Principal will still hand out diplomas days after fraud arrest --- While her students will be wearing caps and gowns Monday, Port Richmond High School interim principal Oneatha Swinton might want to consider donning an orange jumpsuit..... NY Post, Sue Edelman
Video: Parent Activist on Abusive Principal Oneatha Swinton, Arrested Yesterday
Below is a video I made with some background info. Before we knew about the arrest - the day before - we went to the UFT DA and the PEP - which we found had been moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan -- we found out when the translators who were also confused rushed out of the building to head to Manhattan. Annette Renaud actually asked them to give us a ride. There's no stopping her, which Oneatha Swinton, who was the principal when Annette was PTA president at the School of Journalism on John Jay Campus and once attacked Annette, is finding out.https://vimeo.com/276717595
Here is the link to the Daily News article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/
NY1: http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2018/06/23/interim-acting-principal-of-staten-island-school-arrested
And the NY Post:
https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/principal-will-still-hand-out-diplomas-days-after-fraud-arrest/
While her students will be wearing caps and gowns Monday, Port Richmond High School interim principal Oneatha Swinton might want to consider donning an orange jumpsuit.
The embattled educator is scheduled to hand out diplomas at the Staten Island school’s commencement ceremony — even though she was arrested last week on felony insurance-fraud charges.
School leaders dashed off a letter Friday to Chancellor Richard Carranza demanding Swinton’s “immediate removal,” citing the criminal case and complaints that she has mismanaged the budget.
But a city Department of Education spokesman on Saturday said Swinton will remain in the post “while we review the charges.” The DOE would not say if Swinton will show up for graduation.
Swinton, 39, is accused of registering two Lexuses at the Pennsylvania home of a city vendor she had hired, a scheme The Post exposed last November.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro hit Swinton with four counts of insurance fraud, plus theft by deception and criminal conspiracy.
The vendor, Tanya John, a former city principal, is charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy for allegedly letting Swinton use her East Stroudsburg, Pa, address to get low-cost car insurance.
A defiant Swinton, who is seeking to be named permanent principal, refused to comment when confronted by a Post reporter at the school Friday.
But Swinton recently contended her critics are unfair.
“I know that people have done things to disrupt me or make me leave,” Swinton told a School Leadership Team meeting this month. “There are people looking to get me on an investigation.”
City Councilwoman Debi Rose, who has staunchly defended Swinton, is set to speak at Monday’s graduation ceremony. “I understand that these allegations are serious, but individuals are innocent until proven guilty, so therefore we await the outcome the court proceedings,” Rose said in a statement to the Post.
In a criminal complaint, the Pennsylvania AG said John put her energy bill in Swinton’s name for three months in 2014 so that Swinton could show it as proof of residency to obtain a driver’s license. She also used the fake address to register two luxury cars, replacing one Lexus with another.
Swinton then bought car insurance using her fraudulent Pennsylvania license and registration — saving about $3,000 because rates are cheaper in rural East Stroudsburg than in NYC, the AG said.
She later filed two claims, both in September 2016, reporting damage to her car in Staten Island and Brooklyn fender-benders, costing the insurer $2,247 to repair.
After getting wind of the AG investigation in December 2017, officials said, she tried to cover her tracks by getting a New York driver’s license with her own Staten Island address, and changed the registration of her Lexus to New York State.
Swinton and John, who have not yet entered pleas, turned themselves in Thursday, and both were released on $5,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 15. Swinton called in “sick” that day, staffers said.
John, 44, is the CEO of Feetz LLC, which has collected at least $1.3 million in payments from DOE schools since 2012 to tutor students, run “character development programs,” and take kids on college tours.
Swinton hired Feetz at the Secondary School for Law in Brooklyn, where she was formerly principal. Soon after joining Port Richmond last year, Swinton planned to hire Feetz again, staffers said.
Swinton has endorsed Feetz on its website with a blurb saying “Teamwork really does make the Dreamwork!”
John, married to a DOE teacher, refused to comment.
we have been dealing with her divisiveness for 10 months now. She, her AP Felicia Holtzman and others, that she brought from her former school have divided our staff, students and parents. We had worked hard as a school community under our former administrator to be a strong family unit. We were of course not without issues but we would try to get through them and find solutions. Now there are not solutions except to replace her with someone who actually knows the community, the students and the dedicated staff that she has sought to destroy. And obviously she had far more to hide than ANY of those she has attacked over the past year for issues far LESS than FRAUD and CONFLICT OF Interest. Plus the kickbacks she must be receiving by endorsing and hiring FEETZ experience for her schools. DOE hiding bad administrators must stop the CSA is protecting BAD administrators and those who need protection are our children.
ReplyDeleteThe Parents, PTA and SLT have tried hard to follow the regulations but were the ONLY ones doing so. Broken regs lies everywhere. all emails ignored. Personal visits to deliver letters, FAXes ignored. Chancellor Farina actually was defensive and sounded threatening at an early PEP meeting we went to speak at. ENOUGH the let them eat cake attitude is nonsense. These are OUR schools. The Chancellor told the asian population that the schools do not belong to them They most certainly do they belong to us taxpayers NOT HIM. BTW he just moved here, so they certainly do not belong to him. The cover ups for her and having our council woman stand up for her no matter what she did shows the councilwoman's code of conduct is also shady and her morals questionable. This is the second bad administrator on Staten Island that she launched a smear campaign of false racism calling it a witch hunt. That one was an embezzler When does this end? Our kids deserve schools to be run by people who care about them not by narcissistic people who are in it for some personal gain. Make it about the kids again. Once and for all.