West Hartford School Lawsuit: Teacher Abuse Claims and DCF Finding

The Solomon Schechter Day School lawsuit is a civil negligence case filed in September 2025 in Hartford Superior Court by a West Hartford mother of five, who alleges the private Jewish school and two of its top administrators failed to protect her six-year-old daughter from a first- and second-grade teacher whose “tickling” of young students led to four arrests and a felony conviction. The suit names the school, head of school Rabbi Jonathan Berger, and director of teaching and learning Sarah Montag as defendants. It does not name the teacher, Nicholas Ricciardi, who was prosecuted separately. Trial is scheduled for March 2027.¹

What the Teacher Was Accused of Doing

Ricciardi was hired by Solomon Schechter in August 2024 as a general studies teacher for first and second grade. Arrest warrants and the civil complaint describe conduct labeled “tickling” but going beyond that word’s ordinary meaning. Children told investigators he grabbed them with “monster hands,” poked them while pretending to be a snake, and launched “sneak attacks” from behind. The lawsuit alleges the plaintiff’s six-year-old was subjected to “forceful, painful, sharp and claw-like motions” causing “pain, fear, discomfort and distress.” Another of the plaintiff’s daughters reportedly saw Ricciardi touching the six-year-old “below the belly button.”² He was not accused of touching intimate areas. At his sentencing, a victims’ advocate described the behavior as a form of “grooming” rather than innocent play.³

What the School Did and Didn’t Do

Shortly before Thanksgiving 2024, a parent reported to the school that her daughter had seen Ricciardi touching a student. The school placed him on leave, ran a preliminary internal inquiry, reported the matter to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, and, after DCF declined to open a case, returned him to the classroom with a warning. More complaints followed in December 2024, and Ricciardi did not return to campus after mid-December.⁴

The lawsuit alleges that when the plaintiff mother raised concerns with Rabbi Berger in November 2024, he “denied that anything inappropriate was going on, refused to take appropriate action,” and insisted her daughter continue attending Ricciardi’s class. As of December 2, 2024, the school still described Ricciardi as an “employee in good standing.”²

The negligence theory also turns on hiring. Under Connecticut Public Act 17-68, in effect since 2017, independent schools must conduct DCF registry checks, criminal history records checks, and employment history reviews before hiring staff who work directly with students.⁵ The complaint alleges the school hired Ricciardi without a proper background check and retained a teacher “who had a history of inappropriate behavior with students.”⁶ After the first arrest, a parent from St. Gabriel School in Windsor, where Ricciardi had worked as a gym teacher through late 2023, came forward with similar allegations, leading to a second arrest in April 2025.⁷

The Restorative Justice Proposal

One of the sharpest allegations in the complaint involves a proposal made around December 9, 2024. According to the lawsuit, Berger and Montag suggested the six-year-old sit down with Ricciardi in a “restorative justice” meeting, promising to keep the child safe during it.² The mother refused, saying she had consulted two child psychologists and multiple doctors, all of whom advised against it. “Putting a six-year-old in the room with her abuser is fear and intimidation. That’s not restorative justice,” she told investigators.⁸ The family did not return to the school afterward.

What the Family Is Claiming

The plaintiff withdrew two of her school-age daughters on November 8, 2024, and the other two on November 27, 2024. A fifth daughter, a two-year-old, was prevented from enrolling. The complaint states that all five girls share a life-threatening medical condition worsened by stress, complicating the search for new placements. The family did not secure spots at other schools until January and February 2025, resulting in what the suit calls a “loss of education, opportunity, community and religious support.”²

The lawsuit claims the four school-age daughters were “deprived of education, religious community, emotional hardship and disruption during developmental years” and seeks damages in excess of $15,000.⁶ Rabbi Berger, responding by email, said: “These allegations are unfounded; we can’t comment further because of the pending lawsuit.”²

How the Criminal Case Ended

The criminal investigation did not begin with the school’s report. An anonymous report the school submitted to DCF on December 2, 2024, was initially not accepted. It was a December 12, 2024, report from the Bristol Public School system, filed after the plaintiff disclosed the situation while trying to enroll her children there, that prompted DCF to accept the case and refer it to the West Hartford Police Department.⁸

Ricciardi was arrested four times in 2025 as additional victims came forward from both Solomon Schechter and St. Gabriel.¹ In February 2026 he pleaded guilty to three felony counts of risk of injury to a minor and one misdemeanor count of breach of peace. On May 7, 2026, Judge Michael Gustafson in Hartford Superior Court fully suspended a five-year prison sentence and placed Ricciardi on five years of probation, with a 50-year protective order barring contact with his victims and a prohibition on unsupervised contact with children other than his own.³

Mothers of the victims read impact statements at sentencing. One said her daughter had suffered “significant and ongoing psychological harm” and that the damage to her “ability to trust is profound.” Another said her once “joyful and trusting child” had grown anxious and “deeply uncomfortable with physical contact.” Ricciardi’s attorney, Robert Britt, told the court his client had entered treatment and argued that while Ricciardi’s “motives were good,” his “approach was poor because it was unacceptable.” Britt presented letters from former students supporting Ricciardi.³

The DCF Finding and the Background-Check Gap

DCF’s civil investigation matters to the lawsuit because it shapes what a background check would have shown. The agency initially ruled the allegations “unsubstantiated,” concluding that “tickling a child at school may cross professional boundaries but does not rise to the level of sexual abuse, physical neglect, or emotional neglect.” DCF said it was “unable to confirm the tickling had an adverse impact,” noting that some children laughed and returned to be tickled again. Because the finding was unsubstantiated, Ricciardi was not placed on the statewide child abuse and neglect registry and would not appear on a standard background check.⁹

DCF later reopened the investigation and, on January 16, 2026, found that Ricciardi had “engaged in emotional neglect.”¹⁰ DCF Commissioner Jodi Hill-Lilly noted that the agency’s investigations often reach different conclusions than law enforcement because the legal elements differ. Reporting described the case as exposing a gap in Connecticut law on grooming behavior, which is not specifically addressed in the 2008 statute governing the abuse and neglect registry.⁹

What Happens Next

The civil case is set for trial in March 2027.¹ The central questions are whether Solomon Schechter met its Public Act 17-68 obligations before hiring Ricciardi in August 2024, whether administrators responded reasonably to the first complaints in November and December 2024, and whether the proposed meeting between the six-year-old and her teacher was a breach of the duty of care the school owed its students. Following Ricciardi’s January 2025 arrest, the school held a parent forum and sent emails saying it had acted “quickly and properly” and warning against “misinformation.”⁸

1
Hartford Courant. Former CT Teacher Accused of Inappropriately Touching Students by Tickling Them Avoids Prison
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CT Insider. West Hartford Schechter School Nicholas Ricciardi
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CT Insider. Hartford Nicholas Ricciardi Sentencing
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We-Ha. Private School Teacher in West Hartford Charged in Connection With Inappropriately Touching Student
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CT School Law. Connecticut Independent Schools Required to Perform Background Checks on Potential Employees
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Inside Investigator. Lawsuit Filed Against School After Teacher Arrested Four Times
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CT Post. Windsor Teacher Nicholas Ricciardi Arrest
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Inside Investigator. Parents Claim School Downplayed Teacher Tickling Concerns
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CT Insider. CT DCF Nicholas Ricciardi Solomon Schechter
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CT Insider. West Hartford Ricciardi Solomon Schechter School