The principal of the Washington Heights High School for Law and Public Service, Paula Lev, is under investigation by the Department of Education. Lev allegedly made controversial statements alluding to the fact that she was trying to rid the school of white teachers.
Lev reportedly told a faculty member she “was going to get rid of all these white teachers that aren’t doing anything for the kids of our community” the complaint against her states. Now, the school’s faculty is “charging in a vote of no-confidence that she has ‘flagrantly but unsuccessfully attempted to divide our school by race”, reports the New York Post.
The complaint was filed last week with the Department of Education’s Office of Equal Opportunity. “She definitely has something against white people” states the complaint which was obtained by The Post.
The filing also quotes a faculty member as saying, “Ms. Lev has asked me to conspire with her on a couple of occasions in getting rid of my colleague.” It concludes, “I believe Ms. Lev is not suited for the position of principal because of the comments she has made to me about white people and the malicious ways in which she thinks and speaks. She is not fit to be a leader of a school.”
The complaint came amid simmering unrest at the school, which staffers blamed on what they said was Lev twisting the current concepts of equity and anti-racism, which the DOE promotes and teachers overwhelmingly support…
…On June 24, most the school’s nearly 50 faculty members met to consider four possible reasons to vote no-confidence in Lev, including that she had 1) “flagrantly but unsuccessfully attempted to divide our school community by race,” and 2) “disrespected, slandered, and/or arbitrarily gone after respected educators, to the detriment of our entire school community.”
The ballot also gave as reasons that Lev “constantly violated our contract” and failed to collaborate with the staff on important school decisions.
“With almost the entire 40+ membership voting, including both tenured and untenured teachers, paraprofessionals, and related service professionals, 83.3% voted that they no longer have confidence in our principal to lead our school,” said an email to staffers.
Lev’s salary was $165,000 last year and was named interim acting principal of Law and Public Service in February 2020. Before then she “served three years as an instructional specialist for the DOE’s special-ed data system. Before that, she was a special-ed assistant principal for three years, and a special-ed teacher for three years.”
