Another Princpal Acting Badly And The DOE Does Nothing About It.

The New York Post reported today that Independence HS Principal  Ron Smolkin apparently have written two anonymous letters against two teachers in an attempt to remove them from his school. Despite strong evidence that supported that the Principal wrote the letters, the DOE has allowed the Principal to stay in his position.  According to the DOE an internal (OSI) investigation found no real evidence against the Principal.  However, it certainly appears that the Principal should have lost his job if he indeed wrote those letters and it appears both teachers believe he did.

First, the Principal was accused by a teacher back in 2011 that he wrote an anonymous letter to his co-op board that accused the teacher and his partner of luring young boys to their apartment and infect them with AIDS.  The teacher , who was a Chapter Leader before retiring last year, filed a lawsuit and had a handwriting expert compare the letter sent to the co-op board and Principal Smolkin's handwritten notes and found them the same.  Principal Smolkin  also retaliated against the teacher by removing him from the classroom and filing 3020-a charges, forcing the teacher to retire.   The Principal's actions are subject to a criminal investigation and the DA is reviewing it presently.Yet the DOE investigation found the teacher's accusation to be unsubstantiated.  What a shock!

Now, we find that Principal Smolkin is in hot water again as a female teacher has claimed that  Principal Smolkin wrote another anonymous letter accusing the teacher of flirting with the boys, acting sexy in class, and making inappropriate comments on her Facebook page.  The letter allegedly came from an unknown source but the teacher believes that the Principal wrote it and then put into the teacher's official file.  The teacher has now also filed a lawsuit against Principal Smolkin for deformation of character and again OSI is investigating the accusation.  Yet, Principal Smolkin is still leading the school.

What do we know of Principal Ron Smolkin?  He had one of the lowest trust factors in the City in 2011 with only 32% of the staff trusting his judgement.  Principal Smolkin was also cited for ethics violations and fined by the City's Conflict of Ethics Board $5,000 for using school money to have his Secretary do work as he was working toward his Master's degree.  Finally, Principal Smolkin made the infamous "Bizarro World" list of principals acting badly

I guess when the DOE claims that they go after school personal when there is a "pattern and practice" it doesn't include administrators like Ron Smolkin.  Where is your "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to him Chancellor Walcott?  This is just another case of the "double standard" practiced by Tweed between staff and Administration.