Do Not Apply
What New York City schools are so horrible, so career-ending, so abusive (esp of teachers, but also of students) that we should protect new members by advising them to stay away?
We (teachers and our unions) should make this information available to new teachers. But doing it is hard. The problems must be severe to make this list. But they are out there.
- Does the school have assaults on teachers that go unreported? Do students get away with bad stuff without consequences, or minor consequences?
- Does the principal get rid of people (plural) mid-year? Fabricate charges? Get their licenses lifted?
- Do routine requests for help or repairs get ignored?
- Do teachers walk around scared? Do you see adults getting yelled at by administrators on a regular basis?
- Do most teachers talk about leaving? And do more than half leave each year?
Which schools, folks, which are so bad that no one should apply? This list is a work in progress. It would be great if you could supply the names of other schools at other levels and in other borough. E-mail me (this blogname at gmail dot com). Explain why the school belongs on the DNA list. Please be as specific as you feel comfortable. Provide additional commentary about why a school already on the list belongs (or does not belong)
Bronx High Schools
- Bronx Aerospace HS (+) (in the Evander building) (follow up)
- Eximius College Prep HS (near Crotona Park) (follow up)
- Discovery HS (in the Walton building)
- Fordham HS of the Arts (in the Theodore Roosevelt building) (only DNA school on the UFT’s “Principal in Need of Improvement list” as of 3/1/09) Rally – rally – rally.
- HS for Performance and Stagecraft (no longer in the Truman building)
- Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology (in the Theodore Roosevelt building)
- Bronx High School of Science [follow up with details of special complaint]
- Felisa Rincon de Gautier Institute for Law and Public Policy
- Pablo Neruda Academy for Architecture and World Studies
Bronx Middle/Elementary Schools
- The Bronx Green Middle School (in the MS135 building, on Wallace, D11. Look how pretty the official website is, an amazing contrast with reality)
- PS/MS4 Crotona Park West (D9, just below the Cross Bronx)
Manhattan High Schools:
- *HS of Art and Design
- *Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis HS
- *Life Sciences HS
- *MLK HS of the Arts and Technology
Here are some links to articles about “Do Not Apply” schools:
Do Not Apply (the original article)
Urban Assembly Media comes off the list
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- Felisa Rincon de Gautier Institute for Law and Public Policy - Do Not Apply « JD2718
- Do Not Apply: PS/MS4 « JD2718
- Night on the town may give teachers at Bronx DNA high school a break « JD2718
- Third anniversary post « JD2718
- Will Eximius close? « JD2718
- Bronx Science math teachers finally get their day « JD2718
- Eximius Middle School to phase out starting this fall « JD2718
- Scores rise at “Do Not Apply” school – your reaction? « JD2718
- JD2718
Do NOT apply at MS206B
Please add Pablo Neruda Academy in the Bronx to the list. They have a new principal who is absolutely awful. He jerked around so many teachers last year that it was unreal. He did 19 formal and 26 informal observations on a science teacher in a campaign to get rid of him – and he was an excellent teacher! The students do whatever they want and he ignores them. Over 1/3 of the staff leaves every year.
I’ll take another look. I had it on, but took it off at the beginning of the year… but yours are the second set of comments in the last few weeks saying it belongs…. Thanks.
And if you have any more detail, can you tell us? or email me? (this blogname at gmail dot com)
it’s true. life sciences secondary school’s principal is just totally abusive to students and staff. Those who can leave do. The building is over 100 years old and the administration can’t fix a non-functioning boys bathroom or provide soap, paper towels and hot water in the teachers bathroom.
there’s no teachers cafeteria, and the children’s lunch room reaches over 100 degrees many days; It’s a very toxic environment for students and staff and teachers are blamed for everything, especially for the failings of the WORST A.P. who is ignorant and incapable of rendering an objective observation.
Did you get out?
No because it’s hard to transfer when you’re experienced (read expensive). My biggest beef is with the DOE. Who’s in charge? I read about some pretty abusive principals (like mine) and yet there seems to be no accountability for them. What does it take to stop the madness?
any details on why Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis HS made the list?
