nothin School Board Member’s Son Put On Leave | New Haven Independent

School Board Member’s Son Put On Leave

A school board member’s son has been placed on paid leave following a violent altercation with a student at Wilbur Cross High School last week.

Frank Frankie” Redente, Jr., a youth development coordinator, allegedly shoved a student in the back then took the student down to the floor in a restraining hold, according to five people familiar with the case.

The case is now being investigated by New Haven Public School administrators and Department of Children and Families officials, they said.

I can’t get into the details,” Superintendent Carol Birks said when asked about it. It’s under investigation. It’s a personnel matter.”

Redente currently serves in a management role overseeing drop-out prevention. He is paid a $49,186 salary annually. He participates in the YouthStat program for students at risk of suspension or expulsion.

According to the people familiar with the case, last week a call came over the walkie-talkies that a group of Cross students were about to start slapboxing,” a form of sparring where open hands are used instead of fists. Redente responded to the call, and he encountered a young man who he’d known from past interactions.

The accounts of what happened next diverge.

In one version, Redente at first tried to deescalate. He tried talking the student down, based on their past rapport. The student remained agitated. When Redente asked the student to follow him to another part of the building, the student punched him in the face. Redente shoved the student in the back and put him into a restraint.

In another version, Redente immediately escalated. He verbally got into it with the student. The student may have swung at him, then tried to get away. Redente shoved the student in the back, put him in a chokehold and took him to the ground. Redente then allegedly placed his forearm on the student’s face. Then, he allegedly picked the student up again and slammed his head into the floor.

The incident was caught on film, and state and local investigators will decide which account is more accurate.

Reached by phone, Redente said, I think you’ve got the wrong Frank,” and hung up. He did not respond to additional text and Facebook messages.

Dad Votes

Christopher Peak Photo

School board member Frank Redente.

Redente initially was hired to work on drop-out and truancy prevention at Edgewood Magnet School. In May 2014, he was transferred out of the elementary school to work in central office. In August 2015, he was promoted to a supervisory role preventing drop-outs.

Last summer, Redente stopped reporting to work at Cross. The building was empty; he started showing up instead at Farnam Neighborhood House’s summer camp to work with their at-risk kids. When Reggie Mayo, the interim district superintendent, heard about it, he said Redente couldn’t earn a school paycheck if he was working elsewhere, according to people with whom he spoke. (Mayo could not be reached for comment.)

Halfway through the summer, the Board of Education voted to put Redente on a five-week leave. Retroactively.

I wouldn’t vote on it,” said his father, Redente, Sr. But he actually did vote twice, according to board records.

Redente Sr. said he didn’t remember the vote, which took place as part of a package of almost 160 personnel changes during an unusually fraught period for the school board.

The votes took place just a month after Daisy Gonzalez, the former board president, died unexpectedly. As the superintendent search ramped up, the board’s infighting intensified, often with Redente, Sr., as the swing vote in the middle.

In August, Darnell Goldson and Mayor Toni Harp started effectively boycotting meetings, arguing that the board didn’t have enough members to constitute a quorum, which is why the vote came up twice.

The first time, at an Aug. 14 meeting, Ed Joyner recused himself from voting on the personnel changes, saying he couldn’t approve his daughter Monica’s appointment as principal at Augusta Lewis Troup School. (Joyner did participate in the deliberations, saying he had raised his daughter right before abstaining from the actual vote.) Redente, who also had a conflict of interest with his son’s leave, didn’t recuse himself at all. In fact, he seconded the motion to approve the personnel report.

The second time, at an Aug. 22 special meeting, the board revisited its Aug. 14 vote, reapproving the personnel report to make sure it got by on a quorum. Again, Redente seconded the motion to approve the personnel report, which contained his son’s leave. Joyner did not explicitly recuse himself the second time from the reapproval vote.

I don’t remember that,” Redente said.

In January, Redente, Jr., ended a part-time role as director of Farnam’s after-school basketball program.

Redente, Sr., said he’s steering clear of the current investigation into his son’s actions. I gotta stay out of it, let it play out,” he said. I don’t want to jeopardize it.”

Birks: Reviewing Policies

Redente is the second Wilbur Cross employee whom the superintendent placed on leave within the past month. In the other case, a security guard is also under investigation for possibly going too far in breaking up a fight. 

Asked whether the back-to-back incidents signal a larger problem, Birks said she was reviewing the district’s policies and training on students’ social-emotional learning.

We’re looking at all of our schools, ensuring we’re creating conditions that meet students’ social-emotional and academic needs,” she said. We’re working closely with our administration, the security chief as well as the chief of police to make sure we have a comprehensive view of how we support students and faculty.”

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