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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Principal From Hell Judy Henry at Queens Gateway To Health Sciences Secondary School is Being Investigated

From Betsy Combier:

Judy Henry is another principal from Hell, it seems. She is the Principal of Queens Gateway To Health Sciences Secondary School:

Administrative Staff & Announcements
  
Judy A. Henry
Principal
Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School
160-20 Goethals Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11432
Phone: 718-969-3155 ext.1058
Fax: 718-969-3552
jhenry2@schools.nyc.gov

Evan Madin
Assistant Principal
Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School
160-20 Goethals Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11432
Phone: 718-969-3155 ext.2042
Fax: 718-969-3552
emadin@schools.nyc.gov

Mr. Ghandi M. Moussa
Assistant Principal of Administration & Supervision
Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School
160-20 Goethals Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11432
Phone: 718-969-3155 ext.3581
Fax: 718-969-3552
gmoussa@schools.nyc.gov

 After making a few telephone calls I was sent the following by several teachers who are at the school and must remain anonymous:

1. Judy called a teacher fat during the post observation meeting last year. She said:" You have the potential to be a very good PE teacher but nobody wants to have fat doctor who died of a heart attack. You should eat more greek yogurt."

2. She called another teacher stupid during the conference this year.

3.She threatened an employee during the conference last year. She said:" I can end you by the of the day. You will be sorry that you ever were born"

4. Henry cancelled  the after-school program called CHAMPS to get back at the coach who had retention rights. Coach is a whistle blower. Program was free. The program was in the school for 9 years.

She did the same trick in 2012  canceling PSAL soccer program to get back on coach for being a whistle blower. 

5. Henry is hiring her friends left and right. She hired another secretary( she has 3 now) to guard her so nobody has access to her.

She hired a PSAL girls basketball coach who is her friend but not a licensed teacher.  This is a serious violation of PSAL rules. PSAL is DOE organization.

We needed a health teacher in 2012. She hired another PE teacher who is her friend and worked for her in previous schools.

6. Henry is posting per session postings citywide without posting them in the building. She hopes that staff wont find out and she can hire whoever she wants.

If the posting is posted in the building she would alter the requirements to eliminate potential candidates and give preference to others.

7 Henry screams at staff in the front of the students and teachers.

8. Henry bought Christmas presents for building staff. 

9. This year's budget for the school was 4.4 milion. There isn't any money according to Henry. Most xerox machines have been broken for 6 months due to the lack of funds. All the printers in the school are missing toners due to the lack of funds. No supplies are being purchased due to the lack of funds.

10. Teachers are disciplined for not having money to purchase paper for bulletin boards. Henry gave letters to the file for that.

11. She sets up teachers who are not in favor  of using the new evaluation system; anyone who points out her mistakes is written up for insubordination and given "ineffective" ratings for observations.

12. Henry became Gateway principal after the members of the C-30 ranked her as least desired candidate. Superintendent Mendez overturned it and appointed her as a principal anyway, and consistently rates Henry as "Substantially Exceeds" on the citywide Principal Rating sheets.

City Investigating Principal at Queens School After Complaints


By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska on May 28, 2014 6:33am 

 A group of Queens Gateway students said they are disappointed in their principal. Clockwise from top left: David Aronov, Jade Dames, Michael Carter and Quintell Williams.
A group of Queens Gateway students said they are disappointed in their principal. Clockwise from top left: David Aronov, Jade Dames, Michael Carter and Quintell Williams.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska
QUEENS — The Department of Education is investigating the principal at a Jamaica  school after parents sent a letter complaining about discontinued extracurricular activities, arbitrary increases in dues and intimidation tactics, DOE officials said.
The April 15 letter to the DOE was sent by a group of students and the PTA about the principal, Judy Henry, who was appointed to Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School two years ago.
Local City Council members, Rory Lancman and Karen Koslowitz, also sent a joint letter on April 16 to school Chancellor Carmen Fariña expressing concerns about "misallocation of funds that were assigned to extracurricular activities," and, among other concerns, "exhibiting unprofessional conduct towards students."
The letter did not go into specifics about their concerns for the school, which spans sixth through 12th grade and enrolls 805 students.
During Henry's tenure, the high school's grades have improved — from a B on the 2011-'12 high school report card to an A in 2012-'13.
But the students and parents say that Henry has divided the school and has been using intimidation tactics toward those who oppose her, including screaming at students.
Their letter states that "mismanagement, fear of retribution, and the need to bow and scrape have taken the place of teaching and learning." 
The students also said that numerous afterschool activities, including basketball, soccer, Zumba, and gardening clubs, have been cut this year.
Senior dues were raised to $200, up from $100 last year, and included a $20 charge for graduation cap tassels. The overall price was lowered only recently to $160 after students protested, they said.
“But it’s still not low enough for us,” said Jade Dames, 18, a senior.
Henry declined comment through her secretary and referred all questions to the DOE.
David Pena, a spokesman for the Department of Education, acknowledged that the agency received the letter from the school's PTA.
“The allegations made in the letter [are] currently being investigated,” he said in an email.
According to Lancman's office, the council members did get a response from the Department of Education officials who said they are “working on addressing the issues that have been raised in the letter.”
Chiara Coletti of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators said that "when any personnel matter is under investigation, we cannot comment."

