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This is crazy!!!!!!!!

The crazies are in charge of the madhouse and on top of it, these so called Education Reformers are advocating this sort of non sense as a “model” of improvement. These Edeots will see more of this sort of nonsense happening over and over again.

High turnover rate for teachers in charters, high turnover rate for students in need at closing high schools.  This is all good, isn’t it, Post, Daily News, and Times?

Keep It Moving, NYC!

God is with my school. The truth will prevail. Let’s pray together for the children.

I’ve noticed that most of the negative comments are coming from the teachers that were fired!!! if you were doing your job ,you would still be at ENYP!!

These less fortunate children of our community are let down yet again. What else needs to be done to prove that the problem is the “Superintendent”? How can you continuously do this to our children? My child comes home everyday talking about her values and goals for school and one of them is to have “Integrity”. This is a complete contradiction of what you are telling my child is the right thing to do. It’s sad that these children look up to you and you’re everything you tell them not to be. I am highly disappointed and will say what I have to say next week at the meeting! You say pray for your school… No, how about let’s pray for all these children that are going to be school-less next year! Especially the seniors! Unbelieveable! I hope this teaches you a lesson in some way or another…

Theres people coming to these meetings and writing things in these comments that don’t even have kids at ENYP. Wake up people. A lot of these people have their own little agenda. My children been at ENYP for 3 years, and all I know is that they love their school and they have confidence and belief in themselves. What I see when I go to the school are teachers and leadership who care about my kid. None of us knows what happened yet, but we know there are always those who are out there to try to manipulate us for their own purposes and take what we have. Sometimes my instincts are wrong but usuauly there right. Ms Joseph and the teachers at the school may not be perfect they are not bad people and none of this sounds right. It’s not a ppularity contest and just because you don’t like Ms. Joseph dont meand she isn’t running a wonderful school. Some of the teachers who got fired might feel different but i would not like the person who fired me either. And the teachers union that wants no teacher to ever get fired no matter how bad they are is playing a part in this too. Yall trust me on that! If the DOE care so much about this neighborhood and our children, why are all the schools THEY run over here always so bad? If they love us so much, how come they woudn’t let the ENYP kids use the bathrooms or the cafeteria or the other facilities? How come they bounce us from one location to another without out any input from us? Now the city is trying to not spend any money on black children so all of a sudden they are shutting down all these “underperforming schools” and we’re supposed to go ahead and shut down one of our best performing schools? The timing is to perfect to be coincidence. They are trying to save money because the city is BROKE, and Bloomberg and Klein and this “Duffy” are trying to use us to do their dirty work. If we let them they going to just sit back and laugh while we let some fired teachers and some people with personal dislike of Ms. Joseph destroy one of the best schools in Brooklyn and they move that money to spend on another Yankee parade. Please people, WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!! We always are the ones to do it to ourselves but please not this time. We have to speak up and do whatever we can to save our school because once it’s gone then what?

I really do not appreciate when people use God as a back up especially when you’re stealing from hard working investors and government money. Yes, the academics at that school is good but Sheila’s motive is disgusting.

Upset- I agree with you 100%! Seems like she “preaches” integrity to the kids but is the biggest hypocrite. The parents that feel the school itself is great, you are right. But wouldn’t you want someone who has the experience and actually cares about your kids to run the school??? Or someone who practices what they preach? If your child had some special need or some sort of learning disorder, they would not be at ENYP. And Sheila makes sure to let you parents constantly know that, “If you do not like what’s happening at this school, then ENYP is not the place for you.”

She never even taught yet she thinks she knows how to run a school. DOE is finally putting their foot down! I’m just concerned why it took so long to do so? The students will find a better school, you can only go up from here anyway!

I taught there the first year and I’m happy to see this happening. I was not fired I left. I’m with the parent that said its past the children. Nobody elses names is on that charter revocation notice except Sheila’s. That’s it. Enough said. The DOE could care less about her. Why take her down for no reason? What you do in the dark always comes to light! To use God as an ally is nasty. God don’t like ugly Sheila. Shame on you for doing this.I teach fourth grade school in Queens and my principal says bottom line her credibility is shot! She is done.

Harlem, if these allegations are true (and I’m not saying they aren’t, I don’t know), what makes you say that Obama, Duncan, Bloomberg, Klein, Sharpton and Gingrich are covering this up?

Klein’s man’s signature is on that letter that was blasted all over cyberspace. It’s possible there was a coverup for the last 3 or 4 years or whatever it is, but the DOE is the entity that came forward here.

