Principal To Be Removed After Beating, Theft Accusations
A Queens principal accused of using corporal punishment against a student who insulted his son and misusing thousands of dollars in students' lunch money is being removed from his middle school weeks before school starts, the Department of Education said yesterday.
The student who was allegedly attacked, a 13-year-old male, was first sent to his principal's office for using "the ‘f' word" over a cafeteria sound system late last June, the report said. While walking out of the office after being reprimanded, the 13-year-old told investigators he said to the principal, Shango Blake, "Have a good life you and your son."
He said Mr. Blake then punched him three times in the chest and choked him, leaving fingernail marks on his neck that were observed by several witnesses, according to the report.
Mr. Blake's son also attended the middle school, the Jean Nuzzi Intermediate School, or I.S 209, in Queens, the investigators wrote. Of the four people who were in Mr. Blake's office at the time — the principal, the student, and two staff members — only the student claimed an attack occurred. Mr. Blake, whose attorney did not respond to a request for comment, denied that any abuse occurred during an interview conducted under oath, calling the student an "emotionally disturbed kid" who "had lied in the past," the report said.
Investigators cited several other witnesses who confirmed the 13-year-old's report. One, a secretary, said she heard through a conference room door Mr. Blake threatening to break the student's neck and then watched the student walk out with marks on his neck. A school treasurer said Mr. Blake told her he pushed the student up against an air-conditioner in his office and choked him "until he heard the boy gasping for air." The investigators, who work for the Department of Education's special commissioner of investigation, Richard Condon, also alleged that Mr. Blake had misappropriated $30,000 in funds — money students turned in to pay for school lunches, snacks, and graduation expenses — between May 2005 and June 2006.
A Department of Education spokeswoman, Dina Paul Parks, said the city is pursuing Mr. Blake's termination and will discipline the two other staff members in the room that day.
