A Plea to Officials
Governor George Pataki
Robert M. Bennett, Regent
Adelaide L. Sanford, Regent
Diane O'Neill McGivern, Regent
Saul B. Cohen, Regent
James C. Dawson, Regent
Robert M. Johnson, Regent
Anthony S. Bottar, Regent
Merryl H. Tisch, Regent
Geraldine Chapey, Regent
Arnold B. Gardner, Regent
Harry Phillips 3rd, Regent
Joseph E. Bowman, Jr., Regent
Lorraine A. Cortes-Vazquez, Regent
Judith O. Rubin, Regent
James R. Tallon, Jr., Regent
Milton L. Cofield, Regent
Commissioner Richard Mills
Senator John R. Kuhl
Assemblyman Steve Sanders
Chancellor Joel Klein
To All Ladies and Gentlemen Listed Above:
I am a parent of four daughters who attend New York City public schools. My dad, Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York for 30 years under the Hon. Louis Lefkowitz, taught me that I must always strive to uphold the rules, regulations, and laws of this wonderful country. When I was elected Co-President and then President (2 terms) of the PTA of Booker T. Washington Middle School 54 in New York City's District 3, 1999-2001, I performed my duties in good faith with the belief that honesty, integrity, and a desire to help all children regardless of race, religious beliefs, or capabilities was what was called for by my "constituents", the members of my daughters' school.During the more than 2 years that I was PTA Co-President and then President (elected twice) I supported and set up the student council, re-started the grade-wide dances to build a sense of community, wrote several grants which were funded, wrote articles for the newsletter, began two after-school workshops for all the children (an intermediate band and poetry), and was always there for any parent who might call me at home with any question or complaint. I also completed the 501 (C) 3 process for the PTA, established a liaison with SchoolPop.com, and started a corporate matching grant program. I have never violated a rule, regulation, or law, and have never taken a penny or a piece of chalk, which was not mine.
In February 2000, Barnes & Noble sent the school a check for a PTA fundraiser 30 other parents and I worked on, for $13,783.77. I, as PTA Co-President, co-signed the contract. The Principal, Mr. Larry Lynch,
gave this check to Mrs. Patricia Romandetto to "look at", promising to return it to the PTA in a few days. This check was never returned, but we heard from Mr. Richard Switach in October 2001 that Mrs. Romandetto had deposited it into a BOE bank account.
I and several other parents on the School Leadership Team believed that the $300,000 allocated to
21st Century Grants for Extended Day in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 school years had not been used for this purpose. I discovered that there were between 10-13 Special Education "Full Inclusion" kids who had never received any of their mandated services listed on their IEPs, because they were never listed on the roster of the school. A few of the parents told me stories of their children never receiving report cards, being moved from class to class without notice, and of attempts to speak with the Principal without any success.
One parent took color pictures of Larry Lynch throwing her son out of the building. The Principal would not let me speak at the School Leadership Team meetings and then in July, 2001, handed into the District a Comprehensive Education Plan with data the 18 members of the Team had never seen, and yet our signatures from a Xeroxed signature page of a previous document was stapled to the front.
Throughout this period I spoke with teachers who called me at home, as well as parents and staff members who told me they were concerned about the actions which the Principal was taking, and they all questioned his leadership.
I tried to speak with him, and he told me that I would be arrested if I entered the building. I tried to put our concerns in writing, and I never heard back from him. After reading in the Chancellor's Regulations that I, a parent, had the right to file a Grievance, and that I could receive no retaliation for exercising that right, (Section I 1.E.1.h&I) I wrote a Grievance against Larry Lynch and a teacher, Marie Williams, on June 5, 2001. I asked that my questions be answered. On June 7, 2002 DJ Sheppard, the Office of Parent Partnerships liaison for District 3 attended the final PTA meeting of the year and, assisted by 5 parents out of approximately 2000 in the school, screamed at me that since I had filed a Grievance and was PTA President that I had to resign, because the UFT and the CSA were going to file huge lawsuits against every parent in the building. I would not resign, because I and many others believed I had been the best PTA President Booker T. had ever had, I had never done anything wrong, and I had just been re-elected on May 23, 2001 by the same people!
On June 25 2001 I held a Special PTA meeting at which I planned to discuss the process of Grievances. The 20+ parents invited by Larry Lynch to be there screamed at me. The Board of Education sent in DJ Sheppard and Rosa Fenton to oversee the setting up of a Review Committee to investigate me for "incompetence" after two parents were allowed to read a Grievance which I knew nothing about since it had been written and filed against me with the District 3 School Board that afternoon.
The President of the District 3 School Board, Ms. Roni Wattman, the BOE Office of Parent Partnerships Representatives, and the President's Council, all witnessed the hysteria which erupted when I tried to explain my reasons for writing the complaint against Ms. Williams and Mr. Lynch. Mr. Lynch stood up and told everyone present that I was a liar and a person without integrity. DJ Sheppard picked 9 parents to be on the Review Committee, 8 of whom had screamed at me the loudest, and had demanded I resign for writing the Grievance. I refused.
In fact, since I had nothing to hide, I welcomed the Review process. Everyone in the room was told by Ms. Fenton that no one would be allowed to read the Grievance I wrote, but that all parents would be sent a letter explaining my incompetence and I would never be informed of anything. DJ told everyone that all responses would be kept confidential so that I would never know my accusers or what I was being accused of. The Committee started work immediately on June 27, 2001, and DJ told all members to never tell me anything.