So there was all this complaining but all of a sudden they start to listen now? Please! Why all of a sudden now? They want to shut that school no matter what and the easiest way to do it is to try to unite everyone against Ms. Joseph because people don’t like her. I read every single word of that report and it did not say one word about anyone stealing. If someone was stealing they would have said that. Now they got everybody else believing it and repeating it without ever having to say it themselves. That’s called manipulation. NotSurpised asks “wouldn’t you want someone who has the experience and actually cares about your kids to run the school???” Well then how come keeping the school open with new leadership is not even being discussed? Because the fix is in!! And we’re just supposed to shut up and let it happen or even worse, do their dirty work for them by turning on ourselves. Everyone is crying like it’s so bad to have rules and to enforce them. But what’s wrong with someone saying “If you do not like what’s happening at this school, then ENYP is not the place for you.” If you work at Burger King and insist on cooking Big Macs your boss is going to tell you the same thing eventually. If the school has a way of doing things and it gets results and someone wants to come in and do it there own way, even if there way if fine, they need to get on board or go. Bottom line is people who care about the children at that school need to find out the facts and demand that whoever need to go goes and that the problems get FIXED WITHOUT DESTROYING or closing the school. Anyone who says otherwise has their own agenda and does not give a damn about these kids.

This school had a lot of potential. Sometimes it takes a prinicpal willing to put everything on the line to ensure the children do not suffer. For those students in the school, I truly feel they were cared for. The teachers may have been forced to live up to unrealistic standards and verbally abused (my family member taught there) but I imagine it is disheartening for a principal to see her dreams for improving the future deterred.
In the end, I look at this neighborhood and ask who has really stepped up? Do we expect the DOE to solve anything, they are at the mercy of the City, where Metrocards may be discontinued and budget cuts remove teachers instead of administrative staff. Perhaps the ‘great’ principals at other charter schools could work harder to ensure checks and balances are in place because in this situation, everyone IS judged by one person’s misdeeds. Look at how many people oppose charter school funding… Shiela may have compromised her integrity fighting for the dream but why should the students suffer? the school should stay open.

As an aside — folks, Gotham Schools won’t charge you extra if you hit the enter/return key every once in a while!

My hunch is that there are plenty of folks in the pro-charter movement who are thrilled by spectacular failures such as this one. Rogue actors such as Ms. Joseph make the notion of brand-name/chain/corporate charters look safe by comparison.

OK everybody it’s over. ENYP will be closed! Nobody wants its but u cannot steal and get away with it! sorry. even if she doesnt face charges she has lost all credibility! i hope she sits under the jail. what the hell made her think she desrved 60k more?? Please! Why the hell is her baby daddy on payroll?? It does not make sense.

ENYP is a great school! My children love it there…the teachers are great and Ms. Joseph geniunely loves and care for the children! My children have dreams for themselves that I didnt have. I truly appreciate a school like this in our neighborhood! This school cant close!

Everyone needs to calm down, take a breath, and get a few facts straight! I know some people like to form opinions and not be bothered with facts, but for those of us who are more concerned with getting to the truth than with seizing an opportunity to settle a personal vendetta, a few facts can go a long way. Otherwise it’s easy for people with their own agendas to come in and get everybody up in arms through insulations and innuendo without any context. A few facts go a long way, so let’s take a minute and check a few of them:
– They say Ms. Joseph’s salary was raised from $120k to $180k. According to SeeThroughNY (http://curious2.typepad.com/curious2/education/) the average salary of the top earner at a charter school or CMO is $169,772. The median is $145,000. If you factor in other costs, like pensions and expense accounts, the average is $186,828 and the median is $158,928. For reference, the average superintendent salary (including regional and community superintendents) is $177,785. Moreover, the compensation range is fairly huge. The highest salary for a charter school leader or executive is $494,269 ($515,258 with pension and expense accounts). The lowest salary is $86,057 (there were no listed pension or expense accounts for this person) according to data provided by SeeThroughNY.
- The DOE has insinuated without stating that the people running ENYP are thieves, but according to their own reports, “ENYP is in a strong fiscal position.”
- It’s been reported that one of the ENYP’s “violations” is for reducing the school by 12 days, from 190 to 178. However, anyone can look at ENYP’s calendar and see that this is not the case. The reduced figure of 178 was arrived at by completely discounting the periodic half-days worked into the schedule.
- One of the school’s so-called “violations” is for adding a Saturday Academy without DOE permission. Strange that one the one hand there’s a violation for decreasing the school year and the other there is a violation for INCREASING it.
- The sensationalized articles written about ENYP in the last week intentionally leave the impression that theirs are the “worst” examples of violations. But according to a study published in April by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, governance challenges are very common for charter schools in their first few years as their Boards transition from founding Boards to governance Boards.
- The Notice alludes to the co-employment relationship that ENYP entered into with ADP Total Source (http://www.adptotalsource.com/). The clear insinuation is that ADP is a “front” that Ms. Joseph used to funnel off funds from the school. The fact is that ADP is a well known and well respected $9 billion dollar company that trades publically on the NY Stock Exchange with 57,000 clients worldwide. It is basically a human resources outsourcing company that allows start up and small business to offer their employees the benefits of a large company through their combined purchasing power. Hundreds of charter schools nationwide use their services.
Knowledge is power people. Do your own research and do not allow yourselves to be used and manipulated by people whose only agenda is to rob the black and brown children of Brownsville and East New York of one of the few schools in the community that actually gets results!

