GRANBY, CT – It’s the small town in Connecticut that’s like a bad penny – it keeps showing up again and again, dirtier each time.
On Monday, June 8, it came to light that an investigation had been opened into a teaching assistant for high school special education.
His name is Tucker Rajala, and he’s been accused of sending naked photos to students.
On Tuesday morning, law enforcement sources confirmed to Law Enforcement Today that there IS an active investigation into an alleged pedophile working in the Granby, CT school.
The school did NOT issue a public advisory - and at this point, it's unknown how many student victims there might be.
The alleged criminal's online presence as a nude model well-known in the gay community was always public - raising questions about how he could have been hired to work in the school in the first place.
Understandably, town residents are FURIOUS and demanded answers. Tuesday afternoon, after being bombarded by parents, the superintendent responded publicly with an email stating as follows:
Dear Granby Public Schools Families,
The safety and well-being of children has been, and will always remain, our highest priority. We understand that recent statements circulating on social media regarding a former employee, Tucker Rajala, may raise questions and concerns for families.
Granby Public Schools does not address matters involving student safety through rumor, speculation, or social media commentary. Our responsibility is to rely on facts, follow established procedures, cooperate with the proper authorities, and respond in a manner that protects students, families, staff, and the integrity of any review or investigation.
Mr. Rajala is no longer employed by Granby Public Schools. At the time of his hire, the required employment screening process was completed, including state and federal background checks and the appropriate review through the Department of Children and Families, as required by state statute. Nothing in that process precluded his employment with the District.
The District received a concern from a parent, which was addressed promptly. Proper authorities were contacted, and individuals in the Granby community who may have been in proximity to the individual in question were notified as appropriate.
This matter is being reviewed by the proper authorities. Because of that, and in order to protect the integrity of that process, the District is unable to provide further comment at this time.
Please know that Granby Public Schools takes any concern involving student safety seriously and follows all required procedures for reporting, reviewing, and responding to such matters. If you have information or concerns regarding this individual, or any individual associated with Granby Public Schools, please contact me directly or reach out to the Granby Police Department.
We appreciate your understanding and partnership. Our focus remains where it belongs: on the safety of our students, the facts of the matter, and the proper process for addressing concerns.
Sincerely,
Cheri Burke
Instead of actually investigating, WFSB, the local media outlet, took their typical approach of blocking and tackling for the Democrat-run school. Their “report” was simply regurgitating her letter.
What they SHOULD have done was ask the obvious questions:
1) Why wasn’t this communicated to parents until AFTER it was exposed by the very social media posts the superintendent is complaining about in her letter?
2) Did that employee work in a bubble? Was he not allowed to engage with other students? Just because they think they know who he allegedly sent the pictures to doesn’t mean there aren’t COUNTLESS more victims. Why did the superintendent decide by HERSELF to not alert families?
But here’s where things get really bad. She claims a full background was done before he was hired. Yet apparently nobody thought to simply Google his name?
Come on, WFSB. Is business so bad that all you have are AI bots to report the “news” for you? Here – we did the job for you. The search:
Some of the RESULTS:
That's just the tip of the iceberg. We'd share more of the deeply disturbing material - but we think you get the point.
It leads one to wonder: is the hiring process in the school district REALLY THIS BAD? Or does the school leadership - which has openly promoted graphic porn in school libraries and pushed an LGBTQ agenda to students - support and encourage this type of "diversity" that's putting students at risk?But this is only the beginning in a deeply embattled school district.
Last week, at the Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Cheri Burke stormed out and CALLED THE POLICE after three parents dared to raise concerns.
One of the parents shared an experience - which was previously reported to the school - about a student allegedly "self-pleasuring" himself in class. Other students also spoke with the teacher about it.
The superintendent publicly berated the father and called him and his daughter "liars".
Another parent raised the fact that FOIA requests were ignored about a SECRET CONTRACT ADDENDUM that was illegally signed, giving the superintendent a big raise and benefits boost.
When the news broke, the chair of the board resigned. The Democrat-run board of education has still been HIDING FROM THE PUBLIC the status of the illegal contract, and the superintendent and board of education buried the FOIA. (The full story is below.)
Police showed up and found that the parents had done absolutely nothing wrong.
To boot, the entire meeting was livestreamed and in it, you can see the parents raising the concerns and the meltdown of Burke. You can watch it for yourself.
