Report: School Principal ‘Failed in Her Role'

The principal of an empowerment school in Brooklyn "failed in her role as principal" when teachers at the school helped students cheat on science labs required for the Regents exams, according to a report released by Department of Education investigators yesterday.

The principal, Marie Prendergast, of the High School for Youth and Community Development, is a graduate of Mayor Bloomberg's Leadership Academy, a fast-track intensive training program for principals. The school is one of the small schools in the New Century High Schools Initiative, a program touted by Chancellor Joel Klein that partners schools with private community groups and requires that schools have at least 80% of students pass all of the Regents exams.

Worried that the school wouldn't meet the requirement, investigators say Ms. Prendergast held a meeting with staff and set up a science lab "make-up" day for students to finish prerequisite labs on the day before the 2005 Regents exams. Students were behind in their lab experiments after the science teacher was removed from the school. Without enough time to complete all the labs, teachers allegedly passed out answer keys and helped students fill out reports for lab experiments they had never completed.

Three teachers made and passed out the answer keys and five other teachers observed the cheating, according to the report. One of the teachers told investigators that Ms. Prendergast was in the room for at least five minutes while students were copying the answer keys.

Investigators recommended that the Department of Education either discipline or fire all of the school personnel involved.

"Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to Prendergast, she failed in her role as principal," the report by the school's Special Commissioner of Investigation, Richard Condon, said. The report added that Ms. Prendergast's request that students make up all their labs the day before the tests was "impossible" and "led to the copying of answers."

Ms. Prendergast denied to investigators that she knew of the cheating, according to the report. She said she was aware students didn't complete any actual experiments on the make-up day, but that she thought they had already completed the experiments earlier in the year.

Ms. Prendergast directed requests for comment to the Department of Education. A Department of Education spokeswoman, Dina Paul Parks, said it would review each individual case before determining what disciplinary action to take.

"The actions described in the report are totally unacceptable," she said.

The report said some students told investigators they completed the lab prerequisites by copying from answer keys provided by teachers after they had already taken the Regents exams. The report also alleges that some of the cheating took place at Community Counseling and Mediation, the organization partnered with the school under the New Century program.

All of the students were required to retake the Regents exam.

Four other Leadership Academy principals are facing difficulties after it was announced last week that their schools are failing and will be closed.