NYC Principal Hall of Shame: Why does DOE protect abusive principals?

There was a rally yesterday at Bronxdale High School to protest the DOE's refusal to remove its principal John Chase, despite his horrific record of sexually harassment; this follows last week's rally at Bronx Science, of former students protesting the egregious behavior of principal Valerie Reidy, which has led to a steady exodus of teachers leaving the school. (See also the NY Magazine article about Reidy's mismanagement of the school, especially the hundreds of comments from former students and teachers.)  Below are the comments of Lynne Winderbaum, former Bronx UFT HS district leader, about how DOE protecting abusive principals is standard operating procedure:

John Chase

Chancellor Walcott was quoted in the Daily News: “I’m not going to remove him, but he knows he cannot have any similar type of comments. He is on a very strict line as far as his behavior'…he added that some school staffers want Chase to remain in his post.”
 

 Following the deplorable moral standards of his predecessors under Bloomberg, Dennis Walcott staunchly asserts that he will not remove principal John Chase from his leadership position at Bronxdale High School. 

I represented teachers for many years as a UFT chapter leader and borough representative. Given the unique position of teachers and the damage done if they display immoral behavior in front of children, there has been no tolerance for them to remain in the classroom after even an allegation of misconduct. Teachers are immediately removed pending a hearing to err on the side of safety.  Yet the Department of Education does not apparently see the need to protect staff or students from abusive principals. 

The article in yesterday’s Daily News focuses on a disgusting sexual remark Chase recently made regarding the copy machine but omits inappropriate comments he made earlier made to female employees for which he has already been found guilty. 

 As far as school staffers wanting him to remain in his post, his entire teaching staff consists of eight untenured teachers (another good argument for tenure). They can be fired for any reason at any time while on probation. So their position must be taken with a grain of salt until they can speak without fear of consequences.

But this is just the latest example of the practice of DOE ignoring abusive and even illegal behavior on the part of principals:

Iris Blige

• When 400 people marched outside Roosevelt High School in support of teacher Raqnel James, a respected and beloved tenured teacher on March 13, 2009, the Department of Education stood idly by as she was shipped to the rubber room and arrested. 

      The principal, Iris Blige, had fabricated charges to have her removed from the school after James had taken the principal’s friend to court for unpaid rent. It cost James her job, three years of salary and legal battles until she was finally found “not guilty” last month in a trial.  Previously, the Special Investigator had reported that Blige had told assistant principals to give teachers “U” (for Unsatisfactory) ratings, which can imperil their careers, on the basis of personal grudges. And yet DOE has done nothing but fine her a measly $7500.

Richard Bost

The Department of Education ignored years of allegations of sexual misconduct by Richard  Bost, former principal of Fordham Leadership Academy, who was also found guilty of abusing a secretary and stealing $7000 of school money to give to his AP. Finally, after committing unwanted sexual advances against a parent, Sen. Jeffrey Klein’s office got involved and Bost was removed.  

Valerie Reidy

The Department of Education continues to support Valerie Reidy, principal of Bronx Science, though her egregious behavior has led to a well-documented mass-exodus of excellent teachers from the school and an independent arbitrator found that she unfairly harassed and gave a “U” rating to Peter Lamphere, a former teacher at the school.

Barbara Kirkweg

• The NYC DOE keeps Barbara Kirkweg, principal of Bronx Aerospace HS, in place even after numerous complaints by parents of harsh and unfair disciplinary practices, teachers accusing her of falsifying grades, and a finding by the Air Force that $66,800 in ROTC funds were unaccounted for.  

Anthony Rotunno

 

 

 

• Despite five years of allegations about the misrule of Anthony Rotunno, principal of Kennedy HS, including changing test scores, he remained in his job until the state comptroller found him guilty in 2010 of allowing staff to misuse $90,000 raised by  students.  Then he finally forced to resign. 

The protection of abusive principals at all costs appears to be the unwavering policy of the Department of Education. It is again time to fight back against this policy and demand the removal of John Chase.  -- Lynne Winderbaum

Rotunno and JFK High School Investigations: A History

The blog JD2718 has provided a disturbing history of investigations into alleged cheating and corruption at JFK High School. It was written by Lynne Winderbaum, former UFT chapter leader at JFK and Bronx district representative.

What I find especially concerning is that several of the investigations were never officially closed and there only appear to be consequences for those who brought their concerns to the investigators.

As a member of the NYC school board, I will be asking the chancellor and DOE general counsel to respond to these accounts.

More on Anthony Rotunno and the culture of "empowerment" at DOE

See the comment below our previous posting, from a student at Pleasantville high school in Westchester; where Anthony Rotunno was recently hired to be principal.

As reported yesterday in the Daily News, Rotunno was the subject of a scathing new audit from the NY State Comptroller's office, accusing him of allowing his staff to raid thousands of dollars of funds from student bake sales and more when he was principal of JFK HS in the Bronx. More on this in today's Daily News:

“Pleasantville School District officials said it wasn't until they saw the Daily News' front-page story Friday that they learned Rotunno was in charge of a school where staffers ran a giant swindle. "Reference checks were extremely positive and no wrongdoings of any nature were reported," the statement says….

But Kennedy PTA President Robert Bosolet Sr., said he long suspected staffers were plundering the students' account. "Each year, there were always kids complaining that they did fund-raising, and they never saw a dime from it," fumed Bosolet, whose triplet sons graduated this year.

