I would be surprised if this Principal-from-hell (Namita Dwarka) stayed in her job. But, I'm often surprised by the DOE.
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| Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer visited William C. Bryant High School in Astoria to meet its new principal, Namita Dwarka, and speak with teachers, including his former teacher, Carl Brosnan. |
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Bryant High School has a mini-jail on campus The principal of William Cullen Bryant HS in Long Island City, Queens, has rounded up more than 20 failing kids with behavior problems — and put them in a trailer where they stay all day. |
Dwarka's Crazy Leadership & Bullying of Teachers and Staff
$195K unaccounted for at NYC high school
, NYPOST Feb. 15, 2015
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| William Cullen Bryant HS |
Bryant Parents, Teachers Demand Answers On Missing
Funds
Superintendant Tamika Matheson is very well informed about all the abuse and retaliation against staff ,students and parents by Principle Namita Dwarka.
Mrs Matheson ,the abuse of power by Ms Dwarkas and her lack of experience to work with everyone in her building( expect for a hand full teachers) has destroyed our school.
Ms Matheson Bryant High School Community needs a new start NOW !!!!!!!!!
You need to ACT NOW ! If you care about our children ,you care about Bryant HS bring back the APs that were forced out along with a new principle . You have in your position enough documentation to make the RIGHT DECISION for our school.
Ms Tamika Matheson
City Council hearings on the NETWORK
Before deciding the principal ought to be replaced, She sought the advice of Tamika Matheson, the district superintendent of Manhattan High Schools. “Things aren’t perfect… but student attendance is up and teacher morale is also up.”
Even as Matheson, Sheehan and Cruz recounted the good that can come from a strong network-school-superintendency relationship, city council members remained skeptical of the networks’ value.
“I talk to all my principals, [and] I don’t know anyone who is satisfied with the current system,” Councilman Mark Weprin said. “Give me a superintendent and ten staffers and I will run my school district better than you are.”
Polakow-Suransky countered that he was familiar with many school administrators who are much more satisfied with the current network structure than they were a decade ago, when the schools were run by community districts. But Weprin was unconvinced.
School leaders, he said, “are afraid of their own shadows. They don’t want to do anything without checking behind them to make sure they’re not getting fired.”
Students at the troubled William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens were falsely labeled as not fluent in English — to grant them extra time to finish last week’s Regents exams, The Post has learned.
More than 100 teens in one teacher’s English classes were recently marked “FELL,” for “former English language learner.” The label grants students exam “accommodations” up to two years after they test proficient on the New York state English as a Second Language Achievement Test.
But many students given extra time on the Regents exams are native English speakers, staffers said. Others had once taken English as a Second Language but became proficient long ago.
“I was born in New York. I grew up in this country. I speak perfect English,” said a senior at the Astoria school who took the English Regents exam on Thursday — and got an extra hour.
Her parents, of Italian and Spanish descent, were also born in the United States and grew up speaking English.
She said she speaks “a little bit of Italian — whatever I can learn from my grandmother.”
So the senior was surprised to find herself on a list of many students given extra time to complete the normally three-hour Regents exam, which is required for graduation.
“I was rushing to finish when the proctor approached me and said, ‘Relax, take your time, you have extra time,’ ” she recalled.
She didn’t question her good fortune.
“I used it to my advantage. I think any student would have,” she said.
She spent about 15 minutes completing an essay and going back to answer two multiple-choice questions she had gotten stuck on.
Other students in the room also got extra time.
“If I get a better grade, it will help me get into college,” she said. “On the other hand, it shouldn’t have happened. I don’t feel it’s fair at all.”
Student rosters dated in March list 110 of 154 students, or 71 percent, in one teacher’s classes as former English language learners. Almost none was so identified on rosters last October, records show.
Teachers suspect a scheme by Principal Namita Dwarka and her administrators.
“It may be a way to skew the Regents results, or skew the credit the school gets for graduating these students,” a teacher wrote to the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation last week.
An SCI spokeswoman said the matter was referred to city and state education officials.
Dwarka referred inquiries to the city Department of Education press office, which cited state policy on accommodations.
A Bryant teacher who checked records for a sample 25 students marked “FELL” found that eight never took English as a Second Language. The others all tested proficient on the state test well over two years ago — some as early as 2005.
Staffers have begged the chancellor’s office to take action at Bryant. About 200 students, teachers and parents protested outside the school last week, with some carrying signs that read, “Dwarka must go.”
Funds
Teachers and parents of students at William Cullen Bryant High School are demanding answers from officials and Department of Education (DOE) officials – an accounting of almost $200,000 collected from students to support phys ed and student activities at the Astoria school.
Local leader and former Bryant Parents Association president Gus Prentzas said he and physical education teacher Peter Maliarakis last year sent a letter to the city Department of Investigation and DOE seeking answers about the missing funds.
Prentzas said the money comes from items purchased at the Bryant Student Union store , where students buy food, drinks, gym uniforms and other “authentic” school gear. The funds are supposed to pay for phys ed equipment, repairs to the school gymnasium and school activities, Prentzas said.
After a year went by without a response to their letters, Prentzas and Maliarakis reached out to the office of the Regional Superintendent for help, Prentzas said. “Still, no one has come up with any answers,” he said.
Maliarakis said he sent an email to Mayor Bill deBlasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina and other officials in September 2014, telling them he had just two basketballs for use by 150 students in his three bale gym classes at the school.
Maliarakis said in his email that the two tattered basketballs are “at least” 10-to-15-years-old and they are “falling apart at the seams.”
On the following day, an assistant principal walked into the gym and handed over seven new basketballs to Maliarakis, he said. “But they were all girl-size basketballs. They’re smaller ad lighter than basketballs used by the boys,” making them useless as replacements he requested in the email , Maliarakis said.
