Moravia Central School District Superintendent William P. Tammaro has dismissed plagiarism accusations made by a former teacher in the district.

Steven Fland, who taught seventh-grade science at Moravia Middle School from 1969 to 2005, publicly charged Tammaro last month with lifting substantial content from the Internet and, with controvertible or no attribution, publishing that material in at least two monthly school district newsletters. A former school board member and an area expert on plagiarism have both backed up Fland's claims.

For now the matter remains local, but Fland is considering a formal appeal to the state education commissioner pending a response from the board of education.

Tammaro has denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not try to pass off the work as his own.

Each of the two newsletters in question, one dated May 2005 and another from May 2006, bear messages to the graduating senior class those years.

The 2005 newsletter published a story called "The Cab Ride," which Tammaro wrote "a good friend" had shared with him. The story concerns a cab driver's experience transporting an unaccompanied elderly woman from her apartment building to a convalescent home.

Tammaro said the friend who e-mailed him the story lives out of state. He declined to detail the friend's name or contact information.

Tammaro's published messages didn't pass muster for Gretchen Pearson, a reference librarian and bibliographer at LeMoyne College. Pearson has led seminars on the topic of plagiarism for students and faculty members at high schools, colleges and teaching centers across the state since 1999. In addition to contributing a chapter to the 2005 book, "Guiding Students From Cheating and Plagiarism to Honesty and Integrity: Strategies for Change," she has authored a Web site around her Electronic Plagiarism Seminar -- linked to the LeMoyne College homepage online.

Pearson traced the origin of "The Cab Ride" to Kent Nerburn, who included it in his book, "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of St. Francis." The book was published in May 1999 by HarperSanFrancisco.

Read the full report in Thursday's editon of The Citizen.