Central Park East 1 elementary school was founded by Deborah Meier many years ago. It is an iconic progressive public school in East Harlem that has attracted a diverse student enrollment. Debbie wrote to tell me that the school is interible trouble now. Its current principal is opposed to the original philosophy of the school. Parents are demanding her removal:
“***Breaking Update: Following a meeting of more than 100 parents, teachers and community members, families have been occupying their school at CPE1 since 6:30pm on Thursday, April 6th. The DOE has promised to send someone to meet with occupying families at 8am. Parents are asking Mayor de Blasio to step in and resolve the crisis at CPE1 by removing Principal Garg immediately. Supporters and families will be holding a press conference and rally at 8:30am to explain their demands and next steps in their struggle.***
“BREAKING NEWS RELEASE
“CONTACT: Jen Roesch (917) 319-7008 or jenroesch@gmail.com
Kaliris Salas-Ramirez (718) 704-7387
Kenya Dilday, kdilday@gmail.com
“Parents Sitting In at Central Park East 1 to Demand Principal’s Removal
“Letter Sent to Mayor DeBlasio asking him to personally intervene after DOE’s failure to address long-standing issues
“Majority of Families Want ‘Worst Principal’ in NYC Out; Retaliation Against Teachers, Abuse of Parents, Children Must Stop
“Afternoon of April 6th, Central Park East 1 at 1573 Madison Avenue: Parents, including members of the Parents’ Association leadership and School Leadership Team, are currently refusing to leave their school until their principal, Monika Garg, either resigns or is removed. They say they represent a majority of parents who have signed a statement of “no confidence” in the principal. This letter was presented at the School Leadership Team immediately preceding the sit-in. Other parents and supporters are holding a solidarity rally outside.
“Parents say they have appealed to the DOE for over a year about significant concerns but have not had their needs adequately addressed. Garg is statistically the WORST principal in NYC: she has had the greatest drop in ratings from parents and teachers on the 2016 DOE school survey of any principal in the city and oversaw the city’s largest drop in test scores after her traumatic first year at the helm (2016). NYC has approximately 1800 public schools. They are refusing to leave until Mayor De Blasio intervenes. They cite his claim that his administration will make parent voice and building trust in our schools a top priority.
“Parents cite serious concerns about Principal Garg’s leadership, including abuse of teachers, children and families. Two teachers have been removed from the school for investigations that parents consider retaliatory in nature. The investigations come in the wake of an open letter signed by tenured staff expressing concerns. Another third of the teaching staff left at the end of last year. All tenured teachers have faced investigations and disciplinary action under Garg’s tenure.
“Parents say that children have been harmed as a result of these investigations. Garg interviewed very young children without parents’ knowledge or consent. Many only found out as a result of other parents whose children had told them. In one instance, a 7-year old child had documented emotional issues and was being assisted by the school guidance counselor. This child was interviewed without his parent or his guidance counselor being informed. He was asked about 2-year old incidents and told that his cooperation was necessary in order to keep his school safe. This parent failed to receive an answer to her concerns from either Garg or the DOE. More than 55 parents filed complaints with the DOE without any response. Children in the classes with teachers removed are suffering emotional and social distress and have not received proper support.
“Since her appointment in 2015, which came via a questionable process, Garg has deliberately fomented division, mistrust and turmoil at the iconic public progressive elementary school. With the support of District 4 Superintendent Alexandra Estrella, Garg has harassed and retaliated against teachers, mistreated students and families, and undermined the school’s successful practices.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
wow….I’m sure we will see more behavior like this in the near future.
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These parents have had the run of an exclusionary public school and they aren’t going to give it up easily!
CPE1: 77% of students reside outside District 4 (most come from District 3, the wealthy UWS) 32% free lunch, 2% ELLs, 0 kids needing self-contained special ed, 1% homeless
District 4, the community is meant to serve: 93% free lunch, 13% ELLs, 9% needing self-contained special ed, and 17% homeless.
How are these gaps defensible? Oh, right, it’s a UFT school and it’s “progressive”. Nothing to see here!
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Tim,
It is not fair to say that the Upper West Side is “wealthy.” The UWS is very diverse and encompasses people who are wealthy, people who are middle-class, and people who are poor. It includes housing projects.
