Rose and Denis Derosier’s daughter missed an entire month of school, not because of illness or a family emergency, but because members of the Fairfield Board of Education (BOE) don’t believe that she lives in the district.

The BOE and Derosier family have been battling back and forth for years over whether or not Derosier’s daughter—who they asked to remain anonymous—can attend Fairfield schools. In various court records, their daughter is referred to as “D.D.”

D.D. was set to graduate from Fairfield Ludlowe High School in June and has already been accepted to multiple colleges. But now, all of that is in question.

“We are very big on education,” Denis Derosier, Rose’s husband and D.D.’s father, said. “What’s happening to (D.D.) right now, it’s a little bit mind-blowing, so we’re very panicked.”

During the fall of 2023, the Fairfield BOE challenged Derosier’s family residency and, in December of that year, a state hearing officer determined that D.D. did not live in Fairfield. The family challenged the decision, and in March 2024, the original finding was overturned.

Then, a month later, the BOE appealed the ruling, which resulted in it being overturned. The BOE’s motion claimed that the hearing officer who ruled that their daughter could stay in the school district, “failed to apply the pertinent residency statutes and instead based the decision on factors that are entirely irrelevant to a residency determination.”

In August, 2025, a judge deferred judgment on the matter to the Connecticut State Board of Education. Derosier’s daughter was able to remain at Fairfield Ludlowe High School while a hearing officer was investigating her residency. In February 2026, the hearing officer determined that she did not meet the residency requirements. Now, Denis and Rose are suing the Fairfield BOE once again, trying to keep their daughter in school.

Members of the Fairfield BOE did not respond to emailed questions about the residency dispute, nor the various lawsuits surrounding it.  

“[The BOE is] so strong at getting what they want, it feels like our rights are being violated,” Rose said. “They make sure that they push the appeal as far as possible.”

There are certain facts that the Derosiers and the BOE agree on: D.D. lives in Fairfield; the Derosiers own two houses—a three-bedroom home in Fairfield and a “rather large and lavish” six-bedroom home in Easton; and that in July 2023, Rose and Denis moved into the Easton home and their youngest daughter moved with them.

This is where their stories diverge: Rose and Denis say their daughter was only with them for a few months while their Fairfield home was being renovated, and that she moved back to the Fairfield home with her older sister, who is now 33, when the renovations were complete. The BOE said that their residency officer provided “overwhelming evidence” that their daughter lived with them in Easton “since before the start of the 2023-2024 school year.” The evidence includes “consistent morning surveillance” that shows the Derosiers leaving the Easton house with their daughter for school in the morning, videos of their daughter being dropped off at school, social media posts, and Town of Easton records.

The BOE alleged that, after a State Hearing Officer determined that Derosier’s daughter lived out of district, the family “contrived a maneuver to enable D.D. to remain at Fairfield Ludlowe.”

That alleged maneuver was to have D.D. move into the Fairfield house, where Denis and Rose pay taxes and bills for, and have her older sister live there with her “for an undisclosed amount of time per week,” the BOE alleges in their motion to overturn the March 2024 ruling.

However, Denis said that both of his daughters moved back into their Fairfield house on December 15, 2024—three days before the Fairfield school district initially determined that D.D. did not live in the district anymore.

The hearing officer on the case, who determined that Derosier’s daughter should remain in the Fairfield school district, stated in his decision, “I find it unreasonable to forbid the student, who now sleeps in Fairfield and departs from there to school, from attending the Fairfield Schools.”

But living in a town alone does not fulfil residency requirements for schools.

“Children residing with relatives or nonrelatives, when it is the intention of such relatives or nonrelatives and of the children or their parents or guardians that such residence is to be permanent, provided without pay and not for the sole purpose of obtaining school accommodations,” Connecticut state statute says.

In their motion to overturn the March 2024 ruling, the BOE argues, “It is undisputed that the Parents are paying for this arranged situation [for their oldest daughter to live at the Fairfield house].”

The Derosiers argue that the evidence that the Fairfield BOE has does not support their claims that the D.D.’s living situation, and that they ignored evidence that shows that she lives in Fairfield full-time, and that her sister is living independently.  D.D.’s older sister even had legal custody over D.D. at one point.

Denis believes that his daughter is being “targeted” because she is Black. Denis was born in Haiti, and Rose is African American.

“Don’t forget that Fairfield is a predominantly white school and the child is African American, maybe they have a few of them in there,” Denis said. “So, I don’t see [why else] Fairfield paid a lawyer so much money to appeal a State Board of Education decision and to take the case to Superior Court.”

Now, it’s a waiting game. D.D. started attending Joel Barlow High School on March 23, a full month after she was forced out of Fairfield Ludlowe High School. She was accepted into multiple schools she is interested in attending, including UConn and Sacred Heart, but isn’t sure what the future holds.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about the colleges that I did get into that I want to go to. What am I supposed to say? I think they’re almost counting on me getting my diploma from the schools that I put into, the classes that I said I was taking, stuff like that,” she said.

And, after years of surveillance, she says she suffers from anxiety, nightmares, and panic attacks.

“The problem is not really resolved,” Denis said. “We would like to see the child be reinstated back in school in Fairfield, even for one day.”

Rose said that the entire month her daughter was out of school was “depressing.” They are continuing their lawsuit against the Fairfield BOE and are hoping to get D.D. back into the Fairfield school district.

“It was never about the school, because Barlow is a great school; it’s about civil rights,” Rose said. “[D.D.] has the right to go to school where she lives.”

There is a status conference scheduled for April 7 concerning the Derosiers’ ongoing lawsuit against the Fairfield Board of Education.

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