NYC Parents Occupy School Run by “Worst Principal in the City”

By Steven Abreu

Last night, parents of students of Central Park East I Elementary School in NYC occupied the school’s auditorium after a School Leadership Team Meeting took place, demanding the Department of Education address serious issues within the school. Out of the 8 parents who Occupied the building, 7 parents stayed overnight through the morning, at which point they were joined by dozens of other protestors. According to one parent, Matt from East Harlem, this protest was a “response to the DOE’s lack of support in any substantial way to the principal that was installed there last year.” The school’s principal, Monika Garg, was hired in the summer of 2015 and has earned herself a reputation for not only straying away from the school’s progressive values and mission, but also for coming down on faculty who resist her new agenda. As many as ten teachers have been put under investigation by this new Principal. According to Matt, who called in to NPR’s #AskTheMayor segment this morning, on The Brian Lehrer Show, to inform NYC Mayor Bill deBlasio, “…Since Principal Garg has been installed in the school, every single long-term tenured teacher has been multiply investigated, we have details on the investigations. Two have gone to trial, the rest have been exonerated.”

Friday Morning Protest. Courtesy of NBC 4 NY

Looking back, these protests can be seen as a last resort taken by the parents in an effort to garner the attention of the Mayor and the DOE. Throughout the course of Principal Garg’s time at Central Park East I, parents and faculty have been ringing the alarms about her methods and the serious issues that have risen as a result. For instance, within the first year of Garg’s employment, the school saw a huge drop in both enrollment and employment with 1,085 students dropping out and approximately 50% of the faculty resigning. If those numbers weren’t alarming enough, it is important to note that after Garg’s first year, the DOE school survey came back with a 45% approval rating, a stark contrast to the average ratings of 95% throughout NYC. As one parent so bluntly put it, “We as a school hold the distinction of being the single worst school in NYC, according to the survey.” To top it off, test scores have taken a hit since her employment, as indicated in the graph below by the dark red and blue lines.

For a school with a 40 year old history of bringing progressive education to socio-economically disadvantaged families, this is an outrage. From petitioning, to reaching out and gaining the support of community leaders like State Senator Bill Perkins and long-time activist and educator Bill Ayers, these Parents have proved they will stop at nothing to ensure a bright future for the students attending Central Park East I Elementary.

Upon being informed about the parents Occupying Central Park East 1 on NPR, Mayor Bill De Blasio had this to say in response: “…I am familiar with the fact that there’s been a lot of concern in the school, there’s been strong feelings in the school community about the direction of the school overall. I’ve spoken to the Chancellor about it, and I will obviously be speaking to her again about it today. It is a school with a very powerful history. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I think the simple answer is we obviously have some things to resolve…We know sometimes there are really strong feelings that parents have, and we’ve always got to balance those factors. But obviously this is an unusually strong response from parents, I want to understand it better and will be following up on it today…. I want to understand better why parents feel so strongly and what direction we have to go in.”

Central Park East I Elementary declined to comment.

For more information on the movement to save and restore CPE1 and how you can help, please visit http://www.savecpe1.org/