GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

all turned around

October 18, 2012

HS of Graphic Communication Arts in crisis, staff members say

by Rachel Cromidas, at 1:36 pm

Staff members at the High School of Graphic Communication Arts say Room 310, where musical instruments, books, and other discarded materials are piled high, is a symbol for deep disorganization at the school this year.

Manhattan’s long-struggling High School of Graphic Communication Arts was supposed to turn a corner this year. But instead, students and staff throughout the school say a recent string of poor leadership decisions is threatening the school’s ultimate fate.

The toilet plungers that students were told to wield as hall passes last month — until the Department of Education ended the practice — are a distressing symbol of much larger problems at the school, they say.

A month into the school year, longstanding programs are in disarray, materials and personnel are languishing unused, and many students have had such inconsistent schedules that their teachers say they have learned far less than they should have by now.

“They are all so off-track right now that the first projects we have, I can’t really truly grade them as I normally would,” one teacher said about students. “I’m going to have to try to make up the knowledge somehow, but I don’t know how yet. They should be much further along than they are now.”

GothamSchools spoke with nearly a dozen newly hired and veteran staff members under the condition of anonymity, as well as other people close to the school. The staffers span the school’s grade levels, program offerings, and organizational hierarchy.

All said that the ultimate responsibility for the problems should fall on Principal Brendan Lyons, who took over at the school last year and was the department’s pick to lead it through “turnaround.” The aggressive overhaul process for 24 schools was halted this summer after an arbitrator ruled the city’s plans violated its contract with the teachers union.

Under Lyons’s leadership, the staffers said, school administrators have neglected to claim thousands of dollars in state aid for career and technical education; cut the school’s music program and given away many of its instruments; placed students in classes outside of their majors; converted an empty classroom into a dump for unwanted instructional materials; and rewritten students’ schedules so many times that some teachers have not been able to assign any projects or grade them.

“There are a lot of programming issues with my kids — basic things that should have happened but didn’t happen,” said one staff member whom Lyons asked to teach at the school this year.

“We continue to provide support to Brendan Lyons and High School of Graphic Communication Arts,” said Marge Feinberg, a department spokeswoman. “We are looking into the concerns and taking them seriously.”

Lyons declined to comment for this article.

Lyons became principal in 2011 after four years as an assistant principal at a small school in the Bronx and a stint in the department’s central technology division. Initially, many teachers said they saw in the young administrator a chance to work together to set the long-struggling school on a stronger path.

But once the department empowered Lyons to lead the turnaround effort, which included requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs, his leadership style took a more heavy-handed turn, according multiple people familiar with the school.

“A lot of principals did it in a dignified way,” a source familiar with the school said about the rehiring process. “Others didn’t — some did it in a horrific way.”

Lyons fell into the latter camp, the source said. “There was no compassion. That will never be repaired and it continues to this day.”

The arbitrator’s ruling rolled back changes made at the 24 schools that were supposed to undergo turnaround, so any teacher who wanted to return to Graphics could, even if Lyons had already cut him or her loose. Since then, Lyons’s team has frozen veteran administrators out of staff meetings and reassigned their duties to newer assistant principals, according to a new hire. Some of the veterans are still making six-figure salaries, but they are allowed to do little more than serve as hall monitors and physical education and safety supervisors.

That leaves newer staff members struggling to execute the tasks needed to make the school run effectively, the new hire said. “I’m already working 50 to 60 hours a week, and I don’t feel like I’m able to give the kids what they deserve,” the staffer said.

The biggest problems have centered on students’ programs. Some students were placed into courses they had already taken, while others were assigned to courses they never intended to take. Most students in the law and journalism programs, for example, were re-assigned to photography and visual arts courses this year, several students and staff members said.

Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said in a statement that “the students taking journalism and law will continue to do so,” but multiple students and staff told GothamSchools that there are currently no classes in those programs.

“We are not offering any of our kids law or journalism classes, and the kids … are not happy about it,” a staff member said. “It’s really sad because they came to the school with the expectation they would graduate with a focus on law and journalism, and now they will graduate with only half their programs.”

“They took law away. I came here for law. I wanted to do it,” said junior Justin Carter. “Now I’m doing visual arts, but I’m not a draw-er — that’s not me.”

