Former Concord Principal Sica Surrenders Educator Credentials

CONCORD, NH — The former Concord High School principal who was terminated last year in the wake of a teacher-student rape investigation has surrendered his education credentials with the state of New Hampshire.

Tom Sica, a long-time educator in Concord and Gilford, voluntarily surrendered his English Education (5 to 12) and Principal endorsements as well as his Experienced Educator Certificate with the New Hampshire Department of Education, based on a violation of the state's education rules concerning unprofessional conduct and ensuring student safety. Specifically, Sica was accused by the department of violating Ed Rule 510.02(b)(2) by failing "to provide appropriate supervision of students, pursuant to local school district policy adopted as specified in Ed 306.04 (the "Principal Instructional Leader" rule), at school or school-sponsored activities or the failure to ensure the safety and well-being of students."

The department was unable to provide an exact date of the revocation at post time.

The voluntary surrender of the credentials eliminates what would have probably been a long and drawn out legal fight over whether or Sica violated provisions in the state's Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics approved a month before an incident that caused the teacher-student rape investigation to unfold: Concord High School students reporting to the SAU 8 school district that they saw Primo "Howie" Leung, a special education teacher at the high school, kissing and hugging a fellow student inside of a vehicle at the intersection of I-393 and East Side Drive in December 2018.

The claim by students led to an internal investigation of Leung, who denied the interaction. The girl, who was 18 at the time, also denied the incident.

In the report, Leung was accused of deleting image files of him with the student and his version of events contradicted what others had said. It also revealed prior accusations of unprofessional behavior — and an unease raised by some teachers about Leung's relationship with students, including his regular hugging of and private conversations with girls. Leung was also warned three times in the fall of 2018 about boundaries with students.

After the report was issued, Leung was placed on a professional improvement plan — with pushback from his union representatives that it was not necessary since he and the girl denied what the students saw.

Not long after the implementation of the improvement plan, Terri Forsten, the then-school superintendent, approached the education department to get a second opinion about what the district found — a love letter to a student, an allegation of a relationship with a second student, and other investigatory items that have not yet been released to the public.

Later, the documents led to rape charges against Leung in Massachusetts after the state turned its investigation over to the Concord Police Department. From there, allegations of a student being raped at a summer camp run by Leung at the Fessenden School in Newton emerged. The girl, who participated in the English language learner and culture summer program at the time, was 13 at the time.

Months later, as the revelation of the rape charges stunned the Concord community, another student, Ana Goble, came forward to tell officials she was targeted for suspension in 2014 when Sica was the principal at Rundlett. Goble raised concerns about Leung's relationship with a student. Leung and the student denied the incident. Goble was suspended for three days for gossiping.

After the Goble incident was revealed, Sica agreed to a leave of absence just before the Class of 2019 graduation on June 21, 2019, while still assisting leadership at the school in preparing for the next school year.

The district hired an attorney to look into the Leung investigation, the Goble suspension, and other issues, and a 100-page report was issued. That report led to Sica and Forsten being terminated on Sept. 25, 2019. Two days after the terminations, school board members reported that they were placed on leave. Sica, after many weeks, accepted a settlement from the district in order to not fight the termination by the district.

The 100-page report was sealed from the public by the school district. The terminations of Forsten and Sica also led to the revelation that a number of administrators working for the district did not have active credentials with the state at the time.

Late last year, the ACLU and a local parent, Dellie Champagne, sued the district in Merrimack County Superior Court to have the report released (Patch was not a party to the lawsuit but did make a public records request for a copy of the report, which was rejected by the district).

A recent decision, however, by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, throwing out personnel protection provisions in the state's right-to-know law, a loophole that is often used to shield public employees from scrutiny after they leave employment, led the district to go back and create another redacted version of the report for potential public consumption after being viewed by a superior court judge. That report is expected any day now.

Sica did not respond to requests for comment about his surrendering of his credentials. He is also under a legal obligation in his settlement not to speak about certain aspects of the investigation.

Kate Frey, Goble's mother, said parents were looking forward to the release of the report that the district actively kept from the public despite knowing all that they knew about the case. She said "while some solace" could be taken by the revocation of Sica's credentials, "it still is not enough to make up for the trauma faced by the victims and witnesses at the hands of the very institution that was established to protect them." Frey said Sica's decision to surrender his credentials "underscores the need for the district to be as transparent as possible with the release of the report so there is a clear picture of what went wrong at every level and to ensure it never happens again." Training of staff and administrators was also "imperative," she said, adding it was disturbing that some employees still working for the district supported Sica's decision making and insinuated there was another side of the story.

"Based on the fact that the department of education took such serious actions against Mr. Sica, it calls into question the credibility and judgement of others still employed by the district," Frey said.

Sica came to New Hampshire in 1998 after teaching English and working as the dean of a Catholic preparatory school in New York. He worked as the assistant principal and then principal of the Gilford Middle-High School for about six years. Sica was hired to be an assistant principal at Concord High School, where he stayed for eight years, and then worked as the principal at Rundlett Middle School for six years. He was hired as the principal for Concord High School in early 2016 after the retirement of long-time principal Gene Connolly.

The voluntary surrender of the credential only prevents Sica from applying to or reapplying for any credentials with the state board of education and from teaching at credentialed educational facilities. It does not appear to prevent him from teaching in other capacities including nonpublic schools that do not require credentialed educators.

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