Honor student suspended for 'noogie' BY BRIAN HARMON
DAILY NEWS LONG ISLAND BUREAU CHIEF
Updated Friday, June 20th 2008, 1:39 AM
Slattery for News
Ethan Mirenberg, in lawyer’s office, uses photo (below) of Spanish teacher Sharon Cantante smiling as unidentified classmate gives her noogie to protest suspension.
Charles George/News Honor student Ethan Mirenberg's extracurricular activities include lacrosse, football - and the noogie patrol.
The 14-year-old student is challenging a 10-month suspension from Lynbrook High School for channeling his inner Bill Murray and delivering a fistful of noogies to his Spanish teacher's scalp.
The youth and his lawyer Edward Paltzik say the charges are trumped up.
In fact, Paltzik insists that teacher Sharon Cantante, like Gilda Radner's Lisa Loopner on the old "Saturday Night Live" skit, didn't mind getting a few noogies from the boys.
"She had this very bizarre tendency to invite students to give her noogies," Paltzik claimed. "This teacher has a history of encouraging noogie behavior."
The teen is taking his case to the state Appellate Division. The Mirenberg camp showed a photo of the eighth-grade teacher smiling broadly while absorbing a male student's noogie.
The 39-year-old divorcee seems completely at ease while getting the knuckle rub.
Ethan, at 5-feet-3 and 150 pounds, said he was shocked by Cantante's claims and the subsequent punishment.
"It was never a noogie. It was a pat on the head," said Ethan, who enrolled at a different school, East Rockaway High, in April and can't return to Lynbrook until Sept. 2. "I hugged her while I patted her on the head."