Police say
BOCES teacher caught with Coke



VOORHEESVILLE — Special education teacher Brooke Huntington will not be finishing the school year with her students at Voorheesville’s high school; she was arrested by Albany City Police last Thursday night for possessing cocaine.

Huntington is a first-year teacher employed by the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), which rents out classroom space from the Voorheesville School District. She has been placed on administrative leave by BOCES, pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

Around 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, Huntington was illegally parked in a bus-stop zone on Washington Avenue in downtown Albany not far from the intersection of Lark Street, when police approached her about moving her vehicle, said Albany Police Detective and press officer Jim Miller.

She immediately acted nervous and suspicious, Miller said. One of the officers looked in the passenger window of the car and saw in plain view powdered cocaine inside her purse, he said. An eighth of an ounce was retrieved, which is a personal-use size, but enough to be of a felony weight, Miller said.

Huntington, who is around 30 years old, is charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance — which is a felony, Miller said.
Huntington was "very cooperative " at the time of her arrest, Miller said. She has no previous record, he said.

According to Albany City Court clerks, Huntington was arraigned on Friday, May 26, and then she returned to court this Wednesday afternoon for her preliminary hearing before judge William Carter. According to Albany County’s jail she did not spend any time there. Huntington is an Albany resident and was released under supervision. She is due back in court on June 29.

The local effect
The news "came as a shock to the school," Voorheesville Superintendent Linda Langevin told The Enterprise. "Everyone was quite shocked," she said.

This is the second time this year that a staffer at Voorheesville was arrested on felony charges. In January, teaching assistant, John Krajewski was charged with second degree rape.
Langevin described Huntington as "an average teacher."

Voorheesville houses three BOCES special-education classes, one each at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, Langevin said. The partnership has been a pleasant one and Voorheesville has not had any incidences with BOCES employees before, she said.

Huntington taught teens with special needs at the high-school level in a contained classroom, Langevin said. About four BOCES staff members worked in the one classroom, she said. There are seven children in Huntington’s class, only one of whom is actually a Voorheesville School District resident, Langevin said.

BOCES officials personally called the families of all seven students over the Memorial Day break to inform them of the arrest, Langevin said.

The students returned to school on Wednesday, after the break which was longer than usual due to contingency snow days.
"Things are very calm and quiet," around here today, Mark Diefendorf, the principal of Clayton A. Bouton High School, told The Enterprise on Wednesday afternoon. Supervisors from BOCES briefed the students that morning and social workers were made available, he said.
Diefendorf said he observed the classroom for a little bit and observed students "staying on task and asking questions."

The class talked about making bad decisions or poor choices, and how adults do that sometimes, too, Diefendorf said.
Things are "generally back up to speed," though, he said.
One of the BOCES teaching assistants who had been working with this group, Craig Church, is a certified teacher, and will be filling in for the last few weeks of school as the students’ teacher, Diefendorf said. Fortunately, the kids don’t have to deal with a "new face" in the classroom right now as well, Diefendorf said.
When asked if Huntington was revered by her pupils, Diefendorf responded, "Not any more so than any other teacher."

While she taught academic skills including reading, writing, and math to the students, it was probably Church who had the best rapport and more of a personal relationship with the students, Diefendorf said. This is because he was the one who took the kids to lunch, and spent time with them in physical-education and art class, he said.
"It was a shock to everyone," Diefendorf said, echoing Langevin’s comments.
"I would see her every day in the hallway," Diefendorf said of Huntington, and she never appeared under the influence. There was never anything suspicious to speak of, he said.

Langevin said that she had not received any complaints about Huntington from parents either.

Inge Jacobs, the special-education director for the Capital Region BOCES did not return a phone call from The Enterprise but released a statement, which is similar to a letter Langevin sent to parents this week.
"At this point there is no evidence or information to indicate that there was criminal activity on school grounds involving Voorheesville students or students from the other districts being served in the BOCES classroom where Ms. Huntington taught," both Jacobs and Langevin wrote.

The police conducted a search of Huntington's classroom on Friday and found nothing, Diefendorf and Langevin said.