protect their kids."
Police describe the assailant who struck P.S. 89 last week as Hispanic, between 25 and 35 years old, 57," with black hair and a medium build. If you have information on this man, call (800) 577-TIPS.