The Babylon school district kept a teacher employed for more than a decade until his retirement despite "credible" complaints he sexually harassed seven female student-athletes, records show.

Newsday, while looking into sexual misconduct accusations leveled against nearly a dozen current and former Babylon Junior-Senior High School teachers, obtained Barry Goldsholle's disciplinary records from the district last month through a Freedom of Information Law request.

The documents detail how Babylon dealt with sexual harassment complaints against the teacher years before former students blamed the district during a school board meeting in November 2021 for mishandling the allegations. The alums, in the contentious hourslong meeting, accused Goldsholle and other teachers of misconduct, allegations that led state Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation.

James' office said this week that the probe continues. Babylon already had opened its own investigation into "current employees" by attorney Christopher Powers. He said in an email this week that the probe also is ongoing.

The district initially responded to the allegations in November 2021 by placing five teachers on paid leave. The district said this week that three teachers “remain on administrative reassignment” and declined to provide further details.

The 20 pages of records Newsday obtained about Goldsholle show that girls tennis team members told the school he spoke to them in sexual terms, kissed their heads, played with their hair and held their shoulders, hips and waists while teaching tennis serves. The complaints were filed during the 2006 tennis season.

Goldsholle coached tennis and taught special education at Babylon Junior-Senior High School at the time.

Seven female students made allegations against you that constituted sexual harassment … The investigation concluded that these allegations were credible.

— Reprimand letter to Barry Goldsholle from then-Babylon Superintendent Ellen Best-Laimit obtained in a FOIL request by Newsday

Goldsholle retired in 2018, at a salary of $145,979, after 30 years of employment in the district, primarily at Babylon Junior-Senior High School, according to his personnel records. He surrendered his teacher’s license in 2021, but the state Education Department would not tell Newsday why, citing privacy restrictions.

Goldsholle, 63, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A 2007 reprimand letter from Babylon's then-superintendent, Ellen Best-Laimit, said administrators already had “counseled” him about sexual harassment before the flurry of complaints from tennis players and described the students’ allegations as “consistent” and “coherent."

But the district did not pursue his termination, instead negotiating a three-month suspension with his union representative, according to a 2007 settlement agreement signed by Goldsholle and the then-school board president.

"He should have been fired and his license should have been revoked," former student Darcy Orlando Bennet said this month.

Bennet, 32, said Goldsholle tried to kiss her when she was in the ninth grade and touched her inappropriately as her coach. Bennet said she reported the kiss to a guidance counselor during the school's investigation into Goldsholle a year later, but alleges the school never informed her parents.

An investigator with the attorney general's office interviewed Bennet twice, she said.

'They failed us. They failed to keep us safe.'

— Barbara Maier Kulick, Babylon graduate

Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin

"They failed us. They failed to keep us safe,” said Barbara Maier Kulick, 32, a former tennis player who said Goldsholle inappropriately touched her under the guise of helping her athletic form. She didn’t report it because she said his misbehavior was widely known and normalized.

Goldsholle denied the accusations as well as any recollection of having been “counseled in the past regarding these issues, particularly ones related to sexual harassment,” the 2007 reprimand letter said.

In a statement, current Babylon board president Carol Dell'Erba said this week that she and her fellow board members “regard the past staff behavior alleged by former students and members of the Babylon community as abhorrent and unacceptable."

In the past 15 months, one Babylon teacher resigned and agreed to never seek employment at a school nationwide, and another high school teacher was arrested on rape charges.

"It is a stain on our district that we will continue to expend every effort possible to rectify,” said Dell'Erba, whose district enrolls about 1,500 students.

‘Confused, disappointed’

Bennet and Kulick, shown Goldsholle's disciplinary documents that Newsday obtained, said they were not among the seven who complained to the school about him.

Bennet, a sophomore at the time, said she was interviewed as part of the school’s investigation into Goldsholle in 2006 but was never told the full extent of the inquiry into him or his discipline.

The 2007 reprimand letter said Goldsholle faced complaints from nearly 20 current and former students that also included allegations he failed to properly supervise his special education students.

'The fact that in 2007 he already had 20 people have allegations against him … why wasn't he kicked out after the first one?'

— Darcy Orlando Bennet, Babylon graduate

Credit: Danielle Silverman

“The fact that in 2007 he already had 20 people have allegations against him … why wasn't he kicked out after the first one? I just don't understand it,” Bennet said, adding that she was “confused” and “disappointed” by the discipline.

Reading the documents, Bennet said, "kind of made me sick."

Kulick said she was shocked that Goldsholle continued teaching and retired with benefits after the investigation found seven female students’ complaints credible.

“How did it not go further? Why were the police not involved?” Kulick said.

Then-board president Darrell Conway said this month that Suffolk police were not involved and that he does not recall any conversations about whether to contact law enforcement.

The district filed disciplinary charges with the state Education Department but later declined to pursue Goldsholle’s dismissal because officials did not think a state-appointed arbitrator would rule in their favor, Conway said.

'If it was in the private sector, he would have been fired that minute. Unfortunately, the system that we have protects actions like that.'

— Darrell Conway, former Babylon school board president

Credit: Alejandra Villa Loarca

Conway, 66, of Babylon, said state law limited their ability to fire Goldsholle despite what he termed as “despicable” behavior with the students. He said the state's teacher discipline system should make it easier to terminate an educator facing credible sexual harassment charges.

