Queens school disgrace : Outrage as Haitian kids have to eat 'like animals'
By Juan Gonzalez, NY Daily News, April 12, 2005

LINK

It's the kind of spat that flares thousands of times a day in schools all over the country.

But at Public School 34 in Queens Village, Assistant Principal Nancy Miller's ghastly way of handling a minor scuffle between two Haitian fourth-graders has sparked fury.

According to parents and students, Miller, who is white, chose to punish all 13 Haitian pupils in the school's only fourth-grade bilingual class - even though just two were involved in the March 16 incident.

She ordered all 13 to sit on the cafeteria floor, then made them use their fingers to eat their lunch of chicken and rice, while all the other students watched.

"In Haiti, they treat you like animals, and I will treat you the same way here," several students recalled Miller saying.

Some of the punished fourth-graders were so humiliated they began to cry. A few begged Miller for spoons to eat.

Her behavior has triggered a probe by the schools' office of special investigations, as parents accused Miller of racial bias and demanded that she and the principal be fired.

One of those punished was Woosvelt Isac. His father, Sony Isac, noticed the boy was upset that night.

"He was almost crying," Isac said yesterday. "I asked him what was wrong. Then he told me, 'They put me sitting on the floor. They put me to eat with my hands.' I couldn't believe it."

At the suggestion of a teacher, several children wrote their accounts of the incident that afternoon in their bilingual class.

This is what one child wrote:

"Mrs. Miller made me and our classmates sit on the floor to eat our lunch. She said that we are animals and we got it from our country. ... I was hurt, and when I got to my class I told my teacher about what happened. I did not like what she said about my country."

Isac and other parents complained to the principal, Pauline Shakespeare. They claim that Shakespeare, who is black, tried to cover for Miller.

They also claim school officials tried to bribe the kids with ice cream to deny the incident happened!

An April 1 note written by one of the children, Ronald Destine, backs that claim:

"Today after questioning my friend and I for the fourth time, the principal [Mrs. Shakespeare] sent the guidance lady [Mrs. Gilbert] to get me in my classroom while I was reviewing math.

"When we got to her room, Mrs. Gilbert asked me what the school could do to have us change my story.

"I answered, nothing because I want the truth to come out! At this time, she offered free ice cream to us so we could say something else.

"I have a big math exam coming this month, and I would like for the principal to stop harassing my classmate and I. Please do something."

No one at the school was talking yesterday.

When I reached Miller by phone yesterday, she would only say, "I can't talk about it, because it is under investigation."

Shakespeare did not return calls for comment. Elizabeth Bandy, the school's parent coordinator, sounded more like another bureaucrat than someone representing parents.

"I heard about it but I'm not at liberty to speak about it because it's under investigation," Bandy said.

A spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein confirmed that the office of special investigations has opened a probe into allegations of corporal punishment by Miller, noting that Education Department officials were taking the charges seriously.

Word of what happened in PS34 has been the big topic on the city's many Haitian radio programs for more than a week.

"The community is definitely outraged about this," said Dahoud Andre, host of one of those programs, "Lakou Nouyòk."

Parents and Haitian community leaders plan to picket the school today.

They want it made clear that educators who abuse and intimidate children, of any race, don't belong in our schools.

Irate Haitian parents plan a protest
BY ELLEN YAN, Newsday, April 11, 2005

LINK

After a lunchroom squabble between two Haitian students, a PS 34 administrator ordered 13 youngsters from the Caribbean island to sit on the school floor and eat their chicken and rice with their hands, parents will allege during a protest at the Queens school Tuesday.

"In Haiti, they treat you like animals and I will treat you the same way here," parents said assistant principal Nancy Miller screamed at the Haitians in front of their schoolmates.

The alleged March 16 incident is fueling parents' demands for Chancellor Joel Klein to fire Miller and principal Pauline Shakespeare, who parents say backed her administrator and who also allegedly told a Haitian parent that her child's behavior was like "animalism." Miller and Shakespeare could not be reached late Monday for comment.

Ernsue Cayo, 11, said she started crying after a classmate pushed her. When Miller found out, she pointed to students in the lunch line, saying "You. Sit right there." Ernsue and her bilingual class of fourth- and fifth-graders were allegedly told to sit on the floor.

"Eat with your hands," Ernsue said Miller told students who wanted to get utensils. Some kids refused to eat. Roosevelt and Stanley Isec, brothers in the same class, asked to sit on the bench, but Miller allegedly told them no. "My friend said "I don't want to sit on the floor,'" Roosevelt, 10, said. "He was crying. She said 'You have to sit on the floor because your class was fighting ... "

With anger growing in the city's Haitian communities, parents alleged that administrators tried bribing students with sweets. "They tried to offer them ice cream, Munchkins, everything to appease them, to say it's not true," said Francia Devil, a Haitian immigrant who has two children in the school and helped organize the protest.

Klein spokesman Keith Kalb declined to say what happened because the department is investigating. "We are taking this very seriously," he said.

In the three weeks since the alleged incident, no one from the department has calmed parents or let them know what will be done, said Henry Frank, executive director of the Haitian Centers Council, a Brooklyn-based advocacy group.

"The chancellor must explain why for so long he has not done anything to correct that wrongdoing," Frank said. "That person should not be at the school. It's not good for the mental health of the children and it is not good for the learning processes of the children."

April 13, 2005
Parents Protest Incident Involving Haitian Pupils
By SUSAN SAULNY, NY TIMES

LINK

A group of Haitian parents and their supporters protested outside a public school in Queens yesterday, asserting that an assistant principal punished more than a dozen Haitian children by calling them animals and making them sit on the floor to eat their lunch without utensils.

The parents say that after a pushing incident in the cafeteria, an assistant principal singled out about 13 children on a Wednesday in March and told them: "I know where you come from. This is the way you eat."

Nancy Miller, the assistant principal at Public School 34 on Springfield Boulevard in Queens Village, denied the allegations through a spokesman for the city's Department of Education, Keith Kalb.

Mr. Kalb said that school officials "take these allegations very seriously" and that Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has opened an investigation. He would offer no further comment.

The parents said they protested because they contacted the school and city education officials almost a month ago and have not had a response. They have asked for Ms. Miller's removal, and for disciplinary action against the principal, Pauline Shakespeare. Mr. Kalb said last night that Ms. Miller had asked for reassignment pending the outcome of the investigation.

The parents and their advocates say the incident began at lunchtime on March 16 when one fourth grader in line for lunch pushed another, who started to cry. When Ms. Miller noticed, they say, she pointed to the Haitian students and ordered them to sit on the floor and eat with their hands as punishment.

The incident was reported yesterday in Newsday and The Daily News.

Mikhael Benyisrael, an artist from Haiti whose daughter attended P.S. 34, said: "This is a disaster. You have to imagine a kid at 10 years old. This is the age a child builds up a personality. This is going to affect them for the rest of their lives. It will lower their self-esteem."

Marcelle Starck, whose son, a fifth grader, was not among the punished students, said: "We need an answer. We are not animals. She called them animals, but she is worse than an animal."

Frustrated with the lack of response from school officials, the parents contacted Dr. Henry Frank, the executive director of the Haitian Centers Council, a consortium of advocacy groups based in Brooklyn. About three weeks ago, Dr. Frank, a leading voice of the Haitian community nationally, wrote letters to Mr. Klein and the regional superintendent on the parents' behalf. He said he never got a response.

It was "not only an insult to those kids, but it is an insult to the Haitian community at large and an insult to Haiti," Dr. Frank said.

Anne Farmer contributed reporting for this article.