Parents Press for ACORN Principal's Ouster

The school accountability game is getting more intense: The city announced two more school closures yesterday, and students and parents in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood are arguing a school's F grade means its principal should go.

Parents at the ACORN High School for Social Justice today are releasing a report describing a school where gang recruiting is ongoing; where just a quarter of teachers stay more than two years, and where even a low graduation rate, 37%, is propped up by many students who pass merely by showing up to class.

Morale is so low, the report says, that at last year's graduation the valedictorian, Sharifa Noble, stood up and declared: "ACORN has let me down." The remark prompted a chorus of boos aimed at the principal, Joseph Parker.

The president of the school's parent teacher association, Dawn Beckles, said Mr. Parker, a graduate of the city's vaunted Principal Leadership Academy, scares teachers with a "prison mentality"; the report said he refers to his administrators as "wardens."

The school's atmosphere suffered as Mr. Parker brought in a flood of inexperienced teachers through the city's Teaching Fellows program and failed to give them support, an art teacher, Maria Pascual, said.

Mr. Parker could not be reached for comment.

A Department of Education spokeswoman, Maibe Gonzalez-Fuentes, said school officials are mulling their options; like other schools rated F, ACORN could lose its principal or could be closed and reopened under a new staff and name.

The city yesterday boosted its schools closing list to eight, adding a Bronx elementary school, P.S. 220, and the Far Rockaway High School in Queens. Officials have said the total number of closures this year will be between 14 and 20.

The city's public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, criticized school officials for sending the news to parents in fliers tucked inside their children's backpacks. Ms. Gotbaum said failing schools should be retooled in consultation with parents, through public hearings.

The community group that helped create the Bushwick school, ACORN, will call for Mr. Parker to be removed immediately at a press conference today, its executive director, Bertha Lewis, said. Ms Lewis said she has been complaining about Mr. Parker to the city for two years.