That’s been needing some follow-up for a while. It was an individual recommendation that it was hard to work at, with some nodding agreement. But it really needs further confirmation/detail. I’ll look into it.
thank you.
Please add The High School for Youth and Community Development in the Erasmus building in Brooklyn to the list.
Marie Prendergast, the principal, has allegedly said, with great pride, that she has denied tenure to more teachers than any other principal in New York.
Here are some of the things Marie Prendergast is alleged to have done:
1. She denied tenure and gave a U rating to a teacher for missing ten days, five of which were due to swine flu and for all of which, every single one, the teacher had a doctor’s note.
Prendergast only observed this teacher once and gave her an S for that observation.
The U rating and denial of tenure were based solely on the teacher’s missing ten days, which is allowed by the contract, and again, the teacher had doctor’s notes for every single day. Now this teacher’s career is destroyed because she missed ten days of work.
2. Prendergast made every teacher do hallway patrol every week without any support. No one was ever given a circular 6 menu. Everyone was just assigned hallway patrol.
3. Prendergast made teachers attend meetings after school every Monday, which is in violation of the contract.
4. She fired a teacher after 3 days. The teacher apparently did not cover a class to Prendergast’s liking, so the teacher was fired. This teacher was hired mid-year, or a bit earlier, because the original had quit.
5. Prendergast has threatened educators with the destruction of their lives and careers.
6. She told one educator that she would literally destroy this educator’s life and career.
7. Prendergast told another that this educator would never work in the New York City DOE again AND that she (Prendergast) would reach out to people she (Prendergast) knew in the teacher’s home state so she could destroy her career there as well.
8. Prendergast allegedly ripped beads from a student’s neck. There are witnesses to Prendergast’s scattering of the beads all over the floor, creating an unsafe environment for faculty, staff, and students. When someone tried to push the beads in the corner to make the floor safer, Prendergast allegedly said, “No. Leave them there (scattered across the floor). I want the kids to see what happens with gang beads.”
9. Prendergast allegedly lifted a desk in a rage to throw at a staff member. Prendergast put the desk down and did not throw it, but the staff member was frightened.
9. Prendergast alienated certain teachers from the rest of their departments, for example, she told a teacher to wait outside while Prendergast and the rest of the department met. This made the teacher feel alienated and deliberately excluded with malicious intent.
10. Prendergast puts disciplinary letters in teacher’s files if they are absent more than once. She puts one in for each absence.
11. Over the course of the 2008-2009 school year, three Spanish teachers, two living environment teachers, one English teacher, and one AP were either forced out by Prendergast or quit in disgust. The careers of these educators have suffered terrible damage.
12. When a school laptop was stolen, Prendergast allegedly threatened the teacher with arrest, although the theft (not the first nor the last in the school during the course of the year) was properly reported by the teacher.
13. When a teacher’s personal laptop was stolen, Prendergast allegedly told the teacher’s co-workers that the teacher was crying and therefore she (Prendergast) couldn’t help her.
14. Prendergast was investigated for having students copy the answers to Living Environment labs in order to qualify for the Regents. She was reported for this and Special Investigator Richard Condon found that she had “failed in her role as principal.” She kept her job.
During the 2008-2009 school year, she accused another teacher, who was quitting, of doing what she (Prendergast) had done — namely, of falsifying labs. Prendergast threatened to audit that teacher’s labs and report that teacher if necessary. There was no reason to suspect the teacher of anything.
When Prendergast was originally investigated, she accused the teachers.
15. There are still allegations being made about Prendergast and the Regents.
16. Prendergast allegedly asked teachers to write their own observations since she did not do the required number of observations for her teachers.
17. Prendergast allegedly has hysterically and loudly threatened to fire teachers right in front of students.
18. Prendergast allegedly accuses teachers of racism without cause.
Mary Prendergast is unprofessional in her interactions with students and teachers. Adding to the destruction of student property, and yelling about teachers in front of students, she has constantly mispronounced facultie’s names. While she was watching a demo lesson midyear for one of the science teachers whom quit, she began laughing at the lesson IN FRONT OF THE STUDENTS, ironically they were nice to the applicant. She provided alcohol for YCD teachers chaperoning prom, which is a dangerous idea. Marie Prendergast gets into screaming matches over the phone with one of the other principals in front of staff.
