And then there is the Welton Sawyer story. He, like Santiago Taveras, is assured a job in education administration somewhere in the USA, because he is one of the re-usable-to-keep-silent administrators who the System cannot set free:
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Welton L. "Tony" Sawyer is In Trouble Again
Oh my goodness. I am so totally shocked over the ouster of Welton L "Tony" Sawyer from the position of Superintendent in Mount Vernon over a sexual relationship with a teacher and then giving her a position she was not qualified to have....
Not.
When Welton "Tony" L. Sawyer was Superintendent of District 3 in Manhattan, a group of parents - including me - went to him in protest of the removal of one of the most popular teachers ever at La Guardia HS For The Performing Arts (one of my daughters was there, graduated in 2005). His name is "John Doe", brother of Dan, the principal of PS 6 who was appointed after Carmen Farinawas removed and upgraded to Superintendent of District 15 in Brooklyn (where she covered up her placement of Brooklyn Tech's Principal Lee MacCaskill's daughter in an elementary school although both Lee and his wife lived in New Jersey - see the story of Steve Ostrin) . Bad administrators simply are transferred, continuously, until they retire. To what do we owe this disdain for law and rules, as well as for public money misspent? I think it is the arrogance of immunity, the "you cant do anything to me so I dont care what you think" attitude that in New York City public schools is the way things are run.
Gotta change this.
BETSY COMBIER
Carmen - change this! Hold your people accountable.
Betsy Combier
betsy@advocatz.com
Editor, Advocatz
Editor, NYC Rubber Room ReporterEditor, Parentadvocates.org
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Sara Belcher-Barnes |
DOE probe shows Brooklyn principal altered student transcripts
The Department of Education finally revealed this week that it had substantiated charges against a Brooklyn principal for fudging the transcripts of high school students by giving them credits for health and gym classes they never took.
PS 27 principal Sara Belcher-Barnes, who has worked in the city’s public schools system since 1982, agreed to retire from the kindergarten-through-12th grade Red Hook school last month when faced with charges that included assigning instructors to teach out of license.
She could not be reached for comment but denied tampering with at least 19 student transcripts, according to the Office of Special Investigations report.
However, one teacher told investigators that Belcher-Barnes had instructed her to “enter passing grades for all of the students who were missing grades for health and physical education” toward the end of the 2007-08 school year.
The unearned credits wouldn’t just help kids graduate on time but would also boost the ratings of the school and principal.
The lengthy probe by the DOE’s internal investigative arm also continues a trend where some cheating probes involving principals inexplicably drag on for years.
Allegations of impropriety were made against Belcher-Barnes in February 2009, and the OSI report indicates that interviews of witnesses were conducted the following month.
Yet a report detailing the findings wasn’t issued until a year-and-a-half later, on Aug. 30, 2010.
In addition, repeated inquiries made by The Post about the status of the case in December 2010 and January, March and May 2011 went unanswered by the DOE’s press office.
A spokeswoman did not reveal that the charges had been substantiated until June 10, 2011 — nearly 10 months after the case had actually concluded.
She did not respond to questions yesterday seeking an explanation for the slowness of the probe and for her delay in confirming its status.
“I’ve long been concerned about the length of time cheating investigations are held open,” said Panel for Educational Policy Manhattan-appointee Patrick Sullivan. “There appears to be no rational explanation except that the DOE seeks to avoid the embarrassing news that a closed case would potentially bring.”
In other drawn-out cases, Lehman HS principal Janet Saraceno has been under investigation for transcript-tampering since October 2009 and Theatre Arts Production Company HS principal Lynn Passarella has been probed for grade-fixing since January.
OSI also took three years to clear two others principals of cheating — in one case attributing a six-month delay to a misplaced file.
Additional reporting by Lachlan Cartwright
Brooklyn principal Sara Belcher-Barnes busted in grade-inflate probe
JOE KEMP, ELIZABETH LAZAROWITZ, JONATHAN LEMIRE MAR 10, 2009 9:41 AM
The principal of a Brooklyn school set to close due to poor performance was busted for fudging the grades on students' transcripts, the Daily News has learned.
Principal Sara Belcher-Barnes was led from Public School 27 Thursday afternoon after Education Department investigators charged that she was boosting students' grades in a bid to make the school look better, according to sources.
Carrying her personal belongings, Belcher-Barnes was led from the Red Hook building by school investigators, and an assistant principal was put in charge, according to a source familiar with the probe.
The Education Department's only comment yesterday was to confirm Belcher-Barnes was being reassigned.
But sources said the embattled principal was at the center of two investigations being conducted by the DOE's internal Office of Special Investigations and a third being carried out by the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. "We are aware of the issue," said a spokeswoman for the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. "She was removed from the school pending the investigation, and we are looking into the matter."
The Huntington St. school, which houses classes from kindergarten to 12th grade, will never graduate a full class from its high school, which was opened two years ago. PS 27's elementary and middle schools received a D on their report card for 2007-2008 and received an F for "student performance." The middle school will be phased out, and the elementary school will be replaced by a new school.
In December, Belcher-Barnes had said in a note to parents that nearly 75% of all PS 27 students didn't meet reading standards, nearly 67% weren't on grade level in math and only a smattering of high school students were going to be permitted to graduate, according to school sources.
