Principal Feared Backlash Over Illegal Trip to Cuba

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The New York Sun

A teacher who parents say brought a group of New York City high school students to Cuba has not been removed from the classroom, sources said, even as an investigation has been launched that could lead to his firing.

Sources said the principal of the Beacon School — the elite, alternative public high school where the leader of the illegal trip, Nathan Turner, is a beloved social studies teacher — decided not to take away his teaching job because she feared a backlash.

“She doesn’t want to move him because he’s very popular,” an education department source aware of the situation at the school but not allowed to speak about it publicly said. “She’s very worried about the internal dynamic in the school.”

Mayor Bloomberg said the city has launched an investigation. He also praised the principal, Ruth Lacey, saying he had heard she had not approved the trip.

“There is a problem when the federal government has regulations that you can’t travel to some place,” the mayor went on to say, but added: “I think we should be a law-abiding society. If you don’t like the regulations, get the government to change them.”

The outcome of the investigation could lead to the teacher’s termination, a Department of Education spokesman, David Cantor, said, depending on what the school district’s special commissioner of investigation, Richard Condon, recommends.

A spokesman for Mr. Condon, Laurel Wright-Hinckson, said she could not comment on the investigation.

Ms. Lacey made conflicting statements about her awareness of the trip, according to a report in the New York Post yesterday, saying at one point that she had no knowledge of the trip and later acknowledging that she had been asked for her approval, which she said she denied.

Parents of students at Beacon said the trip had been announced at the beginning of the school year, along with other school-sponsored trips to Spain and England. They said it was understood that the school was not sponsoring the Cuba trip, however.

“From what I understand, it was not a school trip,” the school’s PTA secretary, Laura Chazoule, said. “I think it was a matter of each family to decide whether or not their kid should go. It was an individual decision.”

She added that some parents had been concerned about the trip beforehand.

“Some people were concerned, but it’s not a school trip,” she said. “It’s not something that is managed and run by the school.”

It was not clear how many children went to Cuba this spring.

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, defended Mr. Turner yesterday.

“The teacher apparently did everything in his power to make sure the parents and students were informed that the school did not sanction the trip,” she said. “He went so far as to make sure that all the arrangements and collection of money for the travel costs were done away from the school. This teacher was willing to give of his free time and expertise to further the education of his students and, if he took them anywhere but Cuba, he would be applauded.”

The teachers union said it had not yet spoken to the teacher. Mr. Turner did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment yesterday, and Ms. Lacey did not return phone calls or an e-mail message.

Parents defended Mr. Turner yesterday, saying he had an excellent reputation at the school.

The vice president of the PTA, Peggy Aronowitz, called Mr. Turner a “good teacher” and “a lovely guy.”

She was echoed by Ms. Chazoule.

“He’s a good teacher,” she said. “I don’t see why he would be removed. I don’t see why anything would happen.”


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