Watch this Public Service Announcement video please. The star is Kymberley Walcott, a Jamaica High School graduate and one of the best people I have ever worked with.
The video on the impact of closing schools on kids is quite moving. It was done by The Network for Public Education.
Here is Kym's post:
Stop closing our schools!
As a person who attended a high school that was denigrated and then shut down by the government, It was an honor to be given a mic by the Network of Public Education to publicly defend my alma mater, my teachers who wanted nothing but for each of their students to succeed, and the right for all to have a just and equal public education experience.
Jamaica High School no longer physically exists, but the experiences I along with so many other students had in that institution are irrevocable and should not be forgotten.
Please help me in sharing this message! https://networkforpubliceducation.org/2018/05/10398/
Special thanks to Shoot4Education for producing this video and making this all possible!
14 comments:
Nah. Get better students, schools dont close.
Kymberley is one of the best students out there. She has met my daughter and I would love for her to be like Kym. She is a great role model.
Too bad people like her aren’t running the UFT
Brooklyn Tech and Latin havent closed, mostly white and asian.
Why wasn’t the closing of Jamaica HS appealed to the Commissioner of Education pursuant to Education Law § 310?
The filing fee for such an appeal is still only $20.
www.counsel.nysed.gov/appeals
While Mayor de Blasio has blamed a “hyper-complaint dynamic” for a spate of sex-harassment complaints at the Department of Education, the city has quietly shelled out $200,000 to two women who accused the same principal of abuse — yet he got to keep his job.
The city last month settled a second sexual-harassment suit in four years charging that Manhattan principal David Jimenez groped, made unwanted advances and retaliated against the women when they complained.
The city has now agreed to pay a total $200,000 to two assistant principals who worked under Jimenez at the Manhattan Center of Science and Mathematics in Harlem.
Yet even in the #MeToo era, Jimenez, who makes $173,707 a year, can’t be punished, officials said.
Five years after she filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court, Assistant Principal Felicia Bray reached a deal on April 4. The city agreed to pay her $150,000. She claimed she suffered Jimenez’ abuse from 2008 to 2009.
According to her suit, the harassment started when Jimenez touched her hand and told her he liked her. She replied that it made her uncomfortable, and that she wanted to keep their relationship professional. But he still pursued her aggressively, she alleged.
In his office, Jimenez “grabbed me from behind and tried to feel up my breasts,” she testified in a deposition. “I was wrestling with him and started to cry, ‘What are you doing?’ I was screaming.”
After five minutes, he finally stopped when a janitor knocked on the door, she said. “He told me to hide in the bathroom.”
Another time, according to her publicly filed deposition transcript, he followed her car in his, honking the horn, and demanding he pull over and join him.
In a health office, Jimenez asked Bray to open a desk drawer. It contained a fake penis used in sex-ed classes to demonstrate condom use.
“He laughed hysterically,” she recalled.
In a school hallway, Jimenez “leaned in and tried to smell me,” she said.
Bray confided in another AP, Arleen Milton, who revealed that Jimenez had harassed her, too, Bray testified. The two women agreed to stay together whenever he was with either of them.
Milton settled her own sex-harassment suit in 2014 after complaining that Jimenez tried to kiss her, made lewd comments and asked her on dates, according to court papers. The city paid her $50,000. She works as an assistant principal at another school.
When Bray finally complained to the DOE’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Jimenez began slapping her with disciplinary letters.
She lodged a complaint with the city’s Commission on Human Rights, charging that Jimenez was retaliating against her sex-based complaints.
Instead of investigating Jimenez, the DOE terminated Bray as an AP, citing “professional misconduct” and “insubordination.” She was demoted to teacher, her salary slashed.
A different school later rehired Bray as an AP. She now makes $140,639.
Another former AP under Jimenez called him “mean and vindictive,” saying, “He shouldn’t be a principal.”
In 2013, The Post reported that Jimenez ordered a beloved 89-year-old aide to man the elevator all day in an effort to get her to retire so he could give her $28,000-a-year job to someone else, staffers said.
“It’s scary,” said attorney Gerald Gross, who represented both Milton and Bray. “When you have similar acts alleged against the same principal, it’s incumbent on the city to start seriously investigating whether to keep this guy in the same position.”
DOE spokesman Doug Cohen said the settlement does not confirm wrongdoing. He added, “Cases are often resolved beyond the time-frame when DOE is legally able to impose discipline.”
The DOE also pointed to the Manhattan high school’s 96 percent graduation rate as evidence that Jimenez is “effective.”
“I have not been disciplined,” Jimenez told The Post. “I’ve always denied these accusations and I’m sticking to that. I did not sexually harass anyone.”
Appealing to John King would have been a waste of time and money.
We went to court with UFT and won in 2010 to get us another year. UFT sued again in 2011 when Joel Klein closed us again but we lost and it was the union's fault basically.
To settle the 2010 case, Joel Klein agreed to provide a bunch of supports to the closing schools and of course he reneged. Unfortunately for us, the UFT did not put into the agreement that if we did not get supports, Klein would not close the schools again so we lost.
We phased out over the next 3 years but had a go at de Blasio who proved to be an extension of Bloomberg, a total nothing.
What does this Post piece have to do with Kym's video? Nothing. Please stay on tooic.
The Union keeps helping the DOE to push out experienced teachers.
Highlights abuse
So some schools, with minority populations, have been failing for 30 years. No changes will cause improvement. These are the facts.
Jamaica didn't fail.
@9:28am...don't forget that those two schools have a high rate of drug use/abuse,mental health issues and cheating...please don't leave that out. Thanks
@10:29 loves fake facts like lying Donnie the jackass
Post a Comment