A tip ‘o the hate to The E Rant.
If a white New York City school principal were as negligent and truant as Marcella Sills, she’d have long ago been fired, and perhaps sued for getting paid without showing up for work, and prosecuted for the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of missing dollars under her nine-year reign at PS 106. But Principal Sills is black, which somehow makes her not a criminal, but a “role model.”
Defenders of black crooks like Sills always claim that they are the victims of racism, which includes being short-changed on money to pay for things like textbooks. However, as Jason Richwine has shown, black and Hispanic-dominated schools like P.S. 106 typically get much more money than white-dominated public schools, because they have much higher percentages of kids in special and bilingual ed, for whom they get paid much more money, and because the feds also flood “minority” schools with extra money. In other words, black and Hispanic-dominated public schools are overfunded, while white-dominated public schools are underfunded.
However, most black and Hispanic educators just don’t care about black and Hispanic kids’ education, and what education aid is not for higher salaries for black and Hispanic “educators” has a funny way of disappearing, which is why such schools always seem to be using beat-up, old, “outdated” textbooks. (“Outdated” books are often superior to the more recent ones, because they contain fewer lies.)
Exclusive Metro
No books, no clue at
city’s worst school
By Susan Edelman
January 12, 2014 | 4:03am
New York Post
This principal runs a school of “no.”
Students at PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, have gotten no math or reading and writing books for the rigorous Common Core curriculum, whistleblowers say.
The 234 kids get no gym or art classes. Instead, they watch movies every day.
“The kids have seen more movies than Siskel and Ebert,” a source said.
The school nurse has no office equipped with a sink, refrigerator or cot.
The library is a mess: “Nothing’s in order,” said a source. “It’s a junk room.”
No substitutes are hired when a teacher is absent — students are divvied up among other classes.
A classroom that includes learning-disabled kids doesn’t have the required special-ed co-teacher.
About 40 kindergartners have no room in the three-story brick building. They sit all day in dilapidated trailers that reek of “animal urine,” a parent said; rats and squirrels noisily scamper in the walls and ceiling.
NO GYM OR ART: With no phys-ed or art classes, students are left to watch movies, including “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Fat Albert.”
NO SPACE: Without enough space in the main brick building, kindergartners are taught in what sources say are rat-infested trailers.
Modal Trigger
Principal Marcella Sills is a frequent no-show; The Post found she missed every day of school last week but one.Photo: J.C. Rice
And the principal — Marcella Sills, who joined PS 106 nine years ago — is a frequent no-show, sources say.
Sills did not come to school last Monday. On Tuesday, she showed up at 3:30 p.m.
On Wednesday, The Post found her at home in Westbury, LI, all day before emerging at 2:50 p.m. — school dismissal time. Wearing a fur coat, she took her BMW for a spin.
She showed up at school Thursday, but not Friday.
When Sills, 48, does go to work, it’s rarely before 11 a.m. — and often hours later, say sources familiar with her schedule.
“She strolls in whenever she wants,” one said.
The school hasn’t had a payroll secretary in years.
A Department of Education spokesman said Sills was required to report her absences and tardiness to District 27 Superintendent Michelle Lloyd-Bey but would not say whether Sills did so last week.
Lloyd-Bey did not return a call. Sills hung up on a reporter.
When she is out, an assistant principal is left in charge. Yet Sills, who gets a $128,207 salary, also pockets overtime pay — $2,900 for 83 hours in 2011, the latest available records show.
“This school is a complete s- -thole, but nobody in a position of power comes to investigate. No one cares,” a community member said.
PS 106 families hope their cries for attention bring newly installed Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña to the rescue, saying they can’t recall any prior DOE leader visiting the remote school.
She would find it sinking, they say.
The isolated building sits a block and a half from the beach, surrounded by vacant, weed-choked lots, the road behind it strewn with trash bags and broken TVs.
The floods of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 wrecked a hangar-like annex, called the Early Childhood Academy, which housed pre-K, kindergarten and first and second grades. It has not been repaired.
Two kindergarten classes moved into “temporary classroom units” in the yard. The other children moved into the main building, forcing some classes to squeeze into small offices and storage rooms. The pre-K class sits in the auditorium, but has to move to the cafeteria during the movies.
Kids in several grades said that last week they watched “Fat Albert,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Monsters, Inc.,” but did not relish the downtime.
“I like gym. I like to draw,” said Charm Russell, 10, who added her peers are too restless and bored to watch the screen. “They’re always making noise, and there’s nothing entertaining going on. No art, no gym, no music class.”
More alarming, the teachers have gotten no curricula since Sandy. Last February, the DOE announced several new options, including “Go Math” for grades K-5, and “ReadyGen” or the state Education Department’s “Core Knowledge” for English language arts. The books cover the Common Core standards, skills that kids should master at each level.
But five months into the school year, PS 106 classes still don’t have the books or teacher’s guides.
“They have no reading program, no math program,” a source said, adding Sills blames outside administrators for not sending materials.
Teachers muddle through by printing out worksheets they find online, buying their own copy paper.
The DOE gave no explanation for the missing curricula but said it’s “working with the school to provide students with physical education.”
A spokesman denied the trailers are rat-infested.
Staffers won’t speak up or even file a grievance with their union because Sills will retaliate, a source said.
Parents wonder if higher-ups know what’s going on.
“Why don’t they get on them? I don’t understand that,” said Michael Moore, father of a second-grader.
Another father, Roland Legions, added. “They’re not doing right by the kids.”
One mom said she couldn’t get a meeting with Sills to discuss concerns. Another said Sills is “just not professional.”
“She should be here,” the mom said. “How is she going to run the school if she’s not here?”
PS 106 is allocated $2.9 million to serve a low-income population with 98 percent of its students eligible for free lunches. As a Title 1 school, it gets extra federal funds, but community members say they’ve never seen a budget tracking the income and spending.
6 comments:
Old and out of date textbooks are always cited as a reason the "kids" cannot learn.
If the "kids" cannot learn with old textbooks they cannot master the material of, how exactly are they going to learn from and master the material from new textbooks?
this woman is pocketing the money for substitute teachers and who is doing the payroll if there's no payroll secretary? Clearly there's fraud going on. Thank you for saying if she were anything but black she would already be in one of the DOE rubber rooms.
my main question is why hasn't she been arrested yet? the fur coat, expensive car and that awful awful makeup makes her look like a drug dealer. some role model for ghetto children!
Tell me that she's a slumlord, too.
How does someone like this get a job like that? who hired this scum?
no doubt someone else or a whole soul train full of someone Else's is getting paid off.
Blacks like furs.
Blacks like fancy cars.
Blacks used to drive an Olds, a Buick, a big Cadillac.
NOW blacks like BMW.
Please be clear the DOE knew what was going down @ the school. She also had a boss which is the superintindent. But because the children are minorities they let Principal Sills run amok. I would like to see who else is getting fired besides Sills. Fire them all and whoever that stood around and did nothing! Including the parents!
Wow! Some of the comments about Marcella Sills read like a Cattle Call for a play called "We are Dumb Ass Rednecks." As to the charge that Black & Hispanics get special protection versus White principals, how can that be? Susan Edelman & The NY Post would never allow such an Absurdity! Why don't you take a critical look at JHS13,Jackie Robinson Complex!
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