“If it was in the private sector, he would have been fired that minute,” Conway said. “Unfortunately, the system that we have protects actions like that."

Instead, the board negotiated discipline that included a three-month suspension, permanent ban from coaching and a requirement that he obtain the superintendent’s approval before attending after-school events, even as a spectator.

‘We got the best solution we could'

Bennet said she was bothered that the district went to such lengths to ban Goldsholle from student interaction after school while keeping him in the classroom.

“I don't understand how he couldn’t be on the premises during an after-school event or go to any sort of sporting events,” Bennet said, “but he was allowed to be in the school around students?"

Conway, who negotiated the settlement, said administrators worked to eliminate Goldsholle’s time alone with students, ensuring adults regularly accompanied him when he was around them.

The settlement required him to seek permission to attend an after-school event to avoid any unsupervised time with students, Conway said.

“We didn’t want him anywhere near the school,” Conway said. “We got the best solution that we could.”

In the 2007 reprimand letter, Best-Laimit wrote she found his “egregious actions involving students to constitute conduct unbecoming a teacher” and warned Goldsholle that she would seek his dismissal if he is “unwilling or unable to refrain from such conduct in the future.”

I find your egregious actions involving students to constitute conduct unbecoming a teacher … Should you be unwilling or unable to refrain from such conduct in the future, I will seek your termination from service and revocation of your teaching license.

— Reprimand letter to Barry Goldsholle from then-Babylon Superintendent Ellen Best-Laimit obtained in a FOIL request by Newsday

In the next three years, a student and a colleague each lodged a complaint against Goldsholle, but the district declined again to pursue his termination, according to a 2011 settlement agreement. The complaints are not specified.

As part of that agreement, Goldsholle acknowledged in writing it's “incumbent upon him to be overly cautious when in close proximity with females.” When walking in a school hallway, Goldsholle acknowledged "his first concern should have been to provide a 'wide berth' between himself and any females."

The negotiated discipline included a $15,000 fine and a transfer to the lower grades “to maximize the possibility of Goldsholle not encountering the kind of students and/or the teacher … that were involved with these charges,” according to the 2011 settlement.

Goldsholle taught at Babylon Memorial Grade School, which includes students from third through sixth grades, in 2011-12. He returned to the high school for the rest of his tenure at the district, according to his personnel records.

Henry Brunjes, the then-board president who signed the second settlement agreement, did not return calls seeking comment.

Experts: Termination warranted

Newsday asked three experts who specialize in education law, policies and teacher misconduct to review the documents, and each questioned Babylon’s handling of the allegations.

David Thompson, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said Babylon community members “should reasonably question the district’s commitment to maintaining an environment that takes complaints of educator sexual misconduct with the seriousness these complaints deserve.”

David Bloomfield, education law professor at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center, said: "I'm surprised by the lengths to which the district increased administrative burdens for him to remain on staff."

“The district made special accommodations to work around his misconduct,” Bloomfield added. “It is an internal dance of the lemons.”

'I'm surprised by the lengths to which the district increased administrative burdens for him to remain on staff.'

— David Bloomfield, education law professor at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center

Credit: Danielle Silverman

School districts may avoid firing a teacher because of time and expense, experts said. As an example, it took the Long Beach district more than four years to fire special education teacher Lisa Weitzman in 2019 and paid her $650,000 in salary and benefits while accumulating $320,000 in legal bills during that time, district records show.

“I don't fault the district for trying to enter into an agreement that will force [Goldsholle] out expeditiously with the least time and trouble,” Bloomfield said. “I do fault the district for then compromising in a way that put students at risk.

“Clearly in hindsight, they made the wrong decision,” he added.

Norman J. Schneider, a Virginia-based attorney who specializes in teacher misconduct, said the case warranted an attempt at a dismissal. “It sounds to me they weren’t taking those allegations seriously enough,” he said.

Conway, who negotiated the 2007 settlement agreement with Goldsholle, disagreed.

“We really took to heart those accusations,” he said.

'Consistent and coherent' allegations

State law mandates school districts file charges with the state and prove a teacher’s guilt before an arbitrator to dismiss a tenured teacher.

Babylon began investigating Goldsholle in September 2006 after seven female students from the girls tennis team complained about his behavior.

In the March 19, 2007, letter to Goldsholle, Best-Laimit wrote, “My conversations with the parents of these girls were consistent with their daughters’ reports and that the girls’ allegations were also consistent and coherent.”

She also wrote that special education students accused Goldsholle of giving out test answers and sending a male student to buy lunch from stores in the nearby village at the reduced student rate 22 times. Goldsholle said that happened only once and denied everything else, according to the letter.

'What more did the superintendent and the school board need ... ?'

— Laura Ahearn, executive director of the Ronkonkoma-based Crime Victims Center

Credit: James Carbone

“The discrepancies between the students’ allegations and your responses were so significant that the only recourse was to proceed with disciplinary charges,” wrote Best-Laimit, who could not be reached for comment.

The school board filed disciplinary charges with the state Education Department in December 2006 and settled the case with Goldsholle in March 2007.

A victim advocate said the appropriate response would have been to seek his dismissal then.

Laura Ahearn, executive director of the Ronkonkoma-based Crime Victims Center, said: “What more did the superintendent and the school board need?”

With Shari Einhorn