Regents slap for B’klyn principal

October 25, 2011 | 4:00am

Science Skills Center High School
Science Skills Center High School (Paul Martinka/ photographer)
Science Skills Center High School (NY Post: Paul Martinka)
An administrator at a Brooklyn high school that saw an unusual surge in Regents test scores last year violated state grading policies by urging teachers to re-score exams that fell just shy of passing, a city Department of Education probe found.
Former Science Skills Center HS assistant principal Lisa Lauritzen was reprimanded for urging teachers to review failing scores on the June 2010 English, U.S. History and Global History Regents exams.
Until this year, such reviews were required for scores within five points of passing — but only on math and science tests, and only to ensure accuracy.
The state has since barred the re-scoring of Regents exams in all subjects because the practice was being widely abused to graduate more students.
READ THE REPORT
The Post reported earlier this month that top state Education officials clearly knew for seven years that many teachers routinely boosted their failing students’ Regents scores — yet did nothing to curb the rampant fraud.
Lauritzen told investigators at the Office of Special Investigations that she hadn’t known her directions to teachers were improper, but she also didn’t know of any students who got unearned points.
She now works out of central administration and declined comment.
But several current and former staffers at the Downtown Brooklyn school said the probe seemed to have purposely left many large stones un-turned — particularly given the school’s shocking single-year gains in Regents scores.
From 2009 to 2010, the passing rate increased by 54 percentage points in physics, by 35 percentage points in Algebra and — on what’s considered one of the most difficult exams in high school — by 23 percentage points in Math B.
On the Math B Regents, the state Education Department had found 162 erasures on 24 student bubble sheets — with all 162 answers improbably changed from wrong to right.
Without questioning all the school’s administrators throughout the course of the 10-month probe — including Principal Judy Henry — internal DOE investigators could find no one responsible for the erasures and gave up.
The significantly-redacted report also makes no mention of examining what led to the skyrocketing scores in other subjects — even though the gains helped save the school from all-but-certain closure.
After two consecutive years of getting rated with D grades, the high school leap-frogged to an A last year — landing Henry a $7,000 bonus and her assistant principals $3,500 each.
“The purpose is not to get at the truth, it’s to give the appearance of ‘getting to the bottom of things,’” said Carmine D’Agosto, a former teacher who called for a probe of the school’s miraculous results. “It’s in their best interests to sweep this under the rug.”
A DOE spokesman said Henry wasn’t questioned because no one had made specific allegations against her.
She did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Additional reporting by Hannah Rappleye

Brooklyn high school locks down four toilets, leaving only one available for 634 students

LINK


DAILY NEWS WRITER
 
Thursday, October 27, 2011, 4:00 AM
Kianna Cole said having to use the filthy toilet was worse
than getting a month's detention

 
 

When you gotta go, you gotta go, but it's not that easy for the 634 students at a downtown Brooklyn high school.
For the past month a single toilet inside the nurse's office at Science Skills Center High School was the only one open, forcing students to endure bladder-busting waits whenever nature called.
The school wasn't at a loss for loos, though. Administrators kept four other fully operable bathrooms locked up to prevent kids from misbehaving and getting violent in them, according to staff and students.
Only after the Daily News inquired Wednesday about the lack of latrines did administrators open two other bathrooms.
Kianna Cole, 16, an 11th-grader from Mill Basin, said having to use the filthy toilet in the nurse's office was worse than getting a month's detention.
"It was awful - and not just the smell or the line. It was the pee all over the place and the terrible plumbing," Kianna said.
Flush with rage, she started a petition last week calling for more commodes at the Flatbush Ave. school. Kianna got more than 200 student signatures, but didn't have a chance to deliver the petition before her school opened more cans.
"I'm just worried they'll close them again after the attention passes," she said.
Principal Judy Henry did not return multiple calls for comment but told an Education Department spokeswoman that the single bathroom situation went on for only one day - a statement contradicted by interviews with two dozen students and two school workers.
Students said they were permitted to use a second bathroom at the start of the instructional year, but administrators locked it down after an aide who guarded it left the school.
Kids were barred from unsupervised rest rooms because of worries that they would cause trouble, staffers said, following a "spate of fires" in the boys' room last year.
Only a handful of desperate students persuaded deans to let them into the locked lavatories.
The policy meant that a dozen teens lined up at a time to use the nurse office's lavatory, creating waits of 20 minutes or longer for the toilet, students said.
"You have to avoid drinking liquids and then worry that when you go, it's going to cut into your class time," said David Kernizan, 16, a junior from Canarsie.