Graphics’s career and technical education certifications could also be in jeopardy, sources said, because the school is receiving less state funding for CTE supplies than it has in past years after neglecting to apply this summer for a pot of state funds for that purpose. Plus, many certified CTE teachers left the school in June during the turnaround turmoil, because Lyons’s plan for the replacement school included changes to some programs, staffers said.

Still, with the staff turnover and the reduction of several programs came confusion and disorder. As we reported in September, many students arrived at Graphics for the new year with schedules for classes they did not request, in subjects they already passed or never planned to study — including one calculus class with so many students it filled three classrooms.

A plastic stool, an American flag and a pile of cardboard boxes join cascading stacks of textbooks in Room 310, a dumping ground for unused supplies at Graphics.

At several points throughout the first week of school, the auditorium hummed with the voices of close to 100 students with missing schedules, sources said. Many waited there for hours while staff members worked overtime to write new schedules. And on at least two days, sources said, administrators discharged hundreds of students by lunchtime because they didn’t have any afternoon classes scheduled, even though department officials said this would be a safety violation.

“Letting students leave before their day is over is irresponsible and shows a lack of caring or planning,” an administrator said. “Anytime we allow students to step out unescorted, we are encouraging them to cut class. This is unacceptable in a school with severe attendance issues.”

A month later, most students say their scheduling problems have been resolved, but the long-term effects linger in the form of missed assignments, extra homework, and frustrated teachers.

Evelis Cespedes, a junior, said teachers have assigned hours of make-up work and told her to expect a progress report on the first month of classes, but no preliminary grades. Students will receive final course grades in January, she said.

“It benefits us because we can make up the work we missed, but others will want to slack off until December,” she said.

A handful of teachers said the scheduling snafus have made it much harder to teach their students new material. They said this is because students’ schedules have been changing so frequently that they couldn’t count on a student who showed up to class on a Monday to be there again the following week.

“It’s impossible. You can’t give them grades or even get to know their names,” said one teacher. “I can’t blame them for getting bitter and angry.”

Another teacher said she typically assigns students a project in the first month of school that takes multiple days to complete but couldn’t do so this year.

“I have a lot of newcomers, so I based their grades on work from projects they did during previous classes,” she said, adding, “Scheduling has always been something of a problem, but never to this degree.”

In one class on a recent morning, another teacher asked the two dozen students to raise their hands if their schedules had changed two or more times this year. Half raised their hands. Some said they had received their most recent new schedule less than a week ago.

“And have any of you passed the Regents [exam for this class] already?” the teacher asked. One hand stayed in the air.

“Then you don’t belong here,” the teacher said, frowning. “This is supposed to be a make-up class.”

Teachers said students who don’t know where they’re supposed to be during the day are a common sight in the Graphics hallways. But several staff members said the most bracing visual of the school’s disorganization could be found in room 310, just off the auditorium.

That room used to house a robust music program with a piano, a drum set, and a host of other musical instruments, sheet music stands and chairs, they said. But this year it became a densely packed dumping ground for hundreds of textbooks, course materials, and other materials — including an askance stepstool, an American flag, and a television. Administrators instructed teachers to toss materials into the room that were left behind by departing teachers after they received their classroom assignments in August, staff members said.

“I’d like to call it a book room, but it’s not a book room. It’s a disaster,” one staffer said last week.

Some staff members said the school still has much potential to improve. But they are on edge as they await the latest high school progress report card release this month, and with it the city’s latest list of high schools it could close. One staffer said he initially believed Lyons was putting the school on a path to success but has lost confidence in the wake of the recent turmoil.

“I liked him,” when he arrived in 2011, the staffer said. “He was young, good with technology. He really sold me on his plan. And then he bamboozled me.”

Print Print
  • East Sider

    Graphics was identified as a SURR school five or six years ago – a detailed report was written by the State – and never addressed by the DOE – the CTE areas moved from “printing” to “graphic and communication arts” without ever providing the school with the physical equiptment or outside partners – it allowed the school to fester – an experienced principal kept the school afloat – the newbie is totally over his head … he and the school are sinking … there is no excuse for programming errors – symtematic of dysfunction at Tweed, the network and the school – sad for the kids.

