Staff has ‘no confidence’ in ‘harassing’ Brooklyn principal

Michael RogulChapter Leader Denise Williams and UFT District 17 Representative Rick King have many issues with“scapegoating” Principal Carlen Padmore-Gateau (inset) of PS 22, Brooklyn. In the 2008-2009 school year, the staff of PS 22 in Prospect Heights voted no confidence by 49 to 3 in their principal, Carlen Padmore-Gateau.

The list of charges was long: failure to report safety incidences, violations of the student discipline code, neglect of English language learners, failure to honor modifications to students’ IEPs, failure to notify parents of assessments and failure to respond promptly to classroom emergencies.

Two years later, staffers say Padmore-Gateau remains a toxic presence at their school. 

She gets a low score from staff as an instructional leader.

One teacher complained that “she tells you to do one thing, and when that doesn’t work, she denies she ever told you to do it.”

During her seven-year reign at the 520-student school, Padmore-Gateau has forced out 45 teachers, said Rick King, the UFT District 17 representative. Last year, she terminated three of her four assistant principals.

Michael RogulPrincipal Carlen Padmore-Gateau

One of the terminated teachers, who was fired for exceeding the number of excused absences by one day, was undergoing cancer treatment, King said. The teacher, with the UFT’s support, appealed the termination and was reinstated after seven months and made whole, he said. 

One teacher faulted Padmore-Gateau for making a joke of formal and informal observations. “It doesn’t matter what you do; you’re still going to get a U-rating,” the teacher said.

Others blasted the principal’s simplistic method of evaluating teacher performance.

“It’s the cookie-cutter approach that counts with her,” said one teacher. “It doesn’t matter to her that what you do in class works; you’re penalized for not following the script.”  

Another said Padmore-Gateau judges teachers on the amount of paperwork they produce — “she confuses quantity with quality” — and whether or not they stick to a rote syllabus schedule.

The staffers say their principal is also blasé about school safety, at least in response to complaints from teachers with whom she’s crossed swords.  The school is now on the Department of Education’s list of most unsafe schools. Rather than addressing the safety issues, the staff say Padmore-Gateau points the finger at individual teachers who report incidents.

Staffers say they are appalled at the principal’s practice of bad-mouthing staff publicly, which has happened both at safety committee and school leadership team meetings with parents present as well as in front of students.

Her staffers say that Padmore-Gateau is vengeful toward union activists and vindictive toward anyone who criticizes her, no matter how mildly or constructively.

When she assumed the role of chapter leader in 2009, Denise Williams said she found herself immediately in the principal’s gun sights. 

“Now I’m harassed in every possible way,” Williams said.

Williams says that Padmore-Gateau also flagrantly flouts the collective-bargaining agreement.

Michael RogulStaff says Padmore-Gateau is blasé about school safety and is responsible for getting PS 22 on the unsafe schools list.

An email from the principal to King shows her insisting that she can meet with teachers on disciplinary matters without an official union representative present. She claims incorrectly that anyone can represent a UFT member.  

A teacher said Padmore-Gateau demanded that the school’s paraprofessionals attend teacher meetings, but then refused to pay them, prompting a union grievance. 

Williams filed a grievance on behalf of the chapter last November because the principal had failed to distribute student Individualized Education Programs to cluster teachers and others.

The staff says that Padmore-Gateau scapegoats them rather than take responsibility when things go wrong. 

“If things work here, it’s because of us, while Padmore takes the credit,” one teacher summed up. “When things don’t work, we’re her scapegoats.”   

The school has scored an F on school environment on its last two School Progress Reports. 

On the most recent DOE Learning Environment Survey, more than three out of four PS 22 teachers surveyed said they felt strongly that school leaders kept them in the dark about expectations and in setting goals and framing decisions, even as more than nine out of 10 parents surveyed were either satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the teaching staff. The teachers also graded the school in the lowest quintile in academic achievement, communications and support, and only marginally better on safety and respect. 

After the poor results were released, Padmore-Gateau called the teachers “liars” at the school’s first faculty conference in September, several teachers said. 

The staff’s repudiation of the principal is longstanding. They first voted no confidence in her in the 2006-2007 school year. 

Parents appear to have a similar lack of confidence in the school leadership. The population of PS 22, which was 1,000 students when Padmore-Gateau took the reins, has sunk to 520.

Many fed-up teachers are also voting with their feet.

So far this year, Williams said, three teachers have announced that they are leaving, blaming the principal for their decision.