4-12-05
Queens school disgrace
Outrage as Haitian kids have to eat 'like animals'
by Juan Gonzalez
Email: jgonzalez@ edit.nydailynews.com
NY Daily News
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.
Originally published on April 12, 2005
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The Haitian Community Says:
No to Racism!
No To Discrimination!
No to the Denigration of our Children in their Own Schools!
On March 16th 2005, following an altercation between some students in
the
lunchroom of PS 34 in Queens Village, Mrs. Nancy Miller, the Assistant
Principal
of the school, singled out the 13 Haitian students of the school's
only 4th
grade Bilingual class and forced them to sit on the floor to eat their
lunch
of
chicken and rice with their bare hands. When the students protested,
she
screamed at them in front of the all the other students in the
lunchroom: "In
Haiti
they treat you like animals and I will treat you the same way here."
Instead of acknowledging this cruel and inhumane treatment of our
children
and the entire Haitian community, the Principal of the school, Mrs.
Pauline
Shakespeare, who according to a Haitian parent described her child's
behavior
as
"animalism," has chosen to stand with her Assistant Principal. She has
been
repeatedly pulling some of the 13 Haitian children out of their class
to try
to
convince them that the March 16th incident never happened. According
to one of
the students, Mrs. Shakespeare has even gone as far as offering the
children
free ice cream if they were to "say something else."
We vow to our 13 children, who were so savagely humiliated by this
racist
white woman who we are paying to educate them, and to all our children
everywhere
that we will not allow this crime to go unpunished.
We demand no less than the firing of both, Mrs. Nancy Miller and Mrs.
Pauline
Shakespeare. We don't want them transferred to another school where
they will
simply continue to abuse other parents' children.
Join us on Tuesday, April 12th, 2005 from 2pm to 4pm
at a picket line in front of PS 34
104-12 Springfield Blvd. in Queens Village, NY
Support us by calling to express your outrage and echo our demand:
Local Instructional Superintendent Janet Won at 718-281-3407
Regional Superintendent Judith Chin at 718-281-3407
Chancellor Joel Klein at 212-374-0200
Call EVERYONE to spread the word and fax this sheet to all Press
contacts
For more Information: Call 718-464-6068
or call Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees at 718 735-4660