The Fairfield, Connecticut, Board of Education (BOE) removed a second student from the district weeks before he was set to graduate. The student, “Randy,” had been disputing his residency with the district for months prior to this, and alleges that the district’s aggressive tactics led to him and his mother being forced out of their home on April 1, making him homeless.

Inside Investigator did not speak to Randy directly and agreed to use a pseudonym in this article at the request of his mother, Katharine Venice, though the student’s name appears unreacted in court documents.

According to Katharine, Randy showed up at the Walter Fitzgerald Campus (WFC) on April 2, which is Fairfield’s alternative school, but was approached by Principal Karen Baldwin and told he had to leave, according to court documents from a lawsuit he then filed. This was the culmination of a months-long process where his residency was being reviewed. However, something significant had happened the day before: Randy’s landlord said he to vacate the property.

Venice sent an email to various administrators in the district to invoke the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act on Randy’s behalf before he went to school on April 2 because he received notice from his landlord that he had to leave his home on April 1. That act is a federal law that “requires all school districts to ensure access to public education for children and youth experiencing homelessness and ensure success in school once enrolled.” The law requires students to receive immediate assistance from districts.

Screenshots of texts in court documents allege that the landlord forced Randy to leave because she was scared of threats she allegedly received from the school district. Venice told Inside Investigator that the landlord was also scared about how people from the district were surveilling the area.

“I’m sorry again with the school keeps coming by the notices and threatening me paying tuition I can’t have him her (sic) anymore .he’s a vey (sic) nice boy and I wish him the best I do,” one of the text messages said.

If these allegations are true, what the landlord did could be illegal. Connecticut law heavily regulates when, how, and for what reasons a tenant can be evicted; it is a long process, and there must be just cause. Even with month-to-month leases, if a landlord does not want to renew a lease, tenants must be given a certain amount of notice before they have to vacate their residence.

Randy is suing the Fairfield BOE, Fairfield Superintendent Michael J. Testani, Deputy Superintendent Zakaria Parrish, and Baldwin. One of his claims is that the district broke the law by not allowing him to remain at WFC after they were told he was homeless.

In court filings, however, defense attorneys state, “At each stage of the process, Plaintiff has failed to prove that he was homeless or a resident of Fairfield… There is no “emergency” at issue here. If Plaintiff pursues an administrative appeal, he should enroll where he resides—presumably, with one of his parents.”

Inside Investigator attempted to reach the BOE, Testani, Parrish, and Baldwin by email to ask questions about the lawsuit and the district’s residency policy, but none of them could be reached before deadline. One of the attorneys on the case, Stephen Sedor of Kainen, Escalera & McHale PC, was cc-ed on all of those emails. Sedor did not respond to any of the emails, nor to a message left for him at his office. Inside Investigator also attempted to reach another attorney from the same firm who is working with the Fairfield district, Joseph McQuade, but McQuade could not be reached.

“Their own school psychiatrist report said he needs stability,” Venice said. “And yet, they just enrolled him twice in a senior year.”

Randy’s parents are separated. Throughout his junior year and at the start of his senior year, he lived with his father in Greenwich, and the district rerouted a bus to pick him up at a train station, his mother said. Court documents support the claim that he was living in Greenwich, CT, during the 2024-2025 school year, and the district knew about it.

His mother says she maintained a Fairfield address this entire time, but also, when her son decided to live with his father, she spent a significant number of nights in White Plains, New York, at her boyfriend’s home.

Court filings from the district state that by September 2025, Venice received all her mail at her boyfriend’s residence in White Plains. The defense claimed in the filings that she lived in White Plains, but Venice told Inside Investigator that she just spent a lot of nights there and was not a full-time resident.

Venice said that Randy’s father kicked him out of his home in October. Afterwards, she said she rented a room for him at the house she was living in. But that same month, the school informed Randy that they intended to unenroll him.

A hearing process ensued. Per state law, it was conducted by the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE), and in November, the CSDE upheld the district’s decision.

Venice, who was permitted by Randy to act on his behalf, challenged this decision and triggered a months-long process where Venice tried to prove that Randy lived in Fairfield, while the district tried to prove that he didn’t.

The defense claims that Venice did not provide a copy of her lease for her Fairfield address during her son’s residency hearing, nor did she provide any proof of payments for housing. Consequently, a determination was made that neither of them lived in Fairfield during their hearing.

But Venice has a different theory: they didn’t want to deal with Randy’s special needs. Randy has post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and emotional dysregulation.

“He became a lot to handle. He’s a good boy, he was just very dependent, very needy, relied upon the school personnel, and I think they were burnt out, so they used his residency as a pretext,” Venice said. “I mean, they transported him out of the district for a year and a half, for two school years basically, and then used that as the reason.”

Venice says that her son is now couch-surfing with friends in Fairfield and hasn’t attended school in over a week. Venice is in White Plains, bouncing between her boyfriend’s and her parents’ homes.

The Fairfield BOE is also being sued by the parents of a 17-year-old senior who, like Randy, was unenrolled from the district weeks before graduation. Rose and Denis Derosier are trying to get their daughter, who is referred to as D.D. in court documents, back into Fairfield Ludlowe High School so she can graduate from there. The Derosiers told Inside Investigator that they believe their daughter is being discriminated against because she is black.

“It’s atrocious what they’ve done, what they’re doing, and specifically who they target,” Venice said.
Venice is also suing the Fairfield BOE and Testani in federal court. She is alleging that they discriminated against Randy because of his disabilities.

Like Randy, the Derosiers are claiming that their daughter is experiencing “irreparable harm” every day she is not at Fairfield Ludlowe High School. Unlike Randy, D.D. is attending school in another district, but she fears that if she does not graduate from Ludlowe, she might not be able to attend college next year.

Both the Derosiers, petitioning on behalf of their daughter, and Randy himself are asking judges to immediately reinstate them in the Fairfield district before graduation. He is not asking for a “final determination of residency.”

On April 20, the defense filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Testani, Parrish, and Baldwin filed a motion to dismiss the claims against him. They claimed that the defendants are not being accused of any specific wrongdoing and that they were not properly served.

There is a hearing scheduled for Randy’s lawsuit on May 12.

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.