After a long and protracted battle to remove vindictive Principal Monika Garp, the teachers and parents at CPE1 finally forced the DOE to remove the Principal. However, the war against the 399 other principals that should not be running their schools remain. The Farina administration has allowed these poor leaders to remain in charge of their schools and even has empowered them to go after veteran teachers to force them to either retire or file 3020-a termination charges against them.
Complicit with the DOE in allowing these vindictive principals to remain in charge is our own union leadership. When teachers and parents rebelled against these vindictive principals and protested, where was our union leadership? Oh, yes, they claim they quietly negotiate with the DOE to solve the issues but yet the vindictive principals remain in charge. In other words, if if I was to take our union leadership at its word, they are ineffective.
While some battles are won. CPE1 and Townsend Harris, most are not. Take a look at William Cullen Bryant, the Campus Magnet schools of Arts and Humanities and Math and Science, or Flushing High School to name a few. Poor leadership results in poor school morale and students not achieving their potential academic ability since the unstable educational environment of the school limits that potential.
Until there is a real change in the DOE and our union leadership decides to become pro active in protesting and removing vindictive principals, our educational system will remain dysfunctional.