This showed up in the story:
Elia toured the school with Moira Gleason, director of the Summer Literacy Academy and an administrator at Yonker’s Montessori School 27 during the regular school year. The four-week literacy program is supported by New York University’s Steinhardt school. Gleason said 257 students were enrolled and more than 300 were on a waiting list.
...
She also was highly conscious of her visit’s optics.
As Gleason first began to lead Elia into her first classroom, the commissioner asked her to wait a minute. Could she walk with her down the hall so Westchester News 12's cameras could get a shot?When a Verizon reporter began to interview her, she pivoted so that she spoke in front of a student mural rather than a bare tile wall.
Ah, yes, the kind of leader who instinctively cares about television optics.
Any readers of the blog surprised that's how MaryEllen Elia rolls?
The Skelding piece describes Elia coaxing kids to answer some text-based questions about Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella too but you wonder, given how concerned she is with TV optics, how phonied up this performance with the children was as well.
Just something to keep in mind as we battle Elia over the coming months.
