Our school under attack
Dear parents of Muscota,
As many of you already know, things have not been right with Muscota lately. Perhaps you have signed petitions, gone to meetings with Martha Madera, rallied to save our Special Ed teachers’ job, read letters or emails to DoE mucketty-mucks or sent them yourselves. Or perhaps you haven’t heard. That’s okay. Parents with the most knowledge of our administration’s failings and mistreatment have been extremely hesitant to make such miserable information public. Sadly, we feel we can hesitate no longer. These pages are to provide the whole story. Get comfortable. It’s a long one.
You all know the Principal, Tomasz Grabski, is leaving our school, ostensibly to pursue “another career opportunity.” In fact, he was asked to resign by the Department of Education because several parents managed to prove that he is incapable of overseeing the safety of children, a liability, and unfit to be a Principal (see our letter to Eric Nadelstern of May 5th and a detailed list of examples). We thought we proved he could be maliciously deceitful as well, but that one didn’t stick, it seems.
Since he was asked to resign, Tomasz has given out four Unsatisfactory ratings to our teachers, and he is finding ways to make sure all four are not at Muscota next year. One has left for a job at another school (presumably a safer environment). Tomasz fired another (two days after he did a raise-the-roof dance in the office to celebrate her students’ test scores). Any Principal who fires a teacher would be fully aware it effectively ends that teacher’s career in the New York City school system.
- In response we wrote a letter to the DoE. This time they deferred to Martha Madera, District 6 Superintendent and Tomasz’ direct supervisor. Parent leaders had appealed to Ms. Madera regarding numerous issues already in the year and not once did she waver in her support of Tomasz. (See elaboration below).
- But we tried again and appealed to Ms. Madera with 155 of your signatures and a letter begging her to overturn the firing. She sent us a boilerplate letter.
- We staged a rally in front of the school. Here’s the press release.
- The Manhattan Times covered it.
- We barraged Joel Klein, Chancellor, and Veronica Conforme, Deputy Chief Schools Officer, with emails, amazing, heart-felt emails from all kinds of parents. We forwarded these emails to the press and sent a paper version of them, en masse, to Joel Klein’s office.
Veronica Conforme’s replies state that the DoE has “reviewed the documentation,” which means they reread Tomasz’ evaluations, and that “the documentation supports the Superintendent’s decision to deny completion of probation.” That means they believe him and they’re letting him fire her. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that he might not be truthful.
We spoke to the press and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal covered it.
Now, Tomasz has launched legal measures to inflict damage on the other two teachers who received U’s.
As for Ms. Madera, Tomasz’ supervisor, parents met with her seven times over the course of the year. The earliest ones were with only a few parent leaders, and they were aimed at explaining our worries as parents for the safety of our children and the difficulties many of us were having establishing a working relationship with Tomasz. Others were to request her help with specific issues that Tomasz seemed incapable of addressing effectively. Ten parents, some very active, some not, met with Ms. Madera on January 19th. Each one of us told our personal story, our experience, and our conclusions that Tomasz seemed to be failing at his job and posed a liability to the DoE. She took studious notes but never got back to us.
In the aftermath of a child bringing marijuana to school, parents reached out to Ms. Madera again in a letter dated February 1. Ms. Madera prompted Tomasz to call a meeting with the same ten parents to address our concerns. Unfortunately, he checked himself into the hospital and could not make the meeting. Instead Ms. Madera met with more than 35 parents, despite that the meeting had been opened to all parents only the day before. Many of you spoke out at that meeting, telling example after example of ineffective management, bad judgment, and unprofessional behavior toward the teachers. We openly requested that Tomasz be removed. Unfortunately, Ms. Madera insisted she had no authority to do that. In fact, toward the end of the meeting, Ms. Madera actually turned her back on us and raised her hands in exasperation. Most of us were angry when we arrived, but we were more angry when we left.
So we wrote a letter to Eric Nadelstern, Chief Schools Officer. (There were two documents, a cover letter and a detailed list of examples which we gave to the DoE on May 6th.) We had been compiling emails and other documentation for since October. Four days after we delivered the letter to the DoE, they spoke with Shannon, and it was clear they had gone out on a limb for us. They said we would “be happy with the results.” This is DoE-speak. We’ve discovered they never say anything outright. Less than two weeks later, we were informed that Tomasz would resign, and the next day, he did. Our faith in the DoE and “process” was renewed.
Unfortunately, we’re not feeling the faith any more. I am putting all of this online so that you may read it and know the whole story. If you know of someone who you think ought to read it, please let us know.
Tomasz’s vendetta has already done significant damage, and Muscota will look different in September. That’s not even considering budget cuts. I can’t say I understand why Tomasz has chosen to cause so much damage, nor why the DoE allows it, perhaps condones it. But one thing has been continuously clear throughout this whole year: the teachers and parents of Muscota work wonders when we work together.
So here’s to a new beginning!
Kari Steeves
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