Principal left school with 180G debt

Discussing the DOE’s mismanagement at the Jan. 28 pre-hearing protest are (from left) Councilman Lew Fidler, Assemblyman Allen Maisel, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and Brooklyn Borough Representative Howard Schoor.

If you want to see a school that’s a poster child for Department of Education neglect, look no further than PS 114 in Canarsie.

For more than three years, parents and teachers pleaded with the DOE to remove Principal Maria Penaherrera. They protested outside their pre-K–5 school and in front of Tweed in subfreezing weather. Parents even quit the parents’ association en masse in protest. The UFT filed numerous grievances over safety concerns, including a carbon monoxide leak in the building.

Only in February 2009 was Penaherrera finally removed. A report released last summer by the DOE’s own Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation validated every claim that parents and teachers made. The report cited a battery of misconduct by Penaherrera, including false bids, attempting to bribe the custodian with cash, hiring uncertified teachers out of the substitute teacher budget, and racking up nearly $200,000 in debt.

The DOE stuck PS 114 with that debt. It set up a payment plan for the school to pay the money back — $35,000 per year for four years. The cash-strapped school lost all its Academic Intervention Services providers, excessed 17 teachers in two years (including an ESL teacher, staff developers and three coaches), and lost Project Read, Project Math, the chess club and the after-school drama club.

“She put us into a huge hole that we are still paying back now,” said teacher Scott Schwartz. “How fair is it that because we had a principal who mismanaged funds, the students are suffering because we don’t have money?”

The school has run through three principals since Penaherrera’s departure.

The DOE wishes to replace the 100-year-old school with the Explore Excel Charter School and a new PS 521.

Local City Councilman Lew Fidler told a local area paper that the DOE “clearly created the problem at PS 114. The solution is to fix it, not avoid it.”

Penaherrera is now an assistant principal in the Bronx.

The vote on PS 114 was deferred after the DOE said it wanted more time to review public comments.