Talk of the Sound has confirmed that Donna Henry, a long-time employee of the City School District of New Rochelle, is the security guard at the heart of the “sexting” incident at Albert Leonard Middle School. As first reported by Talk of the Sound, a school security guard at Albert Leonard Middle School obtained a full frontal nude photo of a 7th grade student and transmitted the photo to other employees of the New Rochelle school district.
The District suspended Henry, a school employee with a long history of disciplinary problems that includes assaulting a child, but has since reinstated her. She is now working at a “make-work” security post on the second floor at City Hall in New Rochelle pending reassignment elsewhere.
School Board candidate Deidre Polow was among those briefed on the incident by school officials. According to police records, Polow failed to report the incident to law enforcement as is required for all mandated reporters.
The District Attorney is aware of the allegations against Henry and discussed the matter with representatives of the New Rochelle school district last week. The DA’s office has told Talk of the Sound exclusively that unless the parents of the girl in the photo come forward to press charges it will be up to the school district to file a complaint against Donna Henry.
According to New Rochelle police records, the parents have so far refused to cooperate in the case. The girl has since been pulled out of Albert Leonard Middle School and relocated to a school in New Jersey by her father who is divorced from the girl’s mother. The family originally lived in another part of New Rochelle and attended Isaac E. Young Middle School for 6th grade.
Current and former district employees and students familiar with Donna Henry describe her as a “bully” who has threatened district staff and assaulted a student. In one case at several years ago, Rochelle Lieber-Miller called Child Protective Services to report Henry for assaulting a student at Albert Leonard. Henry was moved to Isaac E. Young Middle School where she subsequently got into a screaming match with Debbie Ferrara, the the school’s officer manager and was moved again. Henry, who has been repeatedly moved from building to building within the District, was moved out of Isaac Young after the incident with Ferrara, ultimately ending up back at Albert Leonard.
According to an incident report dated December 10, 2008, Albert Leonard Middle School Principal Williams Evans contacted the New Rochelle Police Department to report what was described as “possible child pornography”. The report says that an unidentified student at Albert Leonard reported receiving the nude photo from another student. Evans interviewed the student who had sent the photo and confiscated the student’s phone. The detective assigned to the case failed to conduct a full investigation to analyze the image, the hard drive of the confiscated cell phone and the billing records and log files associated with the phone during the period in question. Declaring the case closed, New Rochelle police destroyed evidence in the case and returned the phone to the student, minus the photo.
Talk of the Sound has learned that Donna Henry was also reported to school officials but a search of police records indicates that no report concerning Donna Henry and the nude image was filed by the school district. The New Rochelle School Board, the Superintendent and other senior administrators in the District have known about the Donna Henry sexting incident since January and sought to cover it up. At a January board meeting, District IT Director Christine Coleman made a presentation to the school board on internet safety and, in particular, sexting. Coleman claimed there had not been any incidents of sexting in the New Rochelle school district although Talk of the Sound has learned that the Albert Leonard incident was not the first sexting incident reported to school officials. As reported previously, Albert Leonard Middle School Principal Evans sent home a letter to parents urging them to have a discussion with their children about the dangers of sexting without disclosing the incident.
Security Guard
listen in reporting the news you should report everything and not what u want. there are some untrue facts about somethings in your (sexting)report. first of all there was never any pictures floating around or being text in this situation by any grown ups. secondly if something like that happened trust and beleave there would’ve been people getting fired and arrests made form day 1.the other thing is the assault allegation was just that an allegation that was fully investagated by the police and cps and was unfounded by both agencies. (why did’nt u mention that). the other situation with the ferra lady was blown out of the water because it was a disagreement between the two ladies and because ferra was one of the ladies that ran the issac office and has more time in mrs henry was the one made to look like the bad guy. i also did’nt here u mention that mrs henry also during her time with the board she has mentored alot of kids some of them coming from troubled pasts and what have u (i did’nt hear u mention that).you need to find out everything about a person before u try and destroy them and there personal life. everybody don’t like everybody so ask people that liked her and disliked her seems like you are only going for those that don’t like her.(i don’t see you trying to go after mthe cop who raped that young girl where is the blog about that) hummmmmmmm. well gotta go for now. p.s u should’nt put peoples pictures and names on things unless u are a 100% sure u are right.
Defending the indefensible
So, let me see if I can boil this down a bit.