This is the same superintendent who did NOT publicly disclose a school shooter threat in May, who then IGNORED concerned parents, refused to return phone calls from freaked out families and then worked to conceal the threat from the public.
The school has been sued after Burke and the administration allegedly covered up bullying concerns, accused of targeting the victims and protecting the bullies.
If the school sounds familiar, it's because under Burke's "leadership", the school has made national headlines for far-left indoctrination, advancing a transgender agenda in the classroom and forcing students to watch a video where little kids talked about how they could decide if they're a boy or a girl.
It's the same school where the Democrat Board of Education members were caught on a hot mic making homophobic comments and then refused to apologize publicly for them. And let's not forget illegally using the town seal to fool taxpayers into voting for the budget.
The list of scandals goes on and on. Now that students have allegedly been exposed to an accused p*dophile working in the school district.... there are calls for the superintendent not only to be fired - but to face criminal charges.
Covering for an alleged pedophile employee? Hiding school shooter threats from parents? Attacking parents and calling the cops on them for speaking out against her? Accepting a significant raise and benefits boost while KNOWING the addendum was slipped in illegally? Allowing bullying to go unchecked? Refusing to protect students who are the alleged victims of sexual harassment?
THIS is the legacy of Granby Superintendent Cheri Burke, who screamed that she “can’t afford real jewelry on a superintendent’s salary” (of hundreds of thousands of dollars) while refusing to answer to parents or taxpayers.
Here’s the report and evidence from April, in case you missed it:
GRANBY, CT — A single unanswered question about a school superintendent's raise lacking documented board authorization has unraveled into one of the most significant governance crises in the Town of Granby's recent history — touching contracts signed without recorded board approval, a licensed attorney's sudden resignation, a conflicted acting chair, and a community now racing to hold its elected officials accountable before a critical board meeting on May 6.
The Postcard That Started It All
In late March 2026, postcards bearing the official Granby town seal began appearing at a local "No Kings" political rally. The cards — pre-printed with "I Support the Budget / I Support Our Town / I Support Our Schools" — were directed to Michael Guarco, Chairman of the Granby Board of Finance, asking him not to cut school funding.
One of those postcards, signed by a child identified as the son of then-Board of Education Chair Monica L. Logan, was sent directly to Guarco at Town Hall.
Board of Selectmen member Kim Becker was captured on video at the rally directing attendees to fill out the postcards and promising they would be delivered to Guarco.
The postcards bore the official Granby town seal on both sides — raising immediate questions about the use of a municipal symbol on what was effectively political advocacy material.
When the postcard was photographed and circulated online, Logan cited it as a political attack on her family.
Questions remain about what role, if any, Logan played in facilitating a campaign that used her child to lobby the Finance Chair.
Town Manager Michael Walsh — who previously served as East Hartford's mayor and sits on the same Capital Program Priorities Advisory Committee as Logan and Guarco — publicly declared that no laws were broken. Legal observers noted that the determination of whether the town seal was improperly used falls under the town clerk's authority, not the town manager's, raising immediate questions about the independence of that declaration.
Multiple state statutes are potentially implicated by the postcard campaign, including CGS 7-101 governing the custody and use of municipal seals, CGS 9-369b prohibiting the expenditure of public funds in connection with a referendum, and CGS 9-605 requiring the registration of referendum committees that raise or spend funds for political advocacy.
Enforcement authority over these statutes rests with the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission — not the town manager.
The Resignation That Raised More Questions Than It Answered
On April 22, 2026, a concerned Granby resident sent a written inquiry to Logan with a straightforward question: could she confirm that Superintendent Cheri P. Burke's most recent contract addendum — signed by Logan on June 30, 2025 — had been properly authorized by a formal vote of the full Board of Education?
Logan never responded.
Two days later, on April 24, Logan submitted her resignation as Board of Education Chair, effective immediately. Her resignation letter spoke of harassment, political attacks, and her child being used as a political tool. It said nothing about the contract authorization question sitting unanswered in her inbox.
The timing was not lost on the community members who had been researching the issue. Multiple residents had independently reviewed every publicly available Board of Education meeting minute from 2025. None could find a recorded vote authorizing the addendum Logan had signed.
