Two school districts here have brought independent investigators on board to look into sensitive incidents and school residency.
The Springs School District on Monday hired Douglas A. Spencer, of the Farmingdale law firm Guercio & Guercio, "to act and serve as an impartial investigator to investigate a certain matter," according to the school board agenda. He will be paid $260 per hour. Debra Winter, the district superintendent, declined to comment further.
The Sag Harbor School District last Thursday hired Patrick Dowling of PJD Investigations "to provide surveillance and private investigation services" at a cost of $50 per hour, not to exceed $30,000. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Dowling is a retired Nassau County Police Department detective who has been doing school district residency inquiries for more than 16 years.
"The reason that we're contracting with this firm is for them to check the residency of the roughly 100 new in-district enrollees this year, and also to have someone on retainer, if you will, to follow up on residency issues that come to our attention," said Jeff Nichols, the superintendent.