FINAL BELL
SCHOOLS BOSS TO QUIT, ENDING TURBULENT 4 YRS.
CITY SCHOOLS Chancellor Carmen Fariña will announce her retirement as soon as Thursday, according to Education Department sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Department sources said Fariña, 74, will leave at the end of the school year, or sooner.
The search for Fariña’s successor, sources said, has been going for weeks, but city Education Department officials and Mayor de Blasio can’t agree on a replacement.
Candidates include educators from other cities as well as highranking officials in the city Education Department, with an internal search team collecting names.
And some internal groups in the city Education Department are already being dismantled, school officials said.
Representatives for de Blasio and the city Education Department declined to comment on Fariña’s departure.
Fariña didn’t respond to an email.
She ducked out after a Wednesday panel at the High School of Fashion Industries.
Others at the Manhattan forum had thoughts.
“We’re hoping for someone that can come with energy and vision to fix the schools instead of constantly causing upheaval by closing them,” teacher Aixa Rodriguez said.
One of 18 schools slated to shut its doors is in the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx, where a 15-year-old student was killed and another injured in a stabbing at the hands of a classmate in September.
Education Department officials received emails Wednesday evening saying Fariña would step down early next year.
“Fariña told UFT President Michael Mulgrew, and he briefed the district reps about it, and they leaked it to the teachers,” according to a teacher who asked to remain anonymous.
Reps for the United Federation of Teachers and the city principals union didn’t respond to calls.
Fariña retired in 2006 after a 40-year career in the city schools. She returned in 2014 when de Blasio convinced her to come back.The former city teacher, principal and superintendent stumbled after a few weeks, with an unpopular decision to keep classes open during the season’s worst snowstorm. She also tangled with powerful figures in the charter school sector and drew criticism from education reformers.
She oversaw de Blasio’s controversial, $600 million Renewal Schools program, which produced mixed results in turnaround efforts at troubled schools.
But Fariña helped establish de Blasio’s universal prekindergarten program, which is regarded as the mayor’s key education achievement. She worked new contracts for city teachers and principals and new supports in the nation’s largest school system.
“Fariña’s greatest legacy is restoring teachers’ morale,” said Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center Education Prof. David Bloomfield.
Bloomfield said the small gains in graduation rates and test scores under Fariña started in the Bloomberg years and couldn’t be directly attributed to Fariña.