In my previous post I questioned the double standard when teachers and principals are investigated. In the undemocratic world of the DOE the principal is presumed innocent while the teacher is assumed guilty. An example of the DOE double standard can be found in a Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) report on IS 109 principal Shango Blake. Remember, it is important to understand that just because SCI said the principal did what the report claims, it doesn't mean that he did them. Only an administrative (3020-a) hearing and/or a criminal trial can determine that. The point here is that the DOE assumed Shango Blake was innocent until the DOE received the full SCI report dated August 13, 2007. If he was a teacher, he would have been removed in June of 2006 at the latest.
The SCI report about Shango Blake stated that school funds were allegedly misappropriated and in some cases were unaccounted for and the SCI report charges him with financial mismanagement of over $30,000 in school funds . Further, the SCI report recommended that the Queens County District Attorney look into criminal charges, based upon its findings. In addition, Shango Blake was accused of corporal punishment and the SCI report states that the punching and choking of a student was sustained and that he also threatened to break the student's neck. This investigation started in January of 2006 on the financial mismanagement charges and June of 2006 on the corporal punishment charges. When was Shango Blake taken out of his school? Not until August of 2007. Over a full school year after the incidents happened!
I know a teacher who has been taken out of her school for trying to restrain a violent student who attacked her. Another teacher was taken out of his school for failing to break up a fight in his class. A third teacher for touching a student's shoulder to calm her down. I guess in the bizarre world of the DOE a principal who has charges of punching, chocking, and telling the student that I will break your neck is not as serious as one of the teachers' actions I discussed in this paragraph.
While I do not know if Shango Blakel is guilty of these charges, I do know that teachers accused of simple corporal punishment are always taken out of the classroom and sent to the "rubber rooms". In this case it didn't happen to the principal until fourteen months later, Double standard? You bet it is!
1 comment:
About 15 years ago I saw an AP clear kids out of the halls with her spike heels. They would grab their legs and say "Ouch!" with every one of her kicks. Sometimes it was a game: she tried to look stern, they tried to play as if they were hurt. But, she really did kick them, and even as a fairly new teacher I knew it was wrong.
Just last year I saw my AP, a newbie type, grab a big and aggressive boy by his throat and push him up against the wall. I was horrified as I watched. Both of them were very angry and very physical. I thought the boy was actually the more restrained, because he didn't try to hit the AP back or retaliate in any other way than by yelling.
Some things don't change, it seems.
But, won't you be glad when Klein just leaves and takes the stink of his rotten ethos with him? Everything reeks of the untruths and lies and double standards.
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