FIGHT CLUB KOD
5 staffers, 4 kids moved Schools boss’ safety vow
FOUR TEACHERS and an aide who were AWOL when a group of teenagers tried to turn a tutoring session into a fight club for first-graders have been removed from the Queens school.
So have the four eighth-grade girls accused of pitting the kids against each other and beating them when they refused to come to blows, sources said.
“Nothing is more important than our students’ safety and we have taken swift action and removed the adults who were responsible for these children,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said Thursday. “We pledge to these families and children that we will hold accountable anyone who put children in harm’s way.”
The Public School 111 staffers have been replaced by substitutes and Fariña said she has also sent in “added school safety staff” to the troubled Long Island City school. The five staffers have been assigned to do administrative tasks — away from children — while the Department of Education investigates the March 10 incident, officials said.
Teachers Sherryann Jackson, Elizabeth Untiedt, Karyn Canterbury and Cheryl Wilson — and aide Maryusi Pacheco — will keep their paychecks while they’re being investigated. Their salaries range from $26,872 for Pacheco to $88,330 for Wilson.
Principal Dionne Jaggon, who earns $129,670 a year, remains in charge of the poor-performing and violence-wracked school. Jaggon, who has been accused by several parents of ignoring the chaos in the classrooms, has not said anything publicly about the scandal.
Meanwhile, the mother of one of the eighth-grade girls accused in the fight club scandal insisted they were just “playing” and that the department was scapegoating them.
“Because the adults in the school are getting punished, you know, having to pay for this, they’re angry at the children,” said the mother, whose 15-year-old daughter has been shuttled off to another neighborhood school.
“The adults were making it like they were hurting the children, but in reality they were playing,” the mom said. “My daughter told me the teacher that was supposed to be watching them went to the bathroom, but they said they have a half-an-hour video. So what was she doing for a whole half an hour?”
The leader of the malicious mentors is believed to be a 14-year-old who lives in a housing project near PS 111, sources said.
The mother of a 7-year-old girl who was beaten up for refusing to fight a classmate served notice Wednesday that she intends to sue the city for $5.5 million.
Latoya Gore’s claim was buttressed by shocking videotape of her daughter, Taniya Jules, being dragged down a school hallway by one of the eighth-graders and slammed into the walls.
Two 6-year-old girls, Heaven Morris and Khamani Moore, and a 6-year-old boy were also brutalized by the older girls. Notices of claim against the city were filed last week on behalf of Heaven and Khamani, each seeking $2 million.