Prentzas said he sent an email last September to school officials, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) officials and school network officials demanding an accounting of the missing funds. “I asked them to show us what happened to the money, to show us deposit slips , receipts – anything,” Prentzas said. “ I asked them how and when the funds were used to support th physical education department.”
Prentzas said he has yet to receive a response on the whereabouts of the missing funds.
Prnetzas also spoke up at a September 19, 014 meeting of the School Leadership Team (SLT) about “thousands of dollars” in charges that had accumulated on a school credit card used by Bryant principal Namita Dwarka, including “$500 dinner charges.”
Prentzas said he questioned th4 charges again in a recent email to deBlasio an Farina, after SLT officials failed to respond to his original request.
“I’m not demanding answers just for myself,” Prentzas said. “I want answers for other parents, teachers and for students who want to know how the credit card funds are being spent. What dinners” With whom, and why?” Prentzas said.
Prentzas said he and Maliarakis filed a Freedom of Informaion request last year demanding an accounting of the missing Student Union funds. DOE officials responded, saying they were unable to find receipts for student purchases at the school store from 2011 to 2013 – and had only found several receipts from 2014, Prentzas said.
A DOE spokesperson this week said the agency is investigating the matter to determine exactly what happened to the money.
Will we ever get an answer? I hope so, but I doubt it,” Prentzas said. “Just like in the past, they’ll sweep it under the carpet and never give us an answer. No one will ever be held accountable.”
Superintendent Tamika Matheson, its Time you put “Kids First ” Give us a New Start and a New Principle
Superintendant Tamika Matheson is very well informed about all the abuse and retaliation against staff ,students and parents by Principle Namita Dwarka.
Mrs Matheson ,the abuse of power by Ms Dwarkas and her lack of experience to work with everyone in her building( expect for a hand full teachers) has destroyed our school.
Ms Matheson Bryant High School Community needs a new start NOW !!!!!!!!!
You need to ACT NOW ! If you care about our children ,you care about Bryant HS bring back the APs that were forced out along with a new principle . You have in your position enough documentation to make the RIGHT DECISION for our school.
Contact Information
Ms Tamika Matheson
| 6565 Flatlands Avenue, Room 104B Telephone Number 718-968-4101 x 1044 tmathes@schools.nyc.gov |
City Council hearings on the NETWORK
Before deciding the principal ought to be replaced, She sought the advice of Tamika Matheson, the district superintendent of Manhattan High Schools. “Things aren’t perfect… but student attendance is up and teacher morale is also up.”
Even as Matheson, Sheehan and Cruz recounted the good that can come from a strong network-school-superintendency relationship, city council members remained skeptical of the networks’ value.
“I talk to all my principals, [and] I don’t know anyone who is satisfied with the current system,” Councilman Mark Weprin said. “Give me a superintendent and ten staffers and I will run my school district better than you are.”
Polakow-Suransky countered that he was familiar with many school administrators who are much more satisfied with the current network structure than they were a decade ago, when the schools were run by community districts. But Weprin was unconvinced.
School leaders, he said, “are afraid of their own shadows. They don’t want to do anything without checking behind them to make sure they’re not getting fired.”
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| Teachers at William Cullen Bryant High School suspect the "English learners" designations are a scheme by Principal Namita Dwarka. |
Principal cheats on tests by pretending students are immigrants
June 22, 2014Students at the troubled William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens were falsely labeled as not fluent in English — to grant them extra time to finish last week’s Regents exams, The Post has learned.
More than 100 teens in one teacher’s English classes were recently marked “FELL,” for “former English language learner.” The label grants students exam “accommodations” up to two years after they test proficient on the New York state English as a Second Language Achievement Test.
But many students given extra time on the Regents exams are native English speakers, staffers said. Others had once taken English as a Second Language but became proficient long ago.
“I was born in New York. I grew up in this country. I speak perfect English,” said a senior at the Astoria school who took the English Regents exam on Thursday — and got an extra hour.
Her parents, of Italian and Spanish descent, were also born in the United States and grew up speaking English.
She said she speaks “a little bit of Italian — whatever I can learn from my grandmother.”
So the senior was surprised to find herself on a list of many students given extra time to complete the normally three-hour Regents exam, which is required for graduation.
“I was rushing to finish when the proctor approached me and said, ‘Relax, take your time, you have extra time,’ ” she recalled.
She didn’t question her good fortune.
“I used it to my advantage. I think any student would have,” she said.
She spent about 15 minutes completing an essay and going back to answer two multiple-choice questions she had gotten stuck on.
Other students in the room also got extra time.
“If I get a better grade, it will help me get into college,” she said. “On the other hand, it shouldn’t have happened. I don’t feel it’s fair at all.”
Student rosters dated in March list 110 of 154 students, or 71 percent, in one teacher’s classes as former English language learners. Almost none was so identified on rosters last October, records show.
Teachers suspect a scheme by Principal Namita Dwarka and her administrators.
“It may be a way to skew the Regents results, or skew the credit the school gets for graduating these students,” a teacher wrote to the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation last week.
An SCI spokeswoman said the matter was referred to city and state education officials.
Dwarka referred inquiries to the city Department of Education press office, which cited state policy on accommodations.
A Bryant teacher who checked records for a sample 25 students marked “FELL” found that eight never took English as a Second Language. The others all tested proficient on the state test well over two years ago — some as early as 2005.
Staffers have begged the chancellor’s office to take action at Bryant. About 200 students, teachers and parents protested outside the school last week, with some carrying signs that read, “Dwarka must go.”