  • NYCparent

    Isn’t this one of the high schools into which DOE is planning to insert a “Success” Academy?  To that end, there would be no plans for a “turnaround,” just a “runaround.”  Lyons was obviously brought in as “the closer.”  These kids should mount a class-action suit with the rest of the closing high school kids over the past decade for theft of education.  

  • KitchenSink

    If ever there was a case for the parent trigger, this is it.  It’s hard to judge from anonymous sources, but it sounds like there’s plenty of blame to go around everywhere.  Parent trigger: escape from the DOE and from the staff members with baggage and just go charter.

  • NYCparent

    KS — No need for a parent trigger  – that’s exactly the DOE’s agenda!  Turn everything into a charter.  That’s why they run schools into the ground, so they can close them.  

  • NYCparent

    Plus this, which I posted a few weeks ago re another school in turmoil –

    Just learned recently that NYS has in place a form of “parent trigger” legislation that would let Nest’s parents and teachers take charge.  Usually the Parent Trigger is associated with conversion to charter schools, but apparently not necessarily here in NYS.  This would be a really interesting test case for schools wanting to reassert control over their destinies, instead of being dictated to by Tweed, and without being turned over to  charter operators.  In this case, you would be reasserting yourself as a district (or citywide) school, where the SLT would have much more influence over who becomes the principal there.

  • Noryeln

     This guy was the DOE’s pick last year.  Now this year he is using plungers as passes and isolating staff.  Do you think this appointment was an accident?  Do you think this guy has anger management issues?  Do you think this guy could hide all of this anger for long?  
    Now is the time for Walcott to use his trigger….pull this guy out!

  • Noryeln

     This guy was the DOE’s pick last year.  Now this year he is using plungers as passes and isolating staff.  Do you think this appointment was an accident?  Do you think this guy has anger management issues?  Do you think this guy could hide all of this anger for long?  
    Now is the time for Walcott to use his trigger….pull this guy out!

  • guest

    Typical problems of so many of these small high schools.  Much less variety of courses, devestated programmes in music and art and the like.  More and more inexperienced Principals, guidance counselors, programmers.  Sure the same problems can arise in the larger high schools and often have in the past but there are many more ways to rectify these situations.
     
    Article refers to the Principal having four years of experience as an AP but doesn’t indicate what experience he had in the classroom.  But there are lots of small schools just like this one where kids are being cheated of som many of the things that made going to high school so great for so many of us before Bloomberg got his hands on the schools and began their destruction.

  • Former Teacher

    Thank you for bringing this to light.  The photographs say it all. 

  • Former Turnaround Teacher

    I think the below comment about Success Academy is important. Certainly it is no coincidence that there is a propsed charter co-location. The writing is unfortunately on the wall, the DOE is neglecting this school and they will start to phase it out after this year.

  • Mdshamblin

    I worked with Lyons for one year in the Bronx. He was abusive, unfair, cocky and a real jerk for the lack of a better word. Karma got him good. I feel bad for the students. What a nightmare …created by a horrible man that should not govern anyone. He’s a mean man.

  • Guest

    this is not a small school its huge and the doe and the union screwed up this place — in that order

  • Guest

    i agree go charter now! b

  • Mwmz

    I worked with Mr. Lyons when he was involved with IZone/Ilearn Program. I also found him to be arrogant, cocky and condescending . When I heard he became principal at Graphics at first I said , ” What are they thinking.” My second second thought was Karma… And that is just what it is! My only sympathy is for the school and staff which surely will never turn around with this incompetent person at it’shelm.

  • Save our schools

    The same is happening in W. C. Bryant High School with Namita Dwarka as principal, she is making everything worse and alienating teachers. These principals are rating teachers unsatisfactory and chasing them out.

  • Mdshamblin

    So true. He’s actually a sadistic douche and should not be in any position that requires professional people skills. With him in charge it’s like the Titanic. He sinks….so sad for anyone that has to look at him…interact. or be in his toxic presence.

  • Dr

    Bingo!

  • Dm

    You nailed the DOE’s true agenda. I’m sure they are very pleased with Lyon’s leadership. He is a “Success.”

