Always be careful where you snorkel...

Following up on yesterday's "snorkeling" away message. Since when did Center become the ghetto??


Student teacher faces drug rap
Tom Fontaine And Bill Vidonic
02/19/2006

CENTER TWP.- A student teacher who started working at Center Area High School earlier this month was arrested Thursday, accused of snorting OxyContin in a classroom with students present.

Anthony D. Zuccaro, 30, of 113 Kara Place Road, Independence Township, was charged with one count each of drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. Center Township police said Zuccaro also possessed painkillers hydrocodone and tramadol, and the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel.

"I believe he's going to have to rethink his career aspirations," said district Superintendent Daniel J. Matsook.

According to police reports, Zuccaro, who had been a student at Robert Morris University in Moon Township, was in a classroom full of students around 9:30 a.m. Thursday when he removed a pill bottle from one of his socks and took out an unknown number of pills.

Police said Zuccaro, who did not have a prescription for any of the medication, crushed the pills with his foot and then snorted the powder through a straw.

Center Police Chief Barry Kramer said he didn't think any students saw Zuccaro snorting the OxyContin. Instead, Kramer said, a teacher, whom he did not identify, apparently found some of the crushed drugs in the classroom and notified Center Principal Anthony Mendicino, who then informed the district's police resource officer.

The discovery of the powder confirmed suspicions that some staff members had had about the student teacher, Mendicino said.

"There was suspicion because (staff) had observed erratic behavior from him over the course of the week. Thank goodness our faculty was on guard and we were able to find out what was going on," Mendicino said.

In a closed-door meeting in Mendicino's office Thursday morning, Zuccaro said he had been snorting pills at the school for three days, police and school officials said.

Matsook said Zuccaro, who had been teaching in the high school's business department, told those in Mendicino's office that he was "under some stress keeping up with his responsibilities as a student teacher."

Zuccaro will no longer have that stress to deal with.Center school officials said Zuccaro's student-teaching stint, which was to run through April, has been terminated, and Robert Morris spokesman Mike Rick said Zuccaro is "no longer enrolled as a student" at the university. It was unclear whether Zuccaro was thrown out of the university or he withdrew on his own.

Mendicino said Zuccaro has bachelor's and master's degrees and was in the processing of seeking an additional teaching certification. In a prepared statement, Rick said that Robert Morris "regrets that this incident occurred" and would "cooperate fully with Center Township law enforcement officials on any investigation."

Charges will be mailed to Zuccaro. No one answered the door at his home Friday afternoon.

This is the second time within a week that someone has been arrested in the Center Area School District. On Feb. 9, police arrested Phillip D. Winkle, 32, of Center Township and charged him with four counts of invasion of privacy after fellow custodians found a hole drilled into a wall of a girls restroom in the middle school.

Center police said Winkle had been videotaping females since around the Christmas break through the hole in the wall.

Winkle is free on bond, awaiting a preliminary hearing, while police continue to view videotapes seized from his home last week, in an attempt to determine how many people are on them.