"Every time an event happened, and we asked where did that money go, we were never provided with that information."Bosolet said he e-mailed his concerns to the Department of Education, but he couldn't provide evidence.

A DOE spokesman said it "hadn't received a credible accusation of financial mismanagement at the school" prior to the audit.

Yet see our previous posting about years of allegations of cheating on Regents scoring and fake credits at Kennedy that occurred under his watch, and/or the even more devastating account by Lynne Winderbaum, former UFT Bronx HS representative, about Rotunno’s egregious misconduct reported to DOE and going back as far as 2003, with the Chancellor looking the other way each time. Instead, it was the whistleblowers who lost their jobs as a result.

I guess Klein and the educrats at Tweed didn't think that any of the numerous reports of misconduct, nor the findings of this devastating audit that finally prompted Rotunno's dismissal in May, meant that they had the obligation to offer any warning to Pleasantville -- no less refrain from offering positive referrals.

As the Comptroller said yesterday, in rightly laying blame on Rotunno for the financial corruption at the school, "The Kennedy principal did not establish basic accountability for student funds."

Question: if Rotunno was rightly found to be responsible by the Comptroller for the misappropriation of funds that occurred repeatedly under his watch, shouldn't Klein be held to at least the same standard, by having allowed this sort of corruption to go on, year after year, and failing to take any attempt to prevent it?

Anthony Rotunno, and the culture of "accountability" at Tweed: read "anything goes"

Today's Daily News reports that Anthony Rotunno, who retired as principal of Kennedy HS last month, allowed staffers to improperly spend money from student bake sales on parties, among other financial improprieties, according to a new audit from State Comptroller DiNapoli:

In a particularly egregious abuse, Kennedy staffers blew more than $7,000 on four retirement parties at suburban eateries, the audit found.

"This was the students' money," DiNapoli said. "They raised it selling cupcakes and asking for donations. The students worked hard to raise this money. Whoever is responsible should be punished."

The audit, covering the period July 2007 to June 2009, found that Kennedy staffers misused or stole $91,216.

The report pins blame squarely on Rotunno's shoulders. "The Kennedy principal did not establish basic accountability for student funds," the report says.

Not mentioned in the article is how Rotunno was a long favorite of DOE, whose job was protected by them, despite questionable practices of long standing. Here is an excerpt from a 2004 puff piece in the NY Times, lauding his “tough guy” approach to turning

Behind this makeover was Mr. Rotunno and his formula for fixing a school of 5,000, a mix of infusing fun and school spirit into the school day and a determined effort to weed out students standing in the way of improvement…. teachers -- some of them Kennedy graduates still cherishing memories of the school's glory days of science awards and Ivy League acceptance letters in the 1970's and 80's -- generally agree: the school has turned the corner.

But actually teachers despised Rotunno, and in 2005 charges were made by many English teachers at the school that he had improperly student Regents scores to passing. When the DOE finally finished their “investigation” they concluded that he did change scores, but that this was perfectly okay. So much for accountability at DOE!

Here is what the much-missed former education columnist Michael Winerip wrote in 2006 about the resolution of these allegations, backed up by written evidence of changed scores:

[David Cantor] said that the inquiry had looked only into whether the principal, Anthony Rotunno, had the right to change the Regents grades and found that he did….

So far, only one person has been punished, Maria Colon, Kennedy's union representative, who was the first to speak out publicly about the changed scores. She was removed from Kennedy and assigned to a holding room pending a hearing on her case. Her crime? She allegedly used a school fax to send a Newsday reporter documents revealing the scoring changes.

A few months later, Winerip wrote a follow-up column, called "Cheapening the Cap and Gown," about new accusations made by guidance counselors that Rotunno had allowed kids to graduate without the required credits:

Ms. Werner [a guidance counselor] said, "They started giving out credits like candy." Global history is a four-term course spread over two years, and Ms. Diaz and Ms. Werner say they saw transcripts for students who had failed four terms of global history and were given credit for all four courses after passing the global Regents exam.

This reporter obtained copies of transcripts (with names blanked out) from a teacher who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. In one case, a student who failed three semesters of global history classes starting in January 2003 was given credit for those courses after passing the state global history Regents exam with a 65 in January 2005. A student who failed freshman English 1 and 2 in 2002-03 was given credit for those courses after passing the English Regents with a 68 in January 2005.

In an interview in February, Mr. Rotunno said the policy was not new, just a clarification of an existing policy that went back to the school's beginning.

Despite these new allegations, Rotunno stayed on, and the guidance counselors who spoke up in defense of standards lost their jobs.

The culture of so-called “accountability” at DOE, meaning principals can basically do anything as long as they produce better test scores and higher graduation rates, may have made Rotunno believe he was invulnerable in other ways as well.

Unfortunately, a policy of nearly unregulated credit recovery has been instituted throughout the city; and giving out credits “like candy” is now encouraged as the primary means to improve your school’s statistics, save your own job, and possibly get a bonus besides. (See this article about credit recovery as practiced at Tilden HS, which is closing.)

The new audit is just one more in a growing list of revelations from the State Comptroller, the City Comptroller, and the Special Commissioner of Investigation Condon, showing millions of dollars of stolen and misused funds because of lax financial oversight by DOE, the results of Tweed’s “anything goes” attitude towards principal “empowerment”.