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A Chinatown school that has been mired in allegations has been cleared of at least one of them, but it’s still under scrutiny.

A report released today by the Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon says investigators did not find proof of large-scale theft, which some at the school had alleged. But investigators did unearth some unorthodox financial practices that Condon has reported to the Department of Education, with the advice that the city offer accounting training to parents and administrators at the school.

The DOE’s Office of Special Investigations is still looking into different allegations against Shuang Wen, according to the report.

UPDATE: DOE officials said the SCI report identified five different ways in which school administrators violated department rules and regulations about fund-raising and financial management.

“We are deeply troubled by Commissioner Condon’s findings, which show that standard operating procedures, Chancellor’s regulations, and City Conflicts of Interest Law were repeatedly violated — specifically with regard to financial management of the school,” said DOE spokesman Matthew Mittenthal in a statement. (more…)

The city’s teacher pension system is being taxed by more than just unrealistic expectations. It has also handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars to a retiree who died in 2000.

That’s the conclusion of a report issued today by the Special Commissioner of Investigation, which is charged with looking into allegations of fraud and malfeasance in the school system.

Last year, the state’s Teachers Retirement System tipped off city investigators that checks issued to Maria Sicardo, a Bronx teacher who retired in 1993, were being cashed by someone else. Investigators discovered that not only had Victor Rosa begun cashing Sicardo’s checks after her death in April 2000 but that he had repeatedly submitted paperwork to the state and teachers union certifying that she was still alive. Employees at a check-cashing company in the Bronx told investigators that after they challenged Rosa, he took the checks elsewhere.

In total, Rosa pocketed about $241,000 over a decade from the state and from the UFT’s Welfare Fund, the union’s health fund for current and retired teachers. SCI is recommending that the pension system move to recoup the funds and has referred the case to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The full report is below. (more…)

Nicole Suriel and her classmates did not have permission slips for the field trip that ended in the 12-year-old student’s death, according to a report released today by the school system’s investigator.

UPDATE: Responding to the report’s findings, the city is firing Erin Bailey, the first-year teacher who led the field trip. It will also seek to put the school’s principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, on a two-year probation. The school’s assistant principal, Andrew Stillman, is being demoted to a tenured teacher position.

Suriel’s drowning is also prompting the city to review and possibly change its regulations on field trips, said Department of Education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Investigators compiled a detailed narrative of the June 22 field trip to an unpatrolled Long Island beach taken by Suriel’s sixth grade class at the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering. They interviewed the school’s principal, as well as the assistant principal, local government and law enforcement officials, eight students on the trip and a college intern who chaperoned. The full report is below. (more…)

City investigators are accusing a Manhattan charter school that focuses on serving special education students of violently disciplining students and covering up the abuses.

Staff at Opportunity Charter School allegedly punched one student, threw another to the ground and pulled a third out of a classroom by her hair during the 2007-08 school year, according to a report released today by the city’s Special Commissioner for Investigation. The report documents a total of six cases of verbal and physical abuse.

According to the report, the school’s staff members who were accused of violently disciplining students were never punished themselves. The accused staff include the school’s administrative director, a dean of students, and specialists trained to work with special needs students. In some cases, the school also failed to document cases of physical and verbal abuse in its own incident reports.

“The staff conduct at OCS during the 2007-2008 school year went beyond restraint and could be considered condoned assaults and abuse of schoolchildren,” the report concludes. (more…)