School ‘neglect’

Disabled mistreated, cheaters helped: suit

Staffers at a Brooklyn high school helped kids cheat on exams and neglected disabled students, according to a federal lawsuit filed by a whistleblowing teacher.

Mark Paperno, 59, a science teacher at the HS for Youth and Community Development in Flatbush, said he now faces termination for speaking out, the suit states.

Paperno said he was compelled to intervene during a 2017 Regents exam after seeing paraprofessionals helping kids with their tests to boost performance.

“Plaintiff exposed cheating and/or fraudulent conduct during the Regents exam, when he stopped paraprofessionals from providing excessive assistance to students with disabilities sitting for that exam,” according to the Brooklyn federal-court case, which did not detail the exact nature of the alleged cheating.

Paperno said he routinely complained to Principal Marie Prendergast about general mistreatment of disabled kids.

One student who needed crutches to walk struggled to safely move between classes in 2018 because the paraprofessional assigned to help the child had failed to show up, Paperno said.

The suit charges that the same staffer was regularly “demeaning” to the child and would often show up late to classes.

The Department of Education eventually substantiated Paperno’s complaints and the school was forced to address the issues, court papers state.

But Paperno said his advocacy later led to a campaign of retaliation — and that he now faces termination.

Despite receiving positive reviews for many years prior to his complaints, Paperno said school administrators hit him with bad ratings, purposefully saddled him with untenable schedules and gave him inadequate resources to teach, papers state.

At the end of the 2018-2019 school year, Prendergast recommended to the DOE that Paperno be brought up on charges that would result in his firing, the suit states.

The DOE referred comment to the city’s Law Department, which said though a spokesperson: “These are troubling but not substantiated claims. We’ll review the case.”

Prendergast could not immediately be reached for comment.

Paperno is “an experienced high-school science teacher who experienced retaliation,” said his attorney, Laura Wong-Pan, who called the disciplinary charges against him “baseless.”

“He spoke up about his concerns about the way the school treated students with disabilities.”

He’s an experienced . . . science teacher who experienced retaliation. — Plaintiff’s lawyer, Laura Wong-Pan