The Contract: What the Documents Show
The addendum in question was signed by Logan and Burke on June 30, 2025. It increased Burke's base salary from $220,000 to $230,000 — a $10,000 raise — and added approximately $19,200 in new deferred compensation contributions and a monthly wellness stipend, bringing her total annual compensation to approximately $239,200.
The addendum also added substantial new long-term benefits including post-retirement health insurance coverage and a sick leave payout provision whose total long-term value to taxpayers could exceed $500,000.
But buried in the document's own opening language is something remarkable. The addendum explicitly cites Section 3, Term, Letter A of the underlying contract, which states:
"Prior to the end of the first year of a three-year agreement, the Board of Education, at the request of the Superintendent, may vote for a new agreement."
By including this language in the document she signed, Logan had the authorization requirement — a formal superintendent request and a formal board vote — directly in front of her. She signed the document without documented board authorization having been obtained, with the date field in the addendum's opening line left blank.
The document reads simply "made on (date)" — a basic deficiency in a legal contract committing nearly a quarter million dollars in public funds annually.
The addendum, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, is reproduced below. Note the yellow-highlighted blank date field in the upper right corner of the opening page — and the Section 3A authorization language cited in the body of the document.
There is a clear precedent that makes this more difficult to explain. When another previous Granby Superintendent, Dr. Alan Addley, received a contract modification, it went through a proper public board vote recorded in the meeting minutes.
The standard was known. It was not followed for Burke.
Adding further weight to this point, according to her publicly available professional biography and reporting by the Hartford Courant, Burke served as Assistant Superintendent of the Glastonbury, Connecticut school district prior to her appointment in Granby.
As a seasoned school administrator with experience in Connecticut public school governance, Burke would have been well familiar with the standard procedures required to authorize contract modifications — making her acceptance of an addendum lacking documented board authorization all the more difficult to explain as an innocent misunderstanding.
Logan Is a Licensed Attorney
What elevates this from a governance oversight to a more serious matter is a fact that emerged during community research: Monica Logan is a licensed Connecticut attorney, active since 2004, with no prior disciplinary history. She also holds a voluntarily inactive bar license in Illinois dating to 2001.
The significance of this cannot be overstated. A layperson who signs a contract without fully understanding the authorization requirements might have a credible good faith defense.
A licensed attorney with over two decades of legal experience — who signed a document containing the very language describing the authorization requirement she appears to have bypassed — faces a significantly more difficult time establishing that defense.
As a licensed attorney Logan was bound by the Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct, including Rule 8.4, which addresses conduct and integrity standards for attorneys acting in official capacities.
The Vice Chair Who Became Acting Chair
Following Logan's resignation, Board Vice Chair Heather Lombardo assumed the role of Acting Chair. On April 25, concerned residents forwarded their inquiry — and the documentation supporting it — to Lombardo, First Selectman Mark Fiorentino, and Board of Finance Chair Michael Guarco.
Lombardo did not respond to the inquiry.
Two days later, on April 27, at a public town budget referendum meeting, Lombardo made a statement that stunned community members following the situation. Standing before residents, she stated words to the effect that: "Our legal team is looking into past practices." The statement was made on the public record and is viewable here beginning at approximately the 42-minute mark:
The statement confirmed that the board's legal counsel had already been engaged to review the governance questions.
What Lombardo did not disclose to the public at that meeting was that she herself had served as Vice Chair of the Board throughout 2025 — the entire period whose practices are now under legal review.
She attended the meetings. She approved the minutes. Those minutes do not contain a record of the authorization vote that the contract's own language suggests should have preceded Logan's signature on Burke's addendum.
The conflict of interest is stark. Lombardo is now Acting Chair overseeing a legal review whose findings will determine whether her own conduct as Vice Chair constitutes a governance failure. Community members argue she cannot be both a subject of the inquiry and the person directing it.
Community members are formally demanding that any review be conducted by truly independent outside legal counsel with no prior relationship to the board — not the board's own legal team reporting to a conflicted acting chair.
The FOIA Request and the Race Against Time
On April 28, a formal Freedom of Information Act request was filed with the Granby Board of Education seeking all meeting minutes, contract documents, communications, and financial records related to the authorization of Burke's contract. Responses are legally due May 4 — two days before the May 6 board meeting.
That timing is significant because community members have reason to believe that at the May 6 meeting, Lombardo will seek to be formally installed as Board Chair and simultaneously attempt to push through a retroactive ratification of Burke's contract addendum.