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UFT has nothing to do with the makeup of the student population. You revealed your bias here.
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How is it a “UFT school”? Can you explain and or defend that statement, please?
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CPE1 is a UFT-represented school.
It student body bears scarcely any resemblance to the district in which it is sited and which it is supposed to primarily serve.
A prospective parent attending a CPE1 tour will be told over and over again by teachers and CPE1 parents that “fit” is of the utmost importance: if you aren’t a fanatic believer in progressive education, if you care about reading levels and other traditional markers of educational progress, or even if you are on the fence about such matters, then you should definitely not send your child to this public school that is open to all children! (Oh, and you are also out of luck if your kid needs any special ed services that can’t be delivered in an ICT setting.)
CPE1’s admissions process (unzoned, opt-in) creams on the front end and then the school intimidates kids it doesn’t want into not enrolling, so it can then hand-pick kids from its wait list. The same advocates and activists who are supporting the CPE1 parents oppose charter schools at every turn, citing cream-skimming and not serving the same kids.
The fact that it’s okay when a UFT school does this stuff reveals everyone’s hand: the objections to charters aren’t about what happens to kids or privatization. They are about money, jobs, and power.
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Tim,
Every public school–not including charter schools, which are not public schools–are UFT schools. You knew that, right?
The teachers do not choose the students.
CPE 1 is supposed to be a progressive school, so it is wise to let parents know in advance.
Unlike charter schools, which kick out and exclude kids they don’t want, those who don’t get into CPE 1 have other public schools they can attend. If they are excluded from a charter school, they have no choice but a public school.
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Tim,
I remember you. You worship at the Holy Grail of charters and excuse all their trespasses by saying that real public schools do it too.
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You still haven’t explained how the United Federation of Teachers’ representation of Central Park East’s teachers influences this school’s admission decisions and therefore its social composition. The UFT has absolutely nothing to do with how students are selected for admission to New York City Schools.
How do I know this? I’m a New York City public school teacher and a member of the UFT. So, let me recap: the UFT has no latitude in admissions policies and procedures in New York City public schools. And while I cannot speak definitively for all my colleagues on this, I think its safe to say teachers neither possess nor desire any stake in admissions decisions–we teach all kids, whoever they are and from wherever they come–in the schools in which we serve. Finally, you imply a connection where none exists between this school’s admissions process, its curriculum, and the UFT’s desire to preserve union jobs and therefore reproduce itself. Whoever is admitted to this school, it needs the same amount of teachers to serve that student body. Teaching jobs aren’t contingent on curricular priorities or children’s socioeconomic backgrounds. Rich or poor students, progressive or traditional curriculum, our schools have staffing ratios that are based on head counts and nothing else.
As to your comments on the needs of struggling learners, commonly called (in a term of art I loathe, incidentally) special education students, I happen to know something about that too. You see, I’ve been working with troubled and struggling adolescents for 27 years, 14 of them as an appointed special education teacher here in New York. The trend toward placing these learners in integrated co-teaching environments rather than the small, self-contained classes that are in many cases more appropriate for them is something that is happening all over this city. The assistant principal who supervises me told me at the beginning of this year that the two self-contained classes I teach this year (down from four when I began working at this school nine years ago) will probably be eliminated next year owing to the fiat the superintendent for our district has issued. New York City apparently doesn’t want to pay for these comparatively expensive small classes.
So, with all due respect, Tim, it really does sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about. What you’ve offered in this discourse appears to be ideological cant. Care to try again, using facts and reason this time?
In any case, you should probably at least entertain the idea that Diane Ravitch, with a half-century of scholarship in the field of education behind her, may know more about this than you do.
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He probably has a stake in charter schools.
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I know many families at CPE1, including one of the persons listed as a contact, and am very aware of what has been going on there over the past year. Using statistics to fit your own narrative based on what you read in a slanted NYT article isn’t an argument.
I often wonder how much you actually know about those running the charter industry, whose cause/livelihood you so zealously defend. For example, are you aware that the guy who runs KIPP sends his children to expensive, exclusive NYC private schools? I also know what neighborhood they live in, but will be kind enough not to say which, but let’s just say it is “wealthy.”
