Petition to Fire Chancellor Richard Carranza. No More Cover-Ups!

We, the undersigned, call on Mayor Bill de Blasio to Fire Chancellor Carranza for the following reasons:

●       Refusal to listen to parents. At the January 16, 2020 CEC26 and Chancellor’s Townhall meeting, Richard Carranza refused to listen to parents whose children had been recently assaulted at their school. The Chancellor abruptly ended the CEC meeting and left when the parents demanded that he hear their questions rather than only accept pre-screened questions.  This incident is well documented by videos and by an audience of over 500 attendees,  which included District 26 teachers, parents, school administrators, Community District Superintendent and local elected officials. The Chancellor’s behavior was dismissive and disrespectful to the attendees and unbecoming of a Schools Chancellor.  We find his temperament ill-suited to be a partner in education with parents. 

Further, CEC26 President, was warned by the DOE in advance of the meeting that nothing beyond the Chancellor’s pre-approved agenda and pre-selected questions were to be addressed and failure to do would result in the Chancellor leaving the meeting.  This attempt to CONTROL the nature of a volunteer parent CEC and town hall meeting reflects a lack of transparency and lack of accountability. 

●       Failure to ensure School Safety.  The issue of school safety is on EVERY parent’s mind when we send our young children off to school.  It is expected that school staff ensure our children’s safety as well as provide them with a sound education.  Part of this responsibility is informing parents when something goes wrong.  When we fill out Emergency blue contact cards, we give school staff our email addresses, telephone numbers and addresses so that they can notify us when our child is sick.  This same contact information should be used to notify us when our children are harassed, threatened, physically attacked and sexually assaulted in school or on school grounds.  Recent news reports show that this has not been happening and hasn’t been happening for quite a long time now.  We are not getting notified by school staff of incidents and there is no clear protocol for how to address this.

It was reported in December 2019 by the New York Post that a parent with a daughter in Marie Curie MS 158Q sexually abused by another student in November was never notified that his daughter was being bullied and sexually harassed for months up until the incident. In another incident, a student at MS 158 was caught on camera being violently assaulted in the lunchroom by another student. The video shows the adults nearby the students being hesitant to intervene to stop the assault.  If not for the video, there would be NO documentation to show this assault took place and NO evidence to hand over to the police.  The mother of the student, Katty Sterling said principal Henry Schandel falsely told her that the 14-year-old girl who assaulted her daughter was suspended the following day.  After seeing the footage the day after the incident, the mother called NYPD to press charges and the attacker was eventually arrested after. 

If DOE and school officials had clear procedures and held accountable to parents, NYPD would not have had to get involved. Another unreported case involved a father who discovered his daughter had been sexually assaulted by a male classmate and for over a month, school administrators did not notify him.

In May 2019, it was reported by the New York Daily News that a Bronx high schooler who jumped to her death was allegedly relentlessly bullied at school for five months and sexually assaulted on the day of her death — and her school administrators repeatedly ignored her cries for help and never told her mother and father about her torment.

These are just a few examples but we know there are many other incidents in NYC schools that remain unreported by the DOE under the Chancellor’s policies and lack of accountability due to Mayoral Control of schools.  NYPD and lawsuits are NOT the answer.

●       Lack of accountability.  Chancellor has engaged in the cover-up of numerous investigations….sexual and violent assaults in schools.  Going forward, we demand the DOE implement an easy to follow reporting procedure for school staff and allow them to do their jobs without fear of retaliation.  The Special Commissioner of Investigation For The NYC School District (SCI) and DOE cannot be trusted to investigate sexual and violent assaults. 

SCI, a watchdog of DOE was supposed to “investigate” grade fraud last year independently; due to whistleblower claims that probes into the DOE and Carranza were blocked and the majority of allegations were referred back to the DOE to investigate themselves, federal government investigators are now handling it.

●       Lack of Respect.  The Chancellor’s behavior at his own town hall meeting shows a disdain for parents and teachers alike.  He cannot be trusted to “look into” things any more.  Parents are NOT “outside agitators” and the CEC26 meeting was NOT a “set-up.”  He also disrespected elected officials who came to the defense of parents on Twitter.

●       Created an anti-semitic and hostile work environment for teachers and DOE employees.  Under the Chancellor’s leadership, the DOE has subjected a superintendent of Jewish descent to humiliation and scolding for describing her family’s Holocaust tragedies in his “implicit bias” program.  Chalkbeat reports while the DOE plans to reduce funding for teacher training programs by $31 million under its new budget proposal, it will not cut any funding for the $23 million “implicit bias” program.

For all of the reasons listed above and more, we respectfully demand that Mayor deBlasio remove Richard Carranza immediately from the City’s payroll and from his role as Chancellor.

Thank you for your support.

 

Sources:

https://nypost.com/2019/12/12/bully-sexually-abused-girl-at-top-nyc-middle-school-and-officials-did-nothing/
https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/new-video-show-extent-of-queens-middle-school-beatdown/
https://nypost.com/2020/01/13/video-shows-vicious-lunchroom-beating-at-troubled-queens-middle-school/
https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/queens-mom-slams-doe-head-richard-carranza-for-bolting-out-of-town-hall/
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/ny-bully-school-lawsuit-20190529-6zov65whszg4hfeellhk2i7owy-story.html
https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/city-official-investigating-allegations-of-grade-fraud-against-nyc-department-of-education
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/newsletters/politico-new-york-education/2020/01/27/queens-politician-says-fbi-probing-school-332144
https://nypost.com/2019/11/23/city-investigators-probed-only-11-of-880-academic-fraud-complaints-in-last-few-years/