I believe that during the 2008-2009 school year, YCD had 38 employees in total, including AP’s, secretaries, teachers, etc. I believe that 29 of those employees were teachers.
Out of the 38 total employees, 9 did not return. Some quit during the school year, some were told if they didn’t leave, that the principal would “go after” their license. Others left at the end of the year, vowing never to return.
One man was hired to teach at YCD in late October, early November. He was taking over for a teacher who had quit.
Question 1. Why did this teacher quit?
This man was gone a few days later. I don’t think he lasted a week. I don’t know the whole story. All I heard is that another teacher complained about his inability to control a class he was covering. Supposedly, this teacher felt that some students got into the teacher’s desk and took some candy. The teacher, whose desk it was, blamed the new teacher who was covering the class. That was all it took for this man to lose his job. I don’t think he had been there for a full week. How can you tell what kind of teacher someone is in a week? More to the point — WHO would judge someone based on what they saw in less than a week — from a new teacher who began in the middle of a semester and was just covering the class where the theft of candy (candy!) supposedly took place.
Question 2. It’s not easy to get rid of a teacher, even an untenured ATR. What was said to this man to make him leave?
Question 3. Why was he forced to leave over something so minor?
Obviously, it would be very difficult to have perfect control of a class that isn’t even yours in your first few days at a new school in the middle of a semester. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing if what he was accused of — monitoring kids so poorly some stole some candy — actually happened or not.
I do not know if the whole story as it was recounted to me, and as I have just told it, is true. What I do know is true, what is irrefutable, is that this man lasted only a few days at YCD. I heard nothing to explain his leaving other than the story I just shared.
Question 4. This man was one of 9 people (mostly teachers) who “left.” What kind of leadership does a school with 38 employees have when 9 people resign, are pressured into resigning, are allegedly fired, or leave at the end of the year never to return? Perhaps someone should ask Marie Prendergast, the principal of the High School for Youth and Community Development, YCD, how her “leadership” led to this situation.
YCD does not seem like a safe place to work if you care about your career. What kind of school has 38 employees and loses 9? What kind of school has 5 of its 29 teachers leave during the course of the school year? Some of the educators who left YCD had been elsewhere and those who had been enjoyed exemplary records at their former schools.
Can you imagine the kind of pain and unhappiness that would cause teachers to leave in the middle of the school year? That kind of torment does not happen under a good leader but can be caused by a bad one. Can you imagine the types of terrifying things that must have been said to certain educators to get them to leave? Who leaves a job in the middle of a recession? I have heard certain educators were terrified by threats made to them in regard to their licenses and their future employment. Why terrify people that way? What kind of person does that? I wonder how bad leaders sleep at night. I wonder how they justify the harm and pain they inflict on innocent people.
I would advise everyone not to work at YCD.
She might be eligible for the Joel Klein Administrator of the Year Award! Where is the UFT outrage? How about a September “protest/welcome for Ms. Prendergast? Are you with me???
I wonder why the Regents scandal didn’t end the career of Marie Prendergast, the principal of The High School for Youth and Community Development, also known as YCD, located in the Erasmus Hall building in Brooklyn.
I just wonder how she kept her job after Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard J. Condon found her to have “failed in her role as leader of the school.”
How ironic that Prendergast, someone who should have lost her job and career, has instead destroyed the careers of innocent people who didn’t deserve to have such a terrible thing happen to them.
It bugs me that there is still no resolution in the way she acted and continues to act as a principal. She openly lies to the DoE about what she does, and why, and somehow gets away with it. What does it take for this principal to get revealed as a horrible school leader and destructive to the education of children in New York City?
