JUST A RED SCARE

Principal cleared in ‘Communist organizing’ rap

SHE’S NYET guilty.

A Brooklyn principal accused of Communist organizing has been cleared of the charge, city education officials said Wednesday.

Outspoken Park Slope Collegiate Principal Jill Bloomberg was accused in February of hosting oncampus Communist meetings. The veteran educator has maintained she’s the victim of a Red Scare smear job by the city.

Bloomberg has been an outspoken advocate for school desegregation for years and has criticized Education Department policies publicly. In January, she sent a “damning complaint” to department officials, accusing them of “race discrimination and segregation.”

The department’s Office of Special Investigations absolved Bloomberg of the political charges but found she violated a number of minor, and unrelated, rules.

“Based on the findings of a thorough investigation conducted by (the Office of Special Investigations), several of the allegation against Ms. Bloomberg were substantiated,” said Michael Aciman, an Education Department spokesman. “Appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”

Aciman said investigators found Bloomberg failed to get permission from families when she allowed a documentary to film at her school, in an incident unrelated to the debunked Communist meeting accusations.

Investigators also found Bloomberg hired a substitute teacher without the required authorization and offered a history class to fulfill a required government credit without obtaining approval, Aciman said.

Bloomberg said the investigation against her stemmed from allegations made by a staffer with an ax to grind. “The (Education Department) has admitted that they initiated an investigation against me based on allegations from a completely unreliable source,” she said.

“Nonetheless, while finding the allegations of Communist organizing to be patently false, they are still threatening disciplinary action based on minor bureaucratic complaints from the same discredited source. Any disciplinary action is simple retaliation for our defense of our students, their civil rights and our advocacy for integration.”

Bloomberg’s attorney Jeanne Mirer said the city’s claims that Bloomberg is guilty of wrongdoing are false and amount to harassment. “They felt like they had to find something because they had fought so hard to do this investigation,” Mirer said. “Her reputation as a professional has been hurt by what is clearly a retaliatory action.”

Bloomberg has been backed by some parents and staffers at her school and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which sent an Aug. 3 letter to Education Department lawyers urging them to end their investigation.