  • Mikkemadden

    This is what happen when you have a school which either does not have any guidance counselors or has a shortage of guidance counselors.  If you have a staff of guidance counselors  then programming runs flawlessly……Really, a complete guidance staff produces accurate, on time programs which allow the school and students to run smoothly.  BUT, when you have guidance counselors “excessed” and sitting around in other schools doing nothing, well then this is what happens…..Its that simple.  Who are all the brilliant people there trying to program.??  Hire some counselors people get smart..

  • Michael Roman

    You have the inexperienced people with “ideas” and the experienced people trying to clean up their mess in the school.  That’s what you get when you don’t LISTEN.  Ideas with no structure creates chaos.

  • Disgusted Parent

    Students need to stand up and have their voices heard.  During the Senior Class meeting several days ago, Mr. Lyons was nowhere to be found and several members of the student class were not given an adequate answer when they questioned his whereabouts.  This seems to be his modus operandi. No wonder a student physically attacked him last year!  He was probably frustrated by the lack of involvement of this supposed leader! 

    Mr. Lyons is indeed arrogant and self-serving and is no better when dealing with the Parents’ Association or one-on-one with a parent.  His true talent seems to be the art of evasion…certainly not as an educational administrator.  Rather than dismissing some wonderful teachers, perhaps we should dismiss this man!.

  • Disgusted Parent

    Wow….thank you for validating everything I feel about this man! 

  • guest

    They don’t let the counselors to “program” at this school. They are only allowed to offer suggestions for classes to be programmed by someone else. Major flaw in the system. 

  • Parent/Teacher/New Yorker

    I’ve worked with Lyons, he is a total jerk. He is currently blaming his APs and returning staff members (that he couldn’t fire) for the the school’s problems… rather than taking personal responsibility. I agree with everyone below that says it’s “karma.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

    The only thing I’ll say in defense of him is that the parents and students are no angels themselves. Maybe if the parents actually controlled their kids and the kids actually acted like civilized human beings then the school would be a little better off. Do you know how HARD it is to get parents (NOT all, but MOST) to come in for parent/teacher conferences?

    Don’t get me wrong, the logistical crap (like schedules, that book room, and the way he treats staff) is 100% his fault…. but the students have been a problem FOR YEARS and no one ever wants to blame them or their parents.

  • Adrian Willis

    It wasn’t the school but the teacher union that caused all of this. And the effect is what you just read in the article. If the turn around program had worked (mean graphics would have gotten a new name), then most of the teachers from 2010-2011 would have still be teaching to this day. Over the summer their wasn’t any communication with any of the staffs and that lead to the programs being all messed up as it is today. Staff only had 2 days to get the schedule together, and the DOE itself issued new codes and a whole bunch of crap that lead to this disaster. What happen to graphics happen at the wrong time at the wrong place.

  • Disgusted Parent

    And I can say that as a parent of a Honor Student who attends HSGCA, I take exception to this comment.  A large group of students and parents do behave like civilized human beings.  To make such a generalized statement is indicative of the problems that exist in our schools.  Mr. Lyons is consistently a no-show on the major issues involving the school, the students and the parents.  I know – I have tried unsuccessfully to gain information from this arrogant, self-serving excuse for a principal.  Perhaps, if the parents and the students were treated with more respect, some of the issues could be resolved or at least alleviated.  Where was Mr. Lyons during the senior meeting?  Where was he when his students were honored last year at an awards ceremony for their work?  Where was he after the parents’ association meeting where the turn-around program was being outlined?  He ran out of the room so fast that a trail of papers followed him.  Cowardly, ineffectual, arrogant – just a few words that define him.
     

  • Guest

    Principal Brendan Lyons is not psychologically fit to supervise people, period.  He has an extreme micro-management problem and gives excessive orders in an attempt to make all teachers act exactly the same way like robots.  And he is petty and vindictive to those who don’t go along.

    Constantly rude and disrespectful to the hard working teachers, Principal Lyons is overly critical and seems to get a sense of power by finding fault with everything they do.  And to make matters worse, he even pressures his AP’s to do the same.

    Principal Lyons is also big on favoritism.  Those in the know know this has been a major cause of the massive disorganization in the school this year and it flows from his poor leadership.

