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The principal of a high school under scrutiny for cheating has resigned — but not because investigators concluded he did anything wrong.

Henry Rubio, principal of Manhattan’s A. Philip Randolph High School informed staff members this afternoon that he was stepping down. He is taking a job with the principals union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, where he is already a vice president.

An investigation into Rubio concluded on Thursday and found no evidence of wrongdoing on his part, according to Chiara Coletti, a CSA spokeswoman. She said the union had waited until Rubio was cleared of suspicions before giving him the job, as a member of the union’s “supervisory support panel” that helps the Department of Education mentor principals. A prerequisite for that job, Coletti said, is that candidates must be “standing principals,” and the investigation had put Rubio’s status temporarily in jeopardy.

We reported in August that the city’s Office of Special Investigations had opened an inquiry into the school after receiving reports that students had been given passing grades that they had not earned. Teachers and administrators told us that students had been allowed to complete credit recovery work under illicit circumstances and, in some cases, cheated on the work itself.

A Philip Randolph High School is under investigation for credit accumulation fraud. (Credit: NYC DOE school web site)

A high school that posted suspicious swings in graduation rates in recent years is under investigation for giving students credits they didn’t earn.

Teachers and other staff members at A. Philip Randolph High School said they blew the whistle after seeing administrators abuse a practice that allows students to quickly make up credits in classes that they previously failed.

Department of Education officials said the Office of Special Investigations began probing A. Philip Randolph last month after Chancellor Dennis Walcott received several emails earlier this summer alleging illicit use of the practice, known as “credit recovery,” to artificially improve the school’s graduation numbers. After years of mediocre performance, the school’s graduation rate increased nearly 30 points two years ago and was one of the city’s highest.

This year, with less than a week before graduation day, school administrators ordered guidance counselors to enroll all failing seniors into online credit recovery courses so that they could graduate on time, one of the counselors said. She said the courses were crammed into one or two days and often went unsupervised.

When she and the school’s programming coordinators protested to administrators, they were rebuffed, the guidance counselor said.

“I said to them, ‘That is not right,’” she said. “You’re asking us to do something unethical.” (more…)