The city hired James Brown, a former middle school principal, to act as interim principal at Flushing High School, with the possibility that Brown could be hired permanently.
The only problem?
Brown has a nasty past:
As The Post reported last Sunday, Brown seems to have racked up a dubious record while serving as principal of Long Island’s Baldwin Middle School. A lawsuit there accused him of sexual harassment, intimidation and making lewd and racist comments. The district had to agree to pay $1.6 million to settle the case.
The DOE claims none of this stuff came up on their background check.
They also blamed Baldwin officials for not alerting them to Brown's past misdeeds.
Teachers at Flushing High School were able to find out about Brown's past by googling in "James Brown" and "Baldwin Middle School" however.
Apparently the google isn't a tool in the Tweed asrenal just yet.
In any case, even the Post gets why the DOE might have hired a guy like Brown:
And Flushing, by the way, already has enough problems: It’s one of 24 schools the city tried to close and reopen with new staff last year but was blocked by a suit filed by the teachers and principals unions.
Maybe hiring Brown was City Hall’s revenge for that. Maybe it was meant to buttress the city’s case for closing the place, should he prove a disaster. Or maybe it was just sloppiness. Whatever the explanation, it’s inexcusable.
As Michael Fiorillo often says, it's hard to know where the malevolence ends and the incompetence begins with the DOE.
But you can be sure they didn't work all that hard to get a good acting principal for Flushing High School.
You can bet one of Bloomberg's pet small schools wouldn't have gotten this kind of interim principal.
In the end, the Posties actually get this one right:
Brown’s record clearly makes him unfit for the job in Flushing. In an era when any 14-year-old with an Internet connection could have discovered that record in 10 minutes, why can’t our Education Department do the same?
And the answer is, because they didn't care.
Either they don't care, or they consciously put this person in to destroy the school and its teachers.
ReplyDeleteYup - it's one or the other. I suspect at this late date, it's that they no longer care. But in earlier times, it was about destroying the school and the teachers. Even they must know that their time for doing the latter is running out. So at this point, it's probably that they don't care.
DeleteThey will care right up to midnight on Dec. 31. Why? Because they have an ideological agenda to undermine faith in the public schools whether in office or not. We've been calling these people "school closers" since Johlanta Rohloff at Lafayette who when chosen from the Lead Acad to lead a troubled school caused howls of laughter from her colleagues there. By destablizing the Flushing HS community even when they are gone it will have longer term results in terms of gaining footholds for privatization.
DeleteThe settlement entered into by the Baldwin school district included a $25,000 payment for collateral damage suffered by the husband of the women dean who brought charges against
ReplyDeletethis retread of an administrator. The great education mayor is scrapping the bottom of the barrel or this is a political connection appointment. Either way it stinks to high heaven!!
Amazing, isn't it.
DeleteI am truly delighted to read this post regarding which contains plenty of helpful facts, thanks for providing these data. Great article, exactly what I needed.
ReplyDeletePresently J. Brown is a superintenant at the DOE. Reminds me of Clarence Thomas who stands on The Supreme Court for 20 years. It's clearly politics, my heart aches at all the injustice.
ReplyDelete