An employee of Babylon High School, reportedly a male, science teacher, was removed from the school and suspended pending an investigation of alleged misconduct. The name of the employee has not been released.

Babylon’s superintendent Linda Rozzi sent a letter that evening to the district.

The district has been made aware of disturbing allegations regarding one of our employees. The district does not tolerate misconduct and takes all allegations of such very seriously. Due to privacy laws, school districts are limited in the information we can release regarding this matter. We can confirm an internal investigation is currently underway and the employee in question was immediately reassigned to home.

A student at Babylon High School reported that he was in class when the teacher was removed from the room by the principal.

Suffolk police said school district representatives contacted its First Precinct around 6 p.m. Tuesday and in an e-mailed statement, they noted that, “First Precinct Crime Section officers are investigating,”

Local social media exploded in response to the news. A change.org petition referencing the alleged misconduct was bombarded with comments that supposedly named the employee in question as well as others at the school who they said engaged in similar behavior. The petition was shut down a short time after.

Local Facebook groups, including our own Babylon Village Community Discussion, discussed the matter in detail and many locals stated that this sort of behavior has been going on for years and had been “swept under the rug”