I also think Fact checker is correct. There may a be a few things exaggerated, but that’s what happens when it hits the fan and goes public.evrything may not be true but there is definetely some truth to it!

I am so glad Outraged mentioned that the TA’s are teaching… smh

To Tim: Whatever “scale-up” of charters occurs in the future, it is critical that the approval process remain rigorous to minimize the possibilty of rogue situations.

Do not stand by and let the DOE come in our community and cause us to lose an excellent school. We must unite and not let a successful black institution fall, like they come in our communities and shoot our young people and get away with murder. Do not let this be another shooting of our children. We must unite and run Michael Duffy and his team, who has been harassing other parents with numerous phone calls, out of town. Now is the time to unite, don’t wait. Do not wait until they close our school and then we start a petition and rallies. Stand and fight you mighty people of East New York. This is not the time to sit back and say nothing. They could and never would go into the white and Jewish neighborhoods and do these things. Don’t’ let them come in East New York do it either – equal rights for all. Fellow parents let us take the fight to the DOE, get on the phone with Chancellor Kline, Mayor Bloomberg, your political representatives. Let them know that enough is enough. We will not accept them writing off East New York any more. Let’s start calling them now. East New York Prep. the top charter school to be closed, we will not accept this, it provides opportunities for children in our community and it must stay.

In response to Yed’s comment, “Where was the DOE when East New York Prep staff were being robbed and badly beaten up and assaulted” : 

where was ENYP when we were assaulted and harrassed? nowhere…even after reported incidents, they refused to offer us any sort of protection whether it was through car service or driving us to the train station themselves. for all of the money that joseph was pocketing, would it be so much trouble to ensure that your staff is safe? 

sheila joseph never cared about the teachers. she cannot even understand because she is safeguarded from the community in her fancy car. 

This is such a disgrace! I can not believe some of you parents that make parents like myself look foolish,uneducated, naive, and desperate! How can you sit there and support someone who truly doesn’t care about you nor your children?? Yes, I do understand that you may not want to go through the struggle to find a new school for your child or whatnot but you must remember that this is your child’s education–your child’s future that you are putting at risk by supporting this person who as the former administrator states “your children are treated as numbers and financial features…” Parents you need to seriously wake up. All of a sudden Sheila Joseph wants to call meetings and invite us??? And like the naive parents in which she knows we are we come and fall into her traps… Yes, I will have to go through the struggle to find a new school for my son, however, I know that this is for a good cause and I will do all that I have to do to ensure that my son gets the education he deserves and more. And the frequent change of extra-curricular activities?? My son doesn’t even take school serious anymore because its January and he’s had 3 different teachers! He tells me that they change from yoga to dance and back to yoga?? (in the beginning of the year they had yoga then changed their extra-curricular to dance and now they are doing yoga?) So for you Joseph supporters don’t be naive and desperate. Look for a new school for your children because at the end of the day it’s effecting your child’s future–not hers.

Yesterday someone compared East New York Prep Charter School to a concentration camp. If having strict discipline, teaching young black boys and girls respect for themselves, others and for society, to dress properly, and to follow rules let it be a concentration camp. Is it not better to teach our future young black men and ladies to respect each other’s, than to have them later becoming wards of the state, being arrested and thrown in jail, being herded like cattle’s in prison cells, having no future, but being used as economic welfare for white prison guards in upstate counties and across the country to send their kids to the best schools. More power to the gatekeepers of the concentration camp, if this will keep our young black men from being shot 42 times, beaten, arrested, getting a criminal record, jailed, and unemployed. I say let’s have more concentration camps in 2010. Bring them on. We should be asking for more such camps.
When the cops are harassing and throwing our young black men in jail, is it ok? When the cops are harassing our young men in our communities is it ok? When our young black men are unemployed because they don’t have a job is it ok? When our young black men cannot read and write is it ok? I say more camps please.