Also, a well-known charter-loving, union-busting advocate who resides in Harlem was considering sending their child to “exclusionary” CPE1. Yes, you read it correctly – a well-known charter-loving, union-busting advocate was considering sending their child to a UFT school.
You see Tim, when it comes to the hypocrites who run the charter industry, what’s good for someone else’s children is definitely not good enough for their own.
And that’s not all the background I have on charter folks either… 😉
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On Brian Lehrer radio today a caller asked Mayor de Blasio why nothing has been done to deal with the principal. The parent told de Blasio that every senior teacher was harrassed and that there was a 50% staff turnover in staff the last year alone.
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Sounds like the principal from hell who thinks she’s a dictator. What about the school board and the superintendent?
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Who is protecting the principal and why?
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That Principal was sent in to break up the “community feel” of the school. A Superintendent (likely a Broadie) did the dirty work. Happened in my child’s ES several years ago. There were too many involved parents and too many teachers that lived in the community. It’s to get the parents out of the school.
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I’ve certainly dealt with, and heard about, during my tenure in New York City Schools, plenty of halfwitted and incompetent administrators, but this is a new low. Over the years, and even before I became a teacher here in New York, I followed the fortunes of Central Park East. Many teachers, I think, have looked to it, and Deborah Meier, for inspiration. Certainly I have.
The question is, who hired this moron? And why?
This is grim news indeed, and I bid parents, students, and teachers only the best of luck in defeating this person and restoring the school to its storied excellence.
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Reblogged this on Mark's Text Terminal.
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The corporate education reform movement is a malignant cancer, and it is spreading into every element of education. If they can’t privatize a school, they take it over by other means.
The Alt-Right extremist billionaires (think DeVos, Walton, Koch, etc.) that are funding this war against public education want to be in charge of raising and programming children to think like they want them to think. If parents don’t fall into line, the autocratic, often abusive and inferior schools controlled by the Alt-Right movement to dominate the U.S. will step in and strip parents of their right to raise their own children.
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“The Alt-Right extremist billionaires … that are funding this war against public education”
You mean like Gates, Hastings, Zuckerberg, etc?
Please stop pretending this is a Republican/right-wing problem. It’s a corporatist/neoliberal problem. Both parties serve that god.
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I’m not pretending anything. Of course the Neos have invaded both parties and they lied and scratched for decades to gain seats of power among the leaders of the other factions.
There are other factions in each party. It isn’t all Neos.
Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism both came out of the University of Chicago. The neocons were originally in the Democratic Party and probably thought of themselves as neo-libs at one time (I doubt that they think for themselves. It’s more like they are programmed like a computer), but they couldn’t get a seat at the leadership table. Then Reagon, the Dark Prince, invited them into the GOP. The neo-libs stayed in the Democratic Party.
The neocons came to power in the GOP with G. W. Bush.
The neo-libs moved into the white House with Bill Clinton and they were still there with Obama.
Then there is the Alt-Right vs the Alt-Left. The libertarians in each party. The so-called liberty caucus (from theTea Party People) that only wants liberty for their group so they can rule over everyone else and force us all to live life like they want us to.
Next up the fundamentalist Christians, with their heads buried in mud that was created 6,000 years ago along with every life form that ever lived on Earth.
Last is the moderates who are an endangered species, more so in the GOP than the Democratic Party. I left out a few splinter groups that are too small to mention.
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For more on this including see my blog here: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/04/amazing-evening-parents-and-teacher-sit.html
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Very sorry that CPE1 has encountered these problems with leadership. Sadly, many progressive district run schools have encountered similar problems when a central district administration placed a director/principal in the school whose views were not consistent with the school’s philosophy.
The ST. Paul Open School, formerly a K-12 option in St. Paul Mn public schools, founded in fall 1971, is an example. I helped start and worked for 8 years at the school.
Due in part to terrible leadership whose first allegiance was to the district, not the families, students and faculty, the school is now grades 6-12, rather than K-12 as the families preferred. But the families have fought hard and so far successfully to retain the school’s progressive orientation. http://open.spps.org/
The school has a long waiting list. Many families have urged that a second similar school be created. So far, that has not happened. In NYC, Central Park 1 has been replicated.
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