There was allegation by a 17-year old girl against a cop who entered into a plea agreement where he made no admission of guilt on the allegation of rape. The NRPD defended the cop in many different ways. But you say it WAS rape. So, in other words, you are saying that you do not believe the cop and you do not believe NRPD. Is that correct? They are lying and you are telling the truth?
OK.
Now you agree that Ms. Henry was reported to Child Protective Services for assaulting a child, right? So we agree on that. In fact, she was reported to CPS by a social worker at Albert Leonard who then turned the matter over to NRPD, right? And the same NRPD that you say lied about a cop raping a 17-year old girl, they “fully investigated” and determined that the allegation was unfounded.
So, when it suits you, you BELIEVE the cops and when it does not suit you the cops are LIARS. Is that about right?
And when a social worker at Albert Leonard calls CPS on Ms. Henry, the social worker is the liar. And when there is an incident with Ms. Ferrera, then people lied then too in order to make Ms. Henry look like the bad guy? And what about threatening people in the finance department where he daughter-in-law works? Were those people lying? And why has been Ms. Henry been repeatedly bounced around the school district buildings, suspended, and most recently been assigned to a “make-work” job guarding an empty conference room on the 2nd floor at City Hall? Were the administrators who did this all liars? And if these are all lies then where is Marty Daly and F.U.S.E. defending her instead of agreeing to the suspension and whatever make-work assignments she is given? Oh, and I am a liar too, right? And the people who provided me information on this story are all liars.
Wow!
Seems like EVERYONE is a liar except for you — and the cops but just on the days when they close cases in ways that you like otherwise they are liars too.
Now, let’s try a little truth.
Had this blog been operating when the cop was alleged to have raped a girl we would have reported that but since it happened before this site existed we could not. For the record, the case is a disgrace for the NRPD and that cop got off waaaaay to easy. He should be in jail as far as we are concerned here.
You can’t prove a negative so there is nothing much to say about your claim that “there was never any pictures floating around or being text in this situation by any grown ups”. There was and that is why she was suspended. What should have happened is that she should have been reported to the police and they should have called in the DA to a full forensic investigation to trace that image from her phone to any other phone that received the image. They should have then arrested any person who received that photo AND sent it to someone else.
The way we really know you are full of it is your laughable claim that “if something like that happened trust and beleave there would’ve been people getting fired and arrests made form day 1.”
Hilarious.
Stuff like like this happens all the time in the New Rochelle school system and it is almost ALWAYS swept under the rug.
You got anything else or are we done now?
The story is right…
… on the money
Neither story, from IYMS or
Neither story, from IYMS or ALMS, was accurate as reported here. But since Mr. Cox insists on hiding opposing points of view, readers won’t be able to make informed decisions. I’d REALLY like to see Mr. Cox’ “sources” come forward…just once.
Anyone can register
When you say the IYMS story is false do you mean the one about the mother who asked for an ambulance to be called to transport her child who had suffered two broken arms after falling in the playground, or do you mean the one about principal smoking cigars at the school in violation of the Clean Indoor Air Act, or do you mean the one where the principal lied to county investigators, or the one about the student was assaulted by a security guard, or the one about math department chair who was unable to perform basic math during a presentation to the school board, or the one about the obviously phony test score increases for black and hispanic students> Really, there are so many IYMS stories to sort though you will have to be more specific.
When you say the ALMS story, do you mean the one about the marijuana “bust” at the school? or the sexting case reported to NRPD? or the sexting case NOT reported to NRPD?
As for publishing different points of view, I have said many times, we are not going to publish anonymous drive-by comments from trolls. For people who choose to post anonymously WE will pick and choose which comments we find useful to us, in whole or in part. If you wish to register you can post without moderation. I will say it is ironic how you demand that other people come forward when you post anonymously.
Mr. Cox, I did register and
Mr. Cox, I did register and you still refused to post several of my replies; replies that were not offensive, but just disagreed with your conclusions! So what difference does it make if I post this way or as a registered user? You pick and choose what you want posted to suit YOUR agenda, your twist on things. Mr. Cox, you and I know this to be fact. Period.
Anyway, the incidents I do know about, which, I know are being misrepresented here, are both the incidents at ALMS (“sexting” & “busted”) and the alleged assault by the security guard at IYMS. You have FOIL’ed heavily sanitized police reports and have filled in the blanks with what you think happened and reporting YOUR deductions as fact, which, obviously, doesn’t make it true. As a matter of fact, you are way off base on all three incidents!!
