Teach HIM a lesson
Don’t let man who shoved kid back in classroom: ma
THE NEWS boggled Chantel Phinazee’s mind: A Harlem teacher jailed for shoving her 7-year-old special needs son could actually return to a city classroom.
“I’m really, really upset,” said Phinazee, whose boy Ka’veon Wilson was manhandled by 55-year-old Public School 194 math instructor Osman Couey.
“He shouldn’t be able to work around children again,” she told the Daily News. “He did this to other children and should not get a chance to do this again . . . This is an outrage.”
Couey was convicted Thursday in a nonjury Manhattan Supreme Court trial for attempted endangering the welfare of a child and harassment in the Dec. 23, 2015, classroom shove.
Judge Steven Statsinger sentenced the teacher to 30 days on Rikers Island.
Prosecutors charged Couey dropped into a fighting stance when Ka’veon tried to get back inside his classroom.
But the veteran instructor can still collect his $105,142 salary and could return to work because of union protections. School officials said they are trying to fire Couey.
Couey, 54, was investigated for four prior incidents — including a 2013 case where he was accused of grabbing a student by the ear and throwing him down a flight of stairs, said Phinazee’s attorney Sanford Rubenstein.
Phinzaee said she wasn’t aware of her son’s incident until a month later because the union wanted to handle the incident first.
“I’m beyond disgusted with the Department of Education, the principal of the school and the superintendent . . . they said they were going to take care of this,” Phinzaee said.
Phinzaee, 24, filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against the city and the Education Department for her son’s pain and suffering.
“This teacher should have been immediately terminated,” Rubenstein told The News. “The policies and practices of the Department of Education . . . that the teacher remains on salary and theoretically can go back into the classroom after his jail sentence is completed is totally unacceptable.”
Phinzaee relocated her traumatized son and the rest of her family from New York City to Schenectady after the incident.
The youngster “doesn’t trust people, especially males,” said Phinazee, her voice cracking with emotion. “We moved because Ka’veon did not want to go back to that school or even walk on the same block as the school. He has to see a psychologist every day.”
The boy, who has early stages of autism and ADHD, was not required to testify at the trial.
Ka’veon’s written account to detectives was used instead because the boy was too terrified to see Couey in the courtroom, Phinzaee said.