East New York Prep, more concentration camp please. Our young and beautiful boys and girls need them. Don’t stop more camps please.
DOE HANDS OFF OUR CONCENTRATION CAMP, does the police harasses your children in your community , no?. PLEASE LEAVE OUR CAMP ALONE

Leave ENYP alone to educate the children in East New York. Disguntled staff and parents who are no longer at ENPY get a life and move on. Lets educated our children so they don’t grow up bitter and jealous, hateful like many of you . Everyone of you are black. Every one of the DOE people are white. They throw in one or two token blacks to say it’s not about race, look at the positions they hold. Look at Michael Duffy’s face, look at Sheila Joseph’s face. Look at the accomplishments compare their bios. People of East New York wake up. This is a race thing. Don’t be fooled by the stupid allegations, Michael Duffy and his team gave to media. Look at every black leaders what they try to do to.
We should not have black people educating our own black children. What, white people know more about our kids than we?
Ask yourself this ,how many of the charter schools are run by blacks. Ask Michael Duffy.
Ask Michael Duffy – you will see that this is another race card. You are black and we are not going to stand by and see your school have better results than the white schools.
WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOU DOWN NOW. WE HAVE THE POWER . WE ARE NOT READY FOR ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL BLACK LEADER—NO MORE OBAMA’s. STOP HER NOW. DISTROY HER IN THE MEDIA

Hi Michael M.,

I intend to clean it, not cover for it. What is now happening at ENYP is not surprising to me. There are worse violations of charters at other schools. I want to see the DoE who authorized those charter schools place those school leaders under probation or send them a letter that if they continue to violate the charter law and their charter that they too will be shut down.

No system is perfect – neither the District/DoE or charter. I know many great charter school leaders and board members but I also know those that don’t care about their “scholars” and view them as dollar widgets. I also know great principals in the District/DoE system and terrible principals as well.

However, unlike the District/DoE system, charter parents don’t know their rights under the charter system much less how charters are governed.

How many parents know what a charter is? How many parents know what is in their school’s charter? How many parents know that you cannot file a grievance if it is not a violation of the school’s charter? How many parents have a copy of their school’s charter or by-laws?

Charter’s have no Parents Bill of Rights or Students Bill of Rights.

I doubt the parents at ENYP and other schools understand their school leaders though founders are employees of their charter school the same as teachers and staff. It is the board that governs the school. Unfortunately, in many charters, the board is a founders board and in many cases have not undergone board governance training and are friends, relatives or business acquaintances of the founders. Pretty much puppets.

Perhaps Lisa Donlan could do a charter board puppet show like what she did at last week’s PEP meeting

So, if parents or teachers have an issue, it’s a waste of time to go to the board because they’re not really governing they’re just puppets. The board members themselves have no clue what’s
in the schools charter and by-laws. Then remember, if it’s not a violation of the charter, you CANNOT file a grievance AND when you do file a grievance, the board has 30 days to respond, if you’re not satisfied with the response, you file a grievance with the chancellor or SUNY depending on who your authorizer is, wait 30 days for their response, then if you’re still not satisfied with their response THEN ONLY can you file your grievance with the Regents.

Are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous!

In the case of ENYP, it was only when the State did their review in November did the DoE finally act. The DoE should have taken the parents and teachers concerns seriously from the beginning even though it was not a violation of the charter that not one of those parents and teachers had ever seen.

Parents have to FOIL their schools to get copies of their charter and by-laws. Why can’t the schools post their charters and by-laws online where parents may download it? Charter schools are public non-profit corporations. All information is public information – financials, by-laws, charter, salaries, everything.

I know ENYP parents want their school to remain open. I’ve received phone calls and emails from parents asking me why can’t their school remain open and just replace the principal and the board. In District/DoE, they’d just replace the principal, why not the same with ENYP?

Charter parents do not understand charter law and how charters are governed? Had the complaints of parents and teachers at this school been taken seriously by the DoE although not all being a violation of the charter (e.g. expelling low performing students etc.), the school could have been saved. We’re now beginning February, the co-location agreement expires on June 30 and they’re not on the PEP agenda to extend their co-location. There is no proposal before the February PEP for a change in space utilization – HINT, HINT, WINK, WINK – ENYP won’t have a home on July 1 anyway.

Best regards,
Mona