My Response To The New Tork Times Biased Article On Principal Removals.

I read and reread the New York Times article on how three principals were removed and quickly realized that the entire article was based only on the principals side of their reassignment.   The article was clearly biased as no teacher or Chapter Leader were interviewed, only the three principals and their supporters.  Occasionally, in the article they did get a quote from UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, but the reporter did not bother to interview any staff members who were involved in the complaints.

The three principals were Santiago Taveras, Kathleen Elvis, and Nadav Zeimer.  All of whom violated the Chancellor's regulations and most importantly were universally hated by the teaching staffs and were considered career killers.  All were removed and rightly so.  Unlike teachers, they still kept their salary and work in field offices.

In Santiago Taveras,when he was Deputy Chancellor under Bloomberg he was responsible for closing of the many large comprehensive high schools and earned the ire of the teachers union.  As Principal of DeWitt Clinton High School he was caught changing grades and built an illegal personal shower that the DOE had to dismantle.  Moreover, he was despised by the staff and targeted veteran teachers.

Then there is Kathleen Elvin who created the "Easy Pass" credit recovery system that jacked up the graduation rate.  Further, she also targeted veteran teachers and was one of the lowest rated principals when it came to the survey. Further, she was only exonerated by the arbitrator because the DOE refused to give the lawyers the evidence that the higher ups were complicit by approving the "easy pass" program.   Please read the New York Post's Editorial.

Nadav Zeimer, a Leadership Academy Principal, filed false and fraudulent charges against a teacher who was found totally innocent by an independent arbitrator.  The teacher was returned to the school and started to document the various violations the Principal did.  Eventually both SCI and OSI investigated and substantiated the violations. Here again the Principal was disliked by the staff. An example was when the teaching staff were forced to sit through useless professional development while Mr. Zeimer took his favorite administrators to  a notorious bathhouse. on school time.

The bottom line is that if you're a Principal and fail to cooperate and collaborate with your teaching staff and violate Chancellor Regulations, you deserve to be removed.