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Saturday, April 20, 2024

The Husband of Queens High School Superintendent Josephine Van Ess Makes a Nice Profit As a Vendor For the NYC Department of Education

The $650 suits sold by The Modern Day Man program, come in bright colors.Instagram @thenewportschool

From Betsy Combier, Editor: 

If corruption and fraud is your interest, the New York City Department of Education is a delight. 

I am always so amazed that Chancellor Banks and Mayor Adams believe that "mayoral control" means "take all the money, or as much as you want or think you can take without anyone coming after you". For the 2024 school year, that amount is about $37.5 billion. Of course, this includes making sure your friends and family get rich too.

 Just sayin...

Betsy Combier


NYC school chief’s husband is DOE vendor selling mentorship program with flashy $650 suits for kids

by Susan Edelman, NY POST, April 20, 2024

The husband of a Queens school chief is being paid tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars to provide a mentoring program for boys that includes the purchase of flashy $650 