    Chancelor Walcott, please remove Principal Lyons for the sake of the students and to restore dignity to the NYC school system. 

  • Concerned staff

    He can’t even look u in ur face when he speaks. He is very vindictive and undermines the needs of the students. The students hate him and don’t respect his supposed leadership. He turned away so many qualified teachers including teachers that he hired back in the turn around model. That says plenty. His ninth grade academy is in shambles.

  • Bolddesire1979

    Please oust

  • Bolddesire1979

    He hired more inexperienced jerks to run the school. He put Casey depasquel to do programming. His staff is are all young newbies that have plenty of energy with no direction. One coordinator is working under a budget from a different school. Lyons will do any and everything that is illegal under contract. Who gives him that much power to become a dictator. What’s disappointing is that the department of education is not addressing these issues and setting themselves up for legal woes. But I guess it’s king Bloomberg who feels that he is above the law. Having teachers teach four periods in a row is against the law. Somebody save this school by getting rid of this principal and the mayor. It’s not the teachers when they are given students that are rejected by local schools. He destroyed the the career and technical programs… Why??? The students are frustrated and lost all respect for the admin team.

  • ATR Help Me

    The school staff turns a blind-eye to what the students do at the school. They are allowed to do any mean-spirited horrible activity. Anything goes here. I am an ATR. I was assigned to this school this week. I was assigned to the SAVE room Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The kids are supposed to do work in the class while on an in-school suspension. Instead, they ransack the room by throwing and kicking down the desks and chairs, pull down bulletin boards, hurl markers at the windows, intending for them to crack, bang on the door, making it rattle and shake, they curse you out in your face, I’ve had a girl put her hand through my hair, three of the students barricaded me in the room so that I couldn’t get out, I was surrounded by four which made me fear for my safety, one boy made sexual advances to me while I was barricaded in the classroom, I rushed the door and pushed the barricade away from the door and tried to get out…but the boy who was talking to me about wanting to have sex with me then barricaded the door with his body to prevent me from leaving..I called out for help, he finally let me leave. I told the security to get me some help, and no one arrived. The students were horrible to not only me, but the APs, the deans, the security and anyone that would tried to help me. NO CONSEQUENCES! DON’T GO THERE!!

  • ATR Help Me

    I forgot to mention that other things happened to me as well. I did make a record of it, gave it to the school, sent it to my union, and to date have received an e-mail from my union rep..not even a phone call to show me some sympathy whatsoever. They offered me the opportunity to write up my complaint on the UFT website.

    So, to sum up, the kids in the SAVE room were horrors, the administration turned a blind-eye to what was going on in the room, the UFT did nothing other than to send me an e-mail for me to send them my experiences on their website. 

    So, tell me. Who really gives a bleep???

    I am so burnt out by this experience, I look to retirement. However, I have another 6.5 years left. So, what do I do? There are over 1822 ATRs like me in schools,  along with thousands of teachers that must teach in the very same environment around the NYC area. When will the madness end?

    Last year as an ATR, I was assaulted by students in three different schools. I wrote up all of the incident reports, I filed all of the paperwork. At Murry Bergtraum, I was in a basement classroom with no windows. For the last two periods, the students threw desks and chairs around the room at at me. I was injured on the job. The school did not file the paperwork at all/properly. The Line of Injury days were coded as sick days, so I was docked. Since the incident at the end of 2011, the Superintendent has yet to sign off on my documents, so those days remain deducted from my sick bank. At another school a student put tacks on my chair. I sat on one, it punctured my skin, I refused to scream to allow the student to get pleasure out of this. I had to get a tetanus shot. And, finally, I was injured at Manhattan Night and Day high school. A student purposely kicked a soccer ball into my head and I suffered a concussion. To date, all paperwork is in, all the signatures are on the paperwork and the school has failed to code my days as injured on the job. To date, I have had that time taken out of my sick bank.

    I hope that this post allows people to see what goes on in different high schools around NYC, Manhattan in particular. I hope that ATRs around the City see this as well. And lastly, I hope that administrators of high schools and the UFT see what’s going on in order for some real change to come.

