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Brooklyn principal continues abusive ways

by Dorothy Callaci

Oct 9, 2008 12:20 PM

Recrimination, retaliation and multiple breaches of contract continue unabated again this year at IS 393 despite repeated attempts by the UFT to bring order and stability to the Bedford Stuyvesant school.

The school year ended with Principal Marian Bowden shipping Chapter Leader Kimani Brown to a Temporary Assignment Center — commonly known as the “rubber room” — on trumped-up charges after he notified the State Education Department and city Department of Education that mandated services to special education students were not being provided.

The new school year has begun with Bowden, up to her old tricks, attempting to disparage and undermine acting Chapter Leader Ronald Robertson who, despite warnings to “watch your back,” continues to file grievances to protect staff from improper practices and to uphold the contract. Many of those grievances are repeats of grievances won last year and the year before.

And again, just as she did at the parent-teacher rallies in support of Brown, UFT President Randi Weingarten has entered the fray. At a meeting at the school on Sept. 22, Weingarten reassured staff, “The moment someone who champions your interests gets in trouble, I will step in.

“Your principal is not going to get away with this,” an angry Weingarten continued. “I will do everything in my power to make sure Kimani gets a fair shake and that you have the right to speak your minds and have the right to say what you feel is right — a basic right that gets enshrined when you have a contract.”

The new year began in chaos. Despite winning a grievance last year instructing Bowden to have teacher programs ready on time she was late again, forcing paraprofessionals to cover classes on their own and leaving students wandering the halls.

And once again grievances have been filed because there is no SAVE Room, no update of the school safety plan and no schedule for regular safety committee meetings. Teachers have requested that the UFT again send school Safety Director Sterling Roberson to do a walk-through to evaluate the situation.

Problems persist over the failure to provide Individualized Education Programs, post professional duties and professional activities, provide mentors for new teachers who are operating on their own and assign parking spaces. Robertson initiated a dispute claim with the UFT and the city when Brown decided, on her own, to apportion 10 spaces by lottery.

Despite repeatedly telling teachers that Robertson has no authority to represent them and ignoring his requests to set up a schedule of monthly UFT consultation meetings — a grievance was filed last year on the issue — Bowden did a 180-degree turnaround, sending an e-mail late in the afternoon of Weingarten’s visit calling for a meeting less than 24 hours later. Robertson, a math teacher who has served as UFT delegate during his five years at the school, protested that meetings were to be scheduled collaboratively and that the short notice prevented him from consulting with teachers to set an agenda to address their concerns.

Without his knowing, Bowden held the meeting anyway. Several of the teachers she corraled for the meeting said the principal told them that Robertson knew of the meeting but she didn’t know why he wasn’t there. The teachers described feeling “completely duped” when they learned the true circumstances.

As Robertson noted, “Bowden got what she wanted; she covered her agenda.”

Because of past abuses, a history of retaliations and because more than half the staff is untenured, teachers are reluctant to have their names used when assessing Bowden, a principal Weingarten has characterized as “a world-class bully.”
One teacher, reflecting what most of the staff feel, commented that the school was run in a “dictatorial fashion rather than with a sense of collaboration or community.”

Others spoke volubly of “extremely adversarial situations,” “unprofessional behavior” and “abrasive and out-­­ rageous behavior.” Teachers complained of both micromanagement as well as of never being observed, that any idea that doesn’t come from Bowden won’t be initiated, and of either serious or petty retaliation.

The problems have brought a number of senior UFT officials to the troubled school over the past two years. District 16 Representative Ronald Mailman said that in his 35 years as a district representative he has never faced such an intractable situation and never before seen a chapter leader removed.

“Marian Bowden refuses to understand that you cannot do things in a dictatorial fashion. You cannot continually violate the contract,” Mailman said. “She wants to rule the school rather than listen to the ideas and voices of others.”

The union’s efforts to mediate the Kimani Brown ouster in May were rejected and the DOE refused to intervene. As a result, Brown remains in the rubber room as his lawsuit against Bowden and the DOE for personal defamation and violation of the whistle-blower protection provision of state education law moves forward.