As the chapter leader at Townsend Harris HS in Queens, Franco Scardino was the linchpin in mobilizing staff, parents and alumni to prod the Department of Education to remove a principal who violated the contract and harassed teachers.

Scardino said he was “open-minded” when Rosemarie Jahoda arrived as interim principal in September 2016, trailing 22 harassment charges made against her as an assistant principal at Bronx HS of Science. But, by the middle of October, complaints of teacher intimidation and unilateral program changes were mounting.

By early November, all parts of the school community — Townsend parents, students, staff and alumni — were up-in-arms, concerned because her interim appointment was soon to become permanent.

After Jahoda’s continued refusal to follow the UFT–DOE contract and meet with the chapter’s consultation committee without others present, Scardino reported, “We walked out at the next meeting and filed a grievance.”

Scardino continued mobilizing forces. Forty teachers turned up to air their grievances at the invitation of the school’s PTA, and all but four of the Townsend staff signed the PTA letter to the mayor asking for Jahoda’s removal.

Scardino filed a second grievance in January when she refused to meet with the school-based Professional Development Committee.

Through the winter, Scardino made sure to maintain and build pressure. Staff, students, parents and alumni all met with elected officials to ask for their support and followed Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña around to every monthly Panel for Educational Policy meeting, where they used the open-mike period to voice their concerns. Students staged a sit-in and wrote critical editorials in the school newspaper.

In April, to wild acclaim, Jahoda was removed. For Scardino, “The victory proves the system works.” After completing his student teaching at Townsend, Scardino began teaching social studies there as a full-fledged teacher in 2000 and has been chapter leader for three years. Calling the last year “unprecedented,” he said, “Our success confirms the importance of maintaining strong community and political relationships.”

“We have come out of this stronger as a chapter and a school,” he said.

Townsend English teacher Brian Sweeney, the adviser for the school newspaper, described the months of protest as “the total expression of the kinds of citizenship that our faculty members regularly and passionately teach our students and live by themselves. This is the best of democracy.”