It also makes me sad to know that the majority of teachers who work for her, who are continually threatened and controlled by her, are too cowardly to stand together and work with the UFT to point out her incredibly inept ways. The fact that so many teachers in that school are terrified and/or cowardly make it impossible for things to change there, and it’s a sad reality to know that the UFT is nothing without teachers willing to stand up for other teachers.
Am I right in assuming you are talking about Marie Prendergast, principal of the High School for Youth and Community Development ( YCD ), teacherhusband? Well, it bugs me, too. It bugs me A LOT. What is wrong with a system that allows brilliant young teachers to have their teaching licenses taken away for NOTHING — for medically excused absences in a swine flu year, for example? One teacher had the same number of absences (and every one had a doctor’s note) that tenured teachers are guaranteed by the union and this teacher was denied tenure and Prendergast has filed to take away the license as well.
I do not understand how people like Prendergast stand themselves. What lies do they tell themselves? How do they convince themselves that they are anything but cruel and vicious and sick? How can you stand yourself knowing that gallons of tears have been shed because of your irrational cruelty, that you have made a terrible world even worse, that because of you, there is more misery, that because of you, innocent people are filled with pain and sorrow? Ciykd ?
Who does that? Who ruins the career of an enthusiastic, hard-working person? It’s not as if Prendergast is doing what she is supposed to professionally, either. I heard she did not do the required number of observations, not even close. Years ago Special Investigator Richard Condon said that Prendergast “failed in her role as principal.” It sounds as if Prendergast is still failing. I just wonder how she can hold people to a standard she herself does not even come close to meeting.
When a principal like Prendergast can deny tenure and take the teaching license of a committed, hard-working, beloved, brilliant teacher for nothing, well, something is clearly wrong.
But it ain’t over till it’s over — and it ain’t over yet. Yes, it’s taking FOREVER, but the final judgment hasn’t been made. Let’s all pray that justice is done and the teachers get to keep the licenses they worked for and deserve.
Again, I wonder how Prendergast can sleep at night, knowing all the misery and hearbreak she has caused for NOTHING. Prendergast has brought such pain to people, sorrow and anguish. Does it bother her at all? I doubt it, because she hasn’t stopped.
I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that Prendergast lied about the number of observations she did. I heard Prendergast claimed she did two to three times the amount of observations she actually did. Does anyone know if this is true?
Thank you for apprising educators concerning schools not to apply. This is great site! I will forward to all.
Please attend our Founding Converntion on Saturday, August 29, 2009 from Noon until 5 PM at DC 37 Headquarters, 125 Barclay Street and West Side Highway, NYC. Enjoy a light supper and refreshments with elected officals, candidates who are running for pubic offices, educators, parents, administrators, parent coordinators, school aides, social workers, students, educational assistants, cafeteria workers, bus matrons, crossing guards, bus drivers, custodians, school psychologists and administrative assistants.
I can forward the orignial flyer to you.
Jamillah Salahuddin, Educator, Parent and Member of The Coalition for Public Education
(The battle over public education and school governance isn’t over!)
1-718-927-9771 (Home)
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I worked with Marie back before she went to “Harvard”, or for those of us that know bettter, the Harvard free summer program offered to any teacher who could get approved by her Principal to go. Yes, she was a teacher back then, and let me say, I was unimpressed to say the least. Her general demeanor was condescending and bitter. I remember a student asking a question and she mocked him. She said she wouldn’t entertain such a silly question. I was there and the question was not silly, I thought it was interesting and valid. She just cared more about dominating this student then engaging him and encouraging his efforts and genuine curiosity. It was the first time I was really disappointed in a colleague. I remember that same year she was a chaperone at a student event. She showed up in a jacket and a MICRO-mini skirt. It made all of us uncomfortable as it seemed that unless she was standing strait up, and there was no breeze blowing, you would catch a glimpse of her hoo-ha–which NOBODY wanted to see. I was alarmed when I’d heard she was a Principal, and shocked to hear she was still holding the position after she was caught rigging the scores of her Regents tests. Rumor has it she’s got a LESBIAN LOVER way up on the Edu-Chain. I guess we know exactly who to blow to keep your job around here.
