It’s ‘racist’ to the top in DeB’s Dept. of Ed.
The de Blasio administration promoted a disgraced principal to a top Department of Education post despite multiple charges that she’s racist, The Post has learned.
Elif Gure Perez, whowas named in June as an executive director in the DOE’s Office of School Improvement, created a “hostile, racebased work environment,” a Manhattan federal court found months before her appointment.
Gure Perez, the former principal of PS 316 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, called one staffer the Nword to her face; referred to an African-American teacher as “Shining,” an insulting term for a shoe shiner; and spoke of buying a bright orange blouse to wear to school “since I know black people like loud colors,” witnesses testified. She denied the accusations. In her new post, Gure Perez is assigned to support 14 high schools in the mayor’s $150 million School Renewal Program for struggling schools, according to DOE spokesman Will Mantell. Her salary is $144,195.
Asked why Chancellor Carmen Fariña promoted Gure Perez in light of the complaints, the DOE had no comment.
Former PS 316 parent coordinator Carolyn Lovejoy testified she broke down in tears when Gure Perez yelled at her, “Get out ofmy office, you nr, get out!”
In March, a Manhattan jury found Gure Perez liable for civil damages, awarding Lovejoy
Get out of my office, you nr, get out! — Department of Education Director Elif Gure Perez (above) to PS 316 parent coordinator Carolyn Lovejoy, according to Manhattan federal court testimony. Lovejoy was awarded civil damages of $110,000, for which the city is on the hook.
$110,000, which the city is paying.
An assistant principal who testified in Lovejoy’s case, Martin Williams, said Gure Perez repeatedly used the phrase “black ass” in discussing teachers, and told him to “crack the whip.”
“I felt belittled, and as a black person and an astute student of history, it smacks of racism to me,” Williams said.
Williams said he complained to then Chancellor Joel Klein after Gure Perez made reference to a story called “Old Black Joe,” which teachers considered a negative stereotype, at a faculty meeting. Within 24 hours, Gure Perez sent Williams to the infamous rubber room, he said, where he sat for four months on “trumpedup charges.”
In a related suit, Elizabeth Butler, a veteran teacher trainer at PS 316, accused Gure Perez of repeatedly saying she sat on her “old ass.”
“Total disrespect and constant embarrassment” drove Butler to retire, she says.
In another pending suit, thenassistant principal Christina Villavicencio claims Gure Perez punished her for defying orders to give bogus “Unsatisfactory” ratings to older African-American teachers, and to use “fear and intimidation” tactics to drive them out.
Villavicencio, who is seeking $1 million in damages, said Gure Perez slapped her with seven disciplinary letters in one day, gave her the first Urating of her career and fired her.
“From the moment Villavicencio refused to file false reports on these African-American teachers, Gure Perez started a campaign to terminate Villavicencio’s employment as assistant principal,” Manhattan federal Judge Jack Weinstein wrote in a November ruling. The case is set for trial on Jan. 27.
Gure Perez, 40, who immigrated from Turkey in 2001, got her bachelor’s degree from Istanbul University and a master’s degree in education from NYU. She joined the DOE in 2002 and quickly took administrative posts. She was principal of PS 316 from 2008 to 2011, then was moved to DOE headquarters.
On her Twitter page, Gure Perez has supported the policies of Mayor de Blasio, including curbing colocations of charter schools in DOE buildings. Last February, she retweeted a Chalkbeat.org article headlined “Fariña’s game plan to undo (and redo) the Bloomberg years.”
After her termination, Villavicencio went back to teaching, but became principal of PS 197 in Far Rockaway, Queens, in 2012. She declined to comment. Lovejoy said only, “It’s been horrible.”