W’chester schools big draws fire
The principal of a high-profile Manhattan public school is stepping down after becoming a lighting rod for criticism earlier this year when a teacher showed children an anti-abortion video in class.
Iris Chiu, the principal of Public School 184, also known as the Shuang Wen School, is expected to retire next month, according to two parents who said she announced on a parent-teacher forum that her last day would be in August. The Daily News saw screenshots of the announcement.
“I’m happy that the principal is gone,” said Ishmael Alvarado, whose 11-year-old daughter was one of the students at the lower Manhattan school who viewed the video in class.
Alvarado, 52, said District 1 Schools Superintendent Carry Chan, who oversees PS 184, told him that the teacher responsible for screening the video, Ju Ling Wei, had been “reprimanded.”
The city Education Department did not respond to questions about Wei, but confirmed that Chiu is retiring.
“We thank Principal Chiu for her service,” Education Department spokeswoman Danielle Filson said. “We will name an interim acting principal before the start of the school year, and continue to engage the school community as we search for a new permanent leader.”
The saga over the anti-abortion video began in March when Wei, a dance teacher at the school, showed students a video depicting adolescents pretending to be a fetus in the womb experiencing an abortion.
An outraged Alvarado and other parents demanded an explanation, arguing that the content was far from appropriate for 10- and 11-year-old children.
The distressing video — posted on YouTube and entitled “2018 National Fine Arts Merit Winner - Readers Theater - Life Flight” — Residents of New Rochelle want newly appointed schools superintendent Laura Feijoo to be removed from the job before it even starts, citing her reverse-discrimination lawsuit against New York City as a negative for a largely black and Hispanic school system.
New Rochelle’s school board in June named Feijoo (inset) to head the school system, which has almost 11,000 students, citing her 30 years with the New York City Education Department.
But a New Rochelle coalition of black and Hispanic residents has called on the Board of Education to withdraw the offer because of Feijoo’s lawsuit.
The group, which includes the head of the local NAACP chapter, called her appointment a “failure” for a school system that’s 70% black and Hispanic, and locked in its own battles over racial equity.
Feijoo and two other white women sued the city’s Education Department in May, claiming they were demoted or passed over in favor of lessqualified candidates of color.
“Her hiring is a destabilizing agent in our attempt to stabilize our system,” coalition member David Peters told the Daily News.
He said the lawsuit and Feijoo’s claims of reverse discrimination disqualify her from leading a system that has struggled to recruit and retain administrators of color and in which there are heated debates over race and school discipline.
Feijoo could not be reached for comment through her lawyer, but she said at a New Rochelle board meeting on June 28 that the lawsuit was “an opportunity to stand up for myself and my colleagues.”
Ken Valenti, a spokesman for New Rochelle’s school board, told the Daily News in a statement that New Rochelle had offered an open meeting with the search consultant for the superintendent’s job, and that the board remains supportive.