Students' Lawsuit Claims Bergen County Schools Didn't Protect Them From Teacher's Abuse

FORT LEE, NJ — Two female graduates of a middle school in Fort Lee have filed a lawsuit against the school district for allegedly failing to protect them from a teacher who was eventually found guilty in a harassment case, according to published reports.

Special education math teacher Howard Sidorsky had been found guilty of harassment in Fort Lee Municipal Court in 2019 after a parent made a complaint for "offensive touching," according to legal records. He appealed and lost the appeal of the charge — which the court refers to as "the petty disorderly persons offense of harassment" — in 2020.

News reports on Wednesday say that two former students at Lewis F. Cole Middle School have filed a new lawsuit saying that in the years leading up to that case, the district failed to protect them from Sidorsky.

The story says that one student had Sidorsky as a teacher in 2012, and the other — the student who had filed the above-mentioned court complaint — was taught by him in 2017. During those years, their parents had made complaints about his behavior, but the district failed to act appropriately, the families charge.

Sidorsky's teaching certificate was revoked in December 2020, said the Record of Hackensack. Read the story here.