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Tuesday, January 28, 2020

NYC ALERT: Do Not Criticize Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza

Chancellor Richard Carranza
The alerts currently being posted on the internet by parents is a serious matter. Richard Carranza, supposedly the "diversity king" of education who wants equality and fairness for all, does not want to be told he is not doing what he should be doing, namely putting the safety and welfare of students FIRST.

I want to give you all some examples of the widespread "protect Carranza" policy:

When I heard that the New York City Council was having a public meeting on special education programs in the City's public schools, I made 30 copies of my report on how teachers in ICT (Integrated co-teaching) classrooms do not always have a co-teacher or any teacher with a certificate to teach special education, and also other wrongdoing perpetrated by the NYC DOE and handed it personally to Jan Atwell, the proper person for submitting the documents to City Council, in the hearing room. On December 16, 2019 I asked Mark Treyger, chair of the Committee, why I never heard back from him, and he told me he knew nothing about my papers. Zero. I gave him my number, and told him to let me know if he had any questions. Until today, never heard back from him.

On December 16, 2019, I spoke at the New York State Assembly meeting on Mayoral control, chaired by Assemblyman Michael Benedetto. Mr. Benedetto warned all speakers not to criticize the Mayor or the Chancellor, who showed up for 10 minutes, because he (Benedetto) did not want to hear any criticism. He said the hearing was not set up to listen to critics of the education department. Every speaker, almost, had a criticism of the way Mayoral control over the Department of Education has been less than good, but Benedetto did not listen to any of that. Then what was the purpose of the hearing, I asked. No one understood the political theater presented.

We know that teachers are being kicked, assaulted, and verbally abused in NYC everyday, by students who are never disciplined for any action they take.

See:
Too Many Teachers Are Getting Hit, Kicked, and Punched by Students


I’m a Teacher Not a Boxer, and I’m Tired of Being Beat Up by My Students
When Educators Are Assaulted

Threatened and Attacked By Students: When Work Hurts

Dealing with Violent Behavior

What can a teacher do if a student hits them?

The Partnership of Bully Power and Media Can Convict a Teacher at 3020-a

Student Violence in public schools is a national problem, and the Carranza administration is turning their backs. This is the serious issue which has made parents so angry, because no one is safe right now in the NYC public schools.

Our suggestion when you, a teacher, are assaulted in school? Immediately file a police complaint, and then go to your principal or the hospital. Rules be damned. Principals are telling all employees to come to them first, and trust me on this, the coverup will begin. Then investigators will charge you, the teacher with the violence and/or not stopping the battery.

Watch the video below, and I am sure you will conclude just as we have, that Richard Carranza must go. His termination from the NYC Department of Education is necessary to re-establish the Mayor's good faith in the public education arena. Kids must come first, and politics must be erased from public education.

Betsy Combier
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ blog
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials 

 Outraged parents jeer DOE head Richard Carranza off the stage at Queens town hall meeting

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By Selim Algar, NY POST, January 28, 2020
It’s everybody’s fault but his.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza blamed everything from racism to vans full of agitators to privacy worries Tuesday for his abrupt departure from a chaotic community meeting in Queens earlier this month.

Carranza left the Jan.17 District 26 gathering after the two parents whose kids had been assaulted at MS 158 in Bayside demanded time to speak amidst a jeering crowd of more than 500.
“This is about some voices in the community don’t like me,” Carranza said at an unrelated press conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio Tuesday in Brooklyn.
Carranza claimed bigoted epithets posted to his Twitter account were evidence that critiques of his policies stem more from racial animus than legitimate dissent.
“Just look at some of the abject racist things that are said about me,” Carranza said, reciting tweets that explicitly derided his Mexican origins.
The meeting collapsed soon after Community Education Council 26, a volunteer parent group, read out a statement from a teachers union group that sounded the alarm on cratering classroom conditions.
While Carranza and Superintendent Danielle Giunta both addressed the issue, many in the crowd felt that there should have been more discussion of school discipline and safety before moving on to the next topic.
The father of a girl who was forcibly groped in class in December rose and asked to be heard despite not having turned in a question card and was soon joined by Katty Sterling, the irate mother of a girl who was beaten in a videotaped cafeteria assault that went viral.
Carranza, who previously ripped the two MS 158 parents for “grandstanding” at the meeting, again critiqued Sterling Tuesday and cast himself as a guardian of her daughter’s privacy rights.
The schools boss said she was “shouting out questions that have to do with the personal information of a student alleging they’ve been abused,” he said. “I’m an educator. I will not allow that to happen and violate that student’s rights. It was a set-up.”
The two parents were joined in denouncing Carranza at the meeting by several vocal members of an activist group that has been trailing him at meetings across the city and loudly demanding his resignation for alleged anti-Asian bias and other objections.
Carranza ripped the protesters who now routinely heckle him at public meetings and said they were “brought in vans to agitate” at the gathering despite not being from the district.
He also pinned the sudden adjournment of the meeting on CEC 26 president Adriana Aviles, who has repeatedly denied the claim. “She said, ‘I’m going to adjourn the meeting,’ and I walked out,” he said Tuesday.

But the CEC has a different recollection, insisting that Department of Education personnel and Carranza were the ones who chose to cut bait and bolt.

“Unfortunately the Chancellor chose to end the meeting abruptly due to what he felt were safety concerns,” the panel said in a statement soon after the meeting.
Aviles reiterated her stance Tuesday on Twitter after Carranza revived his claim.
“He knows what really happened,” she wrote. “It’s on him.”

Carranza reiterated that the disorderly end to the meeting had little productive value and that senior DOE personnel have since been diligently attending to the two parents’ concerns.

De Blasio stoutly backed his lieutenant Tuesday, arguing that Carranza’s polarizing agenda is causing rightful discomfort in certain sectors.
“If you haven’t made enemies, you haven’t done anything of consequence in public life,” de Blasio said. “So when you try to change things, yes, opposition comes with it.”
Asked how he was absorbing the tumult around his tenure, Carranza remained characteristically defiant.

“Bring it on,” he said.