The city Department of Education has stocked the office that oversees the city’s lowest-performing schools with bureaucrats who were ineffective and tainted by scandal in previous school jobs.
Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña launched the Renewal program two years ago to boost 94 struggling schools. Independent Budget Office figures show they plan to spend $887 million through 2019.
But some of the 114 educrats who oversee the 86 schools now in the program were reprimanded by courts, oversight boards and parents, a Post review found.
Parents charge that the program has become a place to reward cronies and dump the unfit.
“The DOE has many former principals still working who should have been fired,” said a member of the Brooklyn Community Education Council. “The bad news is that they are now the ones in positions telling others how to teach, and that’s not right.”
Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center education professor David Bloomfield said the city must make better personnel decisions.
“These schools are behind the eight ball,” Bloomfield said. “The de Blasio administration has to make the case that these are the best people for these jobs — and they haven’t.”
Among the questionable hires was Elif Gure, an executive director and second in command to Renewal Executive Superintendent Aimee Horowitz.
Gure created a “hostile, race-based work environment” as principal of PS 316 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, and called a parent coordinator the N-word, a federal judge ruled in March 2014. A jury awarded the coordinator $110,000.
Gure makes a $171,601 salary in the Renewal program.
Eileen Coppola, executive director of Renewal high schools, left her post as principal at the Secondary School for Journalism in Park Slope, Brooklyn, awash in problems.
The school’s PTA president said students failed Regents exams despite getting A’s and B’s in class. A petition by 24 kids complained they didn’t get most of the earth-science labs required by the state.
Coppola makes $144,824 in her new job.
Joelle Mcken, a Renewal director in District 17 making $141,765, was principal at PS 73 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a school later phased out for abysmal performance. In 2003, the city Conflicts of Interest Board fined her $900 for having an employee chauffeur her kids.
Mary Nelson, who earns $134,994 as Renewal director in District 14, was principal at PS 236 in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, where parents said that she failed to report violent incidents. Then-Councilman Lew Fidler joined a drive to push her out.
Lisa Lauritzen was an assistant principal at Science Skills Center HS in Downtown Brooklyn before being appointed a Renewal “instructional coach.” A DOE investigation found she urged teachers to re-score failing Regents exams.
She now makes $136,010.
DOE spokeswoman Devora Kaye defended the hires.
“Turning around a struggling school does not happen overnight, and it requires dedicated, experienced administrators who know how to work with and support school staff,” she said.