As far as the other incidents to which you refer, I do not have any direct knowledge of those incidents. However, if you are gathering information in the same manner and writing the stories as the ones I do know about (first hand btw), I have no choice but to assume you are not credible in your reporting with those stories. I think you are being extremely irresponsible. It’s a shame also, because New Rochelle deserves a forum such as this that can be counted on as “responsible”. Thus far, Mr. Cox, you have failed. “watching2”
You registered but you are not logged in
Dear watching2,
There are many comments on this site where people disagree with me so it entirely false to say that I do not allow people with opposing views to comment. It also entirely false to say that I have blocked or removed any REGISTERED comments from you.
It is well-known here that I do not do is allow ANONYMOUS commenters to just post whatever they want. All anonymous comments must be manually approved (by me). If someone is commenting anonymously they have lost all claim to have their comment published or published in full as a “right”. As I have repeatedly made clear I will exercise editorial discretion to pick and choose from among anonymous comments. If you don’t like then comment using the account you created (I checked, it is there).
Take a look at the instructions under the “Register” link at the top of the home page. You need to register to get a User ID and Password. Once you have them you need to actually use them. I will not publish it here but you used an email account from “live.com”, right? Is that a REAL address? If it is, the web site software would have automatically sent you a login for this site. If you did not see it then it might have gotten stuck in your email spam filter. If that is the case then email me and I will create a temporary password for you.
In either case, when you login as a registered user your comments appear without moderation. So long as meet some fairly common standards – no bad language, no spam, no trollish behavior or thread hijacking and, of course, no SHOUTING BY USING ALL CAPS – you can post as you wish. So, the only person preventing your comments from appear on the site is you.
As far as your claims…
Obviously, you know who I am. You must then know that I attend almost every board meeting, that I talk to MANY people in the district and gather a great deal of information in reporting out stories. Agree or disagree, readers know who I am and that I put my own name on my stories and stand by them.
Readers here including me have no idea who you are or why we should consider you an authority on anything. Like that old New Yorker cartoon, for all we know you are a dog. What we do know about you is that you have made several false claims in the above post about registration and commenting so you are not off to a good start.
In looking at your comment about my ALMS and IEYMS stories, you have used up a lot of words to say: “you are way off base on all three incidents!!”
While I appreciate that you must feel that use of TWO exclamation points makes this “accusation” all the more damning, as far as I can tell your entire point is not that what I reported did not happen but that I have “mischaracterized” the incidents by filing in blanks in “heavily sanitized police reports”. Well if two exclamation points makes for a strong argument you should be prepared for me to use three exclamation points. In fact, I am willing to escalate the use of punctuation no matter what the cost.
OK!!?@?!%#!!!???
First, are you making an accusation against the NRPD?
Second, how do you know that I have obtained ANY police reports?
Third, what blanks do you imagine I am filling in?
Fourth, if there is some alternative version of these incidents why not share them?
Seems to me that you should spend less time imaging what I have read in the police reports and a little more time asking yourself how I knew to FOIL for the police reports in the first place 🙂
I urge you to log in to post your thoughts
I have posted some caustic commentary and never had any item not show up immediately. I cannot believe if you actually log in, and post your comment, that it doesn’t appear right away. Myself, I welcome opposing info. I want to beleive that some of these stories aren’t true. Sadly, nothing comes out that dispells the stories as reported. As with ANY news story, the story breaks with confirmed info that is further supported as the investigation continues. Just because Journal News, or News 12 doesn’t report it by no way means it isn’t a story. So please, if you have something to contribute LOG IN and tell us.
She has got to go!!
She has got to go!!
Quick to point finger
U need to get the complete facts B4 U support trying to destroy somebody. How U know this website is being truthful.
Get rid of her. She should
GET rid of her. She should not be with our children.
Girl should sue her and School Board.
School board has allowed this to happen and exposed the taxpayers to a lawsuit
That is child porn and the
That is child porn and the woman should be fired and put in jail! Why isnt this being taken seriously…the woman should not have a job with the city in any form!
Good question! Why?!
Why wasn’t this handled properly? This just makes us wonder what else is being mishandled? Who’s minding our children?