{"id":145983,"date":"2021-01-02T19:40:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T16:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/nyc-doe-school-issues-fake-report-cards-for-abuse-probe\/"},"modified":"2021-01-02T19:40:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T16:40:18","slug":"nyc-doe-school-issues-fake-report-cards-for-abuse-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/nyc-doe-school-issues-fake-report-cards-for-abuse-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"#NYC DOE school issues fake report cards for abuse probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#NYC DOE school issues fake report cards for abuse probe<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

The city Department of Education turned John Tomasi into a phantom student \u2014 and not only gave him fake report cards, but wrongly put his family under investigation for child abuse.<\/p>\n

The 14-year-old never enrolled in Cobble Hill School of American Studies in Brooklyn. He never\u00a0attended a single class, in person or remotely.<\/p>\n

Yet this fall, the\u00a0public school created\u00a0two report cards for John, both including teacher comments.<\/p>\n

His physical-education teacher twice gave John the highest grade: \u201cME\u201d\u00a0for \u201cexceeds standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

His algebra teacher cited \u201cprogress toward \u2026 understanding the connection between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations,\u201d among other skills.<\/p>\n

After two months, Cobble Hill\u00a0put John on a missing-student list. On Nov. 4, the school alerted the city Administration for Children\u2019s Services (ACS), which opened an investigation of\u00a0 \u201csuspected child abuse or maltreatment,\u201d the agency said in a letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Nov. 5, I got a knock on my door at 5 p.m. from an ACS worker stating that my son has not been attending Cobble Hill High School,\u201d John\u2019s\u00a0mom, Margaret\u00a0Tomasi, told The Post. \u201cIt was very traumatizing and shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cobble
Cobble Hill School of American Studies<\/figcaption>
Helayne Seidman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s because John was earning a spot on the freshman honor roll at Xaverian HS, a private Catholic prep school in Bay Ridge \u2014 where he has not missed a day of in-person and online classes since September.<\/p>\n

The Tomasi family\u2019s ordeal spotlight\u2019s the DOE\u2019s spotty attendance system during the COVID-19 pandemic, its failure to keep track of students listed in remote or in-person classes, and the practice of keeping \u201cphantom students\u201d on school rosters, which generate taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n

The ACS investigator\u00a0asked John\u2019s parents if they used drugs, were ever arrested, been on welfare, or had a history of domestic violence. The worker asked many personal questions, including what religion they practiced, and looked inside their kitchen cabinets, refrigerator and freezer to check for sufficient food.<\/p>\n

The investigator asked John to lift his shirt, pull up his pant legs, and remove his socks to look for bruises or other injuries.<\/p>\n

The next day, a Friday, Margaret Tomasi called Cobble Hill HS\u00a0to ask why the school never contacted them before alerting ACS.<\/p>\n

No one answered the phone.<\/p>\n

She then left a series<\/a> of individual voice messages for\u00a0Principal Anna Maria Mule, two assistant principals, a guidance counselor and a dean.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody needs to get in touch with me. There\u2019s a huge mistake with my son,\u201d she said in her messages, noting the ACS visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not enrolled in your school,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe attends Xaverian High School. The admissions office can immedia<\/a>tely clear this up. Please contact me.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one called back, Tomasi said.<\/p>\n

The mom also wrote to Principal Mule on Nov. 9 at an email address listed on the school website. \u201cI received a letter from your school in October with a schedule,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI tried to call but could not get anyone on the phone. How did one letter become a child neglect case (and) now an open investigation?\u201d<\/p>\n

The email bounced back saying, \u201cThere was a problem delivering your message.\u201d She tried again, to no avail.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, ACS contacted Xaverian HS, which confirmed John was attending that school all along. Case closed.<\/p>\n

Margaret was ready to forget the whole fiasco until the family received not one but two Cobble Hill report cards for John.<\/p>\n

A report card for the first marking period, which arrived in mid-November,\u00a0 gave John grades of \u201cNX,\u201d which means \u201cincomplete,\u201d or \u201cNL,\u201d which means \u201crecent admit,\u201d in listed classes:\u00a0 English, Algebra, Principals (sic) of Biomed, Living Environment, Mindfulness and Global Studies.<\/p>\n

The algebra teacher cited progress in three areas: \u201cusing properties of rational and irrational numbers,\u201d \u201cunderstanding solving equations as a process of reasoning and explaining the reasoning,\u201d and \u201csolving systems of equations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cobble
Cobble Hill School of American Studies sent fake report cards to John Tomasi.<\/figcaption>
Helayne Seidman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under the DOE\u2019s 2020-21 grading policy,\u00a0eased due to the pandemic, students who don\u2019t\u00a0show up or don\u2019t do work must be graded \u201cNX.\u201d Failing grades are prohibited.<\/p>\n