  • Ahtreyes

     The students attacked him because apparently the students during his upbringing received no guidance in how to handle his anger and that falls on the parents.  This is the biggest problem at Graphics students are not held accountable for their actions and there is always some apologist ready to defend indefensible behavior.  And this is since the previous administration under Resnick.

  • nyceducator

     
    Send this post to Amy Arundell at the UFT. She is the Special Representative (point person) responsible for correcting situations like this. 

    Secondly, call 311 and tell the operator that you would like to file a criminal complaint regarding an incident at The High School of Graphic Communication Arts located at 439 West 49th Street.  The operator will then connect you with the precinct. Identify yourself as a NYC DOE teacher and ask to be connected with the precinct commander.

  • Erona White

    I use to go to Graphics. It needs to go back to the school it use to be. Teaching screen printing, photography, plate making, desktop publishing and more. Just changing a school to something that’s not even remotely close to what the name of the school is dumb. Try to get the teachers that care about a child’s education & the importance of what the school stands for. Don’t get teachers that just care about a paycheck.

  • Gos

    It just sounds like W.C. Bryant High School, under Ms. Dwarka’s leadership we have lost so much structure. She is making everybody’ life hell. Can somebody just make things the way it was before all this nonsense took over?

  • Noemail

    You don’t seem like an atr at this school and if you are you don’t watch the students from graphics because if theyre suspended they wont keep them In that School I know when suspended kids go to graphics 90 percent of the time there from different school’s why didn’t you call school safety you don’t seem like a person who can handle the job I’ve been going to graphics for a while when they allowed some electronics and I’m st in the School by the way

  • TDM

    He took away one of our best AP’S we had and new the teachers and students better than any one and she’s gone she was also in charge of the security there that was one of the worst mistakes he made and now students arrive to school late because of the guards having meetings making kids wait outside in the freezing cold because they have meetings to make the kids late and miss classes we even had fire drills to waste time and get sick in the rain then get scan to go back in side and be late to our next class and this what makes kids not want to go to this school because the way things were run it wasn’t that bad when we had our previous principle resnick he was pretty cool and didn’t bribe teachers with crap Ipads

  • Junior

    I wonder if after the horrible masacre in Conn, the DOE will continue with its colocation plans in Graphic Campus and other public schools in NYC.
    May God take us after we’ve confessed!!!

  • Bluelishes

    Charter schools are small and would never survive a massive school like this and other NYC high schools. If parents know anything about charter schools, they would all know that they don’t accept kids past a certain elementary grade because they would lack the ability/time/care to reform the child. This is not just a high school isssue because this problem begins in the homes and in the elementary schools in poor districts. There’s no sense of authority. A great majority of the parents lack education and they are also immature. The ones that are good parents are struggling to provide for their households (with all the increases going on in NYC and not in income) that they are struggling to be available parents.

  • Bluelishes

    These school need strict authority, but also a team that truly care. Parents need to be more attentive. If parents are not willing to step up then these kids will only fail. Teachers are abused and this should not go unnoticed. Metal detectors should remain until the students can show great change. I feel bad for the students that are well behaved. They should not suffer. More of these kids need reality checks and parents need to be reported for neglect. I’m a full time parent, Im in school full time and I work full time. I rely in others to help, but I have a presence in my sons life and open communication with his teachers. Parents should have been present during this schools restruct

  • Guest

    I am not defending this behavior.  Your response is similar to the administrators at HSGCA who are single-minded simpletons.  Look at the big picture.  I am simply understanding the frustration of the students who are being sacrificed at the hands of the bureaucracy.  Honor students who are striving to achieve and are being treated like criminals instead. Perhaps you need some lessons in psychology in order to understand why situations like this occur.  You cannot command respect if you do not give some.  

  • Frances Bolton

    Hilarious. I worked with Lyons at a city agency about 12 years ago. He had been a teacher, but quit because he couldn’t handle it. Then, he returned to the DOE (without giving notice, if I remember correctly). He was an asshole then, too.

  • resident

    As a resident on the street in which the school is located, I would kick each and every one of those students out. They are all a bunch of useless thugs who scream, walk in groups, and think they own the area sidewalks. THIS SCHOOL PRODUCES FUTURE CRIMINALS AND SOCIETAL REJECTS!

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

0 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Copyright Notice