PS 30 in the South Bronx. They will do repairs but that’s it. The principal makes things up about teachers, the kids get away with everything and many great teachers leave every year. The ones who stay just “keep quiet” about all of the things that happen. Smart people leave. Do not apply!!!
Foundations Academy in Brooklyn
Can you tell more?
Theatre Arts Production Company School MS/HS 225 in the Bronx.
Principal Lynn Pasarella’s serious violations of UFT contract regulations have left teachers bewildered, frustrated, and exhausted.
Union contract stipulates teachers are NOT to teach in excess of 3 straight 45 minute periods (135 minutes). If teachers are given 4 straight 45 minute periods, then one of them must be administrative in nature.
Total teaching time is not to exceed 250 minutes a day.
Pasarella has ignored this rule, and many teachers at MS/HS 225 are teaching 250 minutes without a break and some teachers are teaching 350 ,inutes a day.
The union delegate has failed to reach a reasonable conclusion to this matter, and teachers/students continue to suffer.
Teachers are exhausted and the students are paying for it.
This school loses about 1/3 of it’s staff on a yearly basis. In 2008, half the staff left.
Thank you for the heads up – I will look further.
350 minutes sounds like 7 periods. Is that the case? Does TAPCO run long periods or blocks?
And the 4-in-a-row is allowed to occur if it is in middle school and consists of 2 double blocks, otherwise the provision you cite should protect us. In TAPCO are the upper and lower grades run like separate schools, or do they blend them? (Do I have this right, you are 6 – 12?)
If you could clarify, either in this space, or by e-mailing me (it’s this blog name and the service is gmail), that might be helpful.
JD,
TAPCo runs a combination of 75 minute and 45 minute classes … which is why teachers are teaching 250 minutes in a row: two 75 and two 45 minute classes. According to the AP, 4 classes in a row is allowed by contract.
Even after the 250 minutes, some teachers are required to teach another 115 minutes … a 30 minute Wellness class and another 75 minute final class.
The schedule is insane. The problem started in 2008 when many teachers were required to teach four straight 45 minute classes, and no one spoke up. This year, the same 4 classes in a row applied, but two of those classes are 75 minute blocks. To make matters worse, on certain days, some teachers have only a lunch period as their prep.
The school is 6-12, and teachers are separated by content between middle and high school. But many high school teachers are also required to teach middle school Skills classes. These classes are usually Zoo’s because the students know these Skills classes are not reflected on their report cards, and the Skills teachers have no say in their final grade.
The AP told our union rep that teachers can speak to him on an individual basis, and he’d do what he could to free up our schedules. Unfortunately, no schedules have been changed, and teachers are afraid to speak with him individually in fear of retribution.
The staff is exhausted, and it’s only November.
JD, sorry for the mix up in the class times. It gets confusing even for me … I should have proof read before I hit submit.
Periods 1 and 2 are 75 minutes
Period 3 is 50 minutes
Period 4 is 40 minutes
Period 5 is 45 minutes
Period 6 is 30 minutes
Period 7 is 75 minutes
Re TAPCo: Your union rep needs to read the contract. Four classes in a row are NOT allowed by contract. You need to go to the UFT. Your union rep is clearly worthless. He either can’t or won’t give the teachers the protection they need. Go to or call your local UFT and file some grievances.
Any thoughts on the new schools in the old MS 113 Building (Richard R. Green)?
You are the second one to mention them to me this Fall. I will ask around.
Thank you. I have heard crazy stories about GLOBE and the School of Diplomacy; they seem to be disasters…
We should have someone look carefully.
But 7B2b allows back to back doubles in Junior High Schools and Intermediate Schools. I don’t think we should have agreed to that, but we did.
To the anonymous above, there are several differences between 7A (high school programming) and 7B (JHS/IS programming). This is one of them.
The increase in 6-12 and K-8 schools has given nasty principals opportunities to try to pick which part of the contract to read from. We need to plug those gaps, either by pushing for new agreements, or plugging the language contractually.