If successful, such a vote would be an attempt to extinguish accountability for the governance failure before the full documentary record lands in the public domain.
Legal observers note that retroactive ratification, even if passed, would not undo the financial harm already caused — Burke has already received months of compensation above her previously authorized $220,000 salary without a recorded board vote authorizing the increase.
It would not address Lombardo's conflict of interest. And it would itself constitute an admission that the original addendum lacked proper authorization, strengthening rather than resolving the legal case.
The Bigger Picture
What the documentary evidence reveals is not a simple administrative error. It is a pattern — spanning two consecutive contract cycles, two separate contract signings by Logan, and a governance process that appears to have been conducted informally and without the public accountability that Connecticut law and basic institutional integrity require.
Burke's original 2023 contract was signed by then-Chair Sarah Thrall and set her salary at $211,000. When Logan replaced that contract with a new three-year agreement in July 2024 — two full years before the original was set to expire, a move permitted under the contract's optional early renewal provision but whose authorization has not been documented in the public record — Burke's salary was increased to $220,000.
The question of whether that 2024 contract was also properly authorized by a board vote is now part of the FOIA request. Burke signed the 2024 contract on June 26. Logan signed it five days later on July 1.
Whether any board meeting occurred between those dates to authorize Logan's signature is not apparent in the public record.
From $211,000 in 2023 to a potential $254,750 in 2025-2026, plus long-term benefit obligations potentially exceeding $500,000, the total financial exposure to Granby taxpayers from these contracts — if the documented authorization gaps are as significant as the public record suggests — is substantial.
Here's a copy of the contract.
What the Community Is Doing
Concerned residents are not waiting for officials to act. A comprehensive audit of all three superintendent contracts has been completed and documented. A 16-flag analysis identifies specific governance concerns in each document.
The Questions That Demand Answers at May 6
Community members plan to attend the May 6 Board of Education meeting in force. They intend to ask — on the public record — the questions that have gone unanswered for weeks:
Was there a formal board vote authorizing the June 30, 2025 superintendent contract addendum? If yes — when did it occur, who made the motion, who seconded it, and what was the vote count?
Did Lombardo vote to approve the 2025 meeting minutes that failed to record any such authorization vote?
How much has Burke been paid above her previously authorized salary of $220,000 since the addendum lacking documented board authorization took effect?
Will Lombardo recuse herself from any vote on the superintendent's contract given her personal conflict of interest as Vice Chair during the period under review? It's believed by many in the town that because the Democrats have a majority, they'll attempt to retroactively approve this to protect Monica, Cheri and their party - all at the expense of taxpayers. Is that what their plan is for the meeting?
Why is retroactive ratification being considered before the FOIA responses due May 4 have been reviewed by the public?
Will the board commit to independent outside legal counsel — with no prior relationship to any board member — conducting the governance review?
A Community at a Crossroads
Logan's resignation letter made an observation that rings with irony given what has since emerged. She wrote that "bullying is a community problem" and warned that bad behavior "deters good people from running for office." She called on the community to look at where harmful behavior is coming from.
The community of Granby is doing exactly that. It is looking carefully at the documentary record — the contracts, the minutes, the missing votes, the blank date field, the unanswered inquiries, the carefully timed resignation, and the public statement from a conflicted acting chair about a legal review already underway.
It is asking the questions that the documentary record demands be asked.
The answers will come, one way or another. Either at the May 6 meeting, or through the FOIA responses due on May 4, or through the regulatory and legal processes now being set in motion.
The residents of Granby — parents, taxpayers, and citizens who have a right to transparent, accountable governance of their public schools — will not stop asking until they get them.
This article was prepared by concerned residents and taxpayers of the Town of Granby, Connecticut. All facts stated herein are based on documentary evidence from public records, contract documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, and statements made at public meetings. This article does not constitute legal advice.The May 6, 2026 Board of Education meeting is open to the public. Residents are encouraged to attend.
Editor note: The town of Granby has faced controversy after controversy surrounding Monica Logan and Cheri Burke. Read just a few of those stories below:
Democrat School Officials Double Down After Shocking Hot Mic Moment
FOIA: Superintendent Asked for Homophobic ‘Hot Mic’ Video Deleted To Protect School Board Democrats
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