Welcome To Dwarkaville!

One of the more infamous Leadership Academy principals in the New York City Public School system is Namita Dwarka of William Cullen Bryant High School in Astoria Queens.  She has one of the lowest trust rating in Queens and she is known to target veteran teachers.  According to the New York Post and school staff she is the subject of multiple investigations and somehow has retained her position.  The school staff welcomes ATRs and other visitors with "welcome to Dwarkaville" and keep your head down  You can read all about her reign of terror Here..

Over the last month two separate ATRs told me stories on what Dwarkaville has done to them.  First there was an Earth Science teacher who was the fourth teacher assigned to teach the 4 classes of Earth Science and 1 class of Geology at the school.  He noticed that the Geology class was being taught the same as the Earth Science classes and the curriculum was the same. All 5 classes were expected to end by taking the Earth Science Regents.  While that is usually not a problem as repeaters feel the Geology class is different from the Earth Science class they previously failed, Dwarkaville, did it differently.  The teacher quickly realized that some of the same students in some of his Earth Science classes were also in his Geology class.  In other words they were getting a double Science credit for the same course!  The teacher spoke to the Science AP who denied the double credits and the next day the teacher found himself removed from his classes and charged with verbal abuse.  He was given a Letter to the file by the Principal, Namita Dwarka, who conducted a kangaroo hearing and the teacher soon left the school for another school in Queens. Now the poor students have a fifth teacher and that's not fair to them.

The second ATR was assigned to Dwarkaville as a Chemistry teacher because of the disappearance of their appointed Chemistry teacher.  She took over the class that was in chaos and in lab made the students follow lab safety procedures such as putting on goggles,tying long hair into a pony tail, and keeping and using the lab equipment properly and in its rightful place.  All safety issues that need to be addressed.  Well, three students who didn't want to follow the rules complained to the Science AP who instantly removed the ATR from the Chemistry classes and made the other Chemistry teachers take a "sixth period" class even if they didn't want to.

Hopefully, now that the old Superintendent who has protected principals like Namita Dwarka is no longer in charge of William Cullen Bryant and just maybe the new Superintendent will do the right thing and replace Namita Dwarka and her assistant principals and make William Cullen Bryant a better school going forward.