I received a large number of emails sent to and from DJ Sheppard's office in a plain envelope in August. These emails showed that the members of the Review Committee were assisted by Mr. Jamal Young, the Office of Legal Services, the District 3 Office, and the BOE, as they wrote a letter in English and Spanish which would be Xeroxed, mailed, and paid for by the District 3 Office describing me to all 2000 parents at MS 54 as incompetent and unable to fulfill my duties. This is a violation of Education Law Article I Section 2-a, and horrified me in it's lack of concern for the safety of my daughter then going into the 7th grade at MS 54.
The Review Committee was to finish its work on August 27, according to the MS 54 Bylaws, but Mr. Young put the work on hold until the first PTA meeting of the year, October 4, 2001, at which a flyer was passed out announcing the start of the Review Committee on October 16 at Pat Romandetto's office.
The fundraising for the MS 54 PTA was destroyed for the year, the MS 54 Bylaws were violated, and all this occurred 5 days after a Verified Petition filed with the New York State Education Department Office of Legal Counsel was served on Mrs. Romandetto and DJ Sheppard on behalf of myself and my daughter Elise. An instant Special PTA meeting was quickly scheduled by DJ Sheppard to remove me, and after charges were read against me saying that I could not work with the Principal and that I could not fundraise (Mr. Switach at the BOE Office of Special Investigations told Larry to hold the key to all the PTA financial records away from me because I raised too much money), I was voted out of my position as PTA President by a special invited-only group of parents (some did not know even my name).
Larry Lynch stood up once again and said that I was a liar and he would not work with me. No one was allowed to find out what I was lying about. All comments made about me were made by anonymous people and were confidential; therefore I could not know what was being said about me or whether anything was true. I had no input at all into this process, nor did my friends.
I had received no answer to my Grievance from former Chancellor Harold Levy, nor from Mrs. Ninfa Segarra and the Board of Education, all of whom received letters from me within the time listed in the Chancellor's Regulations which I have now memorized. Therefore I followed the A-660 regulations and filed the Verified Petition with Commissioner Mills, not only to find answers to my questions asked in my Grievance, but to put a STAY order on the Review Committee on the grounds that this Committee, the way it was set up and its composition, was a violation of my Civil Rights.
Commissioner Mills has never answered my Petition, for which I spent many hours of writing, except to refuse to put a STAY on the Review Committee without explanation. I sent in the Memorandum of Law on February 5, 2002.
Had Commissioner Mills put a stop to the Review Committee in October, 2001, I would not have had to file a $10 million Supreme Court action against Mr. Lynch, Marie Williams, the parents who wrote the Grievance against me, and the members of the Review Committee. If Commissioner Mills had stopped the Review Committee and if he had helped us parents understand how 10+ kids were not listed on the roster of the school, why there has been no Extended Day Program, and why Larry Lynch is allowed to remain at MS 54 despite handing in what looks like altered purchase orders to the Corporation Counsel and a CEP which we on the SLT had never seen although our signatures are stapled to the front, then perhaps I would not have hired a lawyer to file not only the Supreme Court action but also a Notice of Claim for a Federal Court action against Mr. Chad Vignola, Mrs. Romandetto, Mr. Larry Lynch, and Ms. DJ Sheppard.
Attached you will find an email Mr. Vignola sent out which in my opinion reflects badly upon my character. We have never seen the check from Barnes & Noble, we have never seen the items supposedly ordered by the BOE and/or school in lieu of receiving this check, and Mrs. Allen and her son were never given any of the mandated services on the IEP. Mrs. Allen sent me the attached letter from Larry Lynch telling her to come to a conference about her son on June 6, 2002. Mr. Lynch mailed this letter on June 10, and Mrs. Allen received it on June 11. She has kept the envelope. I and Mrs. Allen met with Ms Ayo Harrington and Mr. Steve Kaufman in Mr. Steve Sanders' office in the Spring of 2002, and I was told that since I had been removed from the PTA Presidency for improprieties I had no right to talk about MS 54. I tried to find out exactly what I had done which could be so horrific, and I tried to say that I was still a parent in the building and therefore had rights because of this, but I was given no chance to discuss anything.
On September 20, 2002 my daughter Elise came home with open cuts on the left side of her stomach, her arm, and her leg. The Ryan Center nurse told me that she had no accident report and that Mr. Lynch would send me a brief description of what happened that day. I have never heard from him. I have attached a letter, which I wrote a Ryan Center Pediatric nurse, Ms. Guerrant.
Recently I have heard from a teacher that there may be 9 mentally impaired children at MS 54 who are being given Metrocards and told to go find a bus home. The 10+ Full Inclusion kids from NOVA have been mostly removed from MS 54. The NOVA Program Administrator resigned in June, and the Program, supposedly the model for the City for inclusion, is being disbanded.
I am looking for accountability. How can a system work when there seems to be none? I have never received any answers to my questions, not even an answer to my Verified Petition, yet I spent more than two years working for the safety, nurturing, and funding of every child attending Booker T. Washington MS 54.
I was labeled incompetent two weeks after being re-elected PTA President and was forced to endure the hurtful comments made to my daughter designed to force me to resign for doing things which I never did. Rather than work towards the betterment of the children, these people disposed of me with the worst possible verbal abuse I have ever seen or heard, and each and every one of the slanderous statements are, I can prove, false. Can any of you help me find some answers, and help me protect my daughter Elise as she tries to finish her 8th grade classes in peace? Now that I have not disappeared in fear crushed by the weight of hate and lies, who will protect my 10-year old, my 15 year-old, and my 18 year-old? What do you really mean when you talk about parent involvement and accountability?
Respectfully,
Betsy Combier
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