But Cobble Hill gym teacher George Kaliampos gave John the highest mark: \u201cME,\u201d for \u201cexceeds standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0A report card for the second marking period arrived Dec. 19. The same grades \u2014 including\u00a0\u201cexceeds standards\u201d in phys-ed \u2014 were repeated, but with more teacher comments.<\/p>\n

His Mindfulness teacher noted, \u201cFrequently does not submit course work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Algebra teacher cited two\u00a0additional areas of \u201cprogress\u201d by John: \u201cunderstanding the connection between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations,\u201d and \u201crepresenting and solving equations and inequalities graphically.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she added: \u201cInsufficient work is available to determine the student\u2019s grades despite multiple attempts to contact the student and family.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last comment \u201cput me over the edge,\u201d said Margaret Tomasi, who insists the family never got a call from the teacher.<\/p>\n

\"Xaverian
Xaverian High School<\/figcaption>
Helayne Seidman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The frustrated mom sent an email on Dec. 21 to Chancellor Richard Carranza with the subject line,\u00a0\u201cCobble Hill High School\u2019s Gross Negligence.\u201d She wrote that a phone call could have prevented them from being dragged into the child-welfare system.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI received a report card from Cobble Hill. In case you were wondering, it said (John)\u00a0was doing well in gym class. Since then we received yet a second report (card)\u00a0from Cobble Hill and this one had comments on it. How is this possible?\u201d<\/p>\n

A Cobble Hill teacher blamed the school\u2019s \u201cgeneral<\/a> incompetence and inability to function properly,\u201d saying\u00a0administrators gave the faculty a bad contact list:\u00a0\u201cThere were countless students with wrong phone numbers.\u201d\u00a0Administrators also refused to make home visits to look for kids who could not be reached, the teacher told The Post, asking to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation.<\/p>\n

As for the report cards, administrators instructed teachers to choose from a list of canned comments. Citing \u201cprogress\u201d is a gentle way to indicate failure, the teacher said.<\/p>\n

Of John\u2019s high mark in phys-ed, the teacher wasn\u2019t surprised: \u201cEverybody passes that class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigating the snafu herself, Tomasi learned that John\u2019s\u00a08th-grade teacher at his grammar school, St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Academy in Brooklyn, routinely sends the DOE a list of graduates who might go to public\u00a0high schools. This is done even for kids planning to go to private schools, as a back-up.<\/p>\n

But the St. Joseph teacher later neglected to notify the DOE that John would not attend any public high school, and had accepted a seat at Xaverian.<\/p>\n

Cobble Hill HS app<\/a>arently didn\u2019t get the message that he wasn\u2019t coming.<\/p>\n

Tomasi finally reached a staffer in the DOE\u2019s enrollment office who assured her they would remove John from the system.<\/p>\n

But when the family received the second Cobble Hill report card \u2014 a week after ACS deemed the child-abuse suspicions \u201cunfounded\u201d \u2014 she became worried that the case might be reopened.<\/p>\n

Tomasi contacted The Post to tell the family\u2019s story in hopes of \u201cclosure with Cobble Hill,\u201d and improving the DOE system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want this to happen to anybody else,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, shortly after The Post questioned the DOE, the deputy superintendent for Brooklyn North schools, Hoa Tu, called Tomasi to assure her the case was closed, and to apologize.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all a very bad mistake,\u201d Tomasi said Tu told her.<\/p>\n

\"Cobble
Cobble Hill School Principal Anna Maria Mule<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Department of Education said in a statement, \u201cThis should not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before reporting a family for suspected child neglect, \u201cDOE staff should first make multiple attempts to contact a family,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\n

The reports cards \u201cwere issued in error, \u201d the DOE said, blaming one unidentified person. \u201cA staff member made a mistake when filling out report cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DOE spokesman did not explain why Chancellor Carranza, Principal Mule and other Cobble Hill staffers did not respond to Tomasi\u2019s messages.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#NYC DOE school issues fake report cards for abuse probe” The city Department of Education turned John Tomasi into a phantom student \u2014 and not only gave him fake report cards, but wrongly put his family under investigation for child abuse. The 14-year-old never enrolled in Cobble Hill School of American Studies in Brooklyn. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/01\/Jack-Tomasi_mom-Margaret-Tomasi-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[88365,86760,70344,7028,74212,70925],"class_list":["post-145983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-1-2-21","tag-administration-for-childrens-services","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-high-schools","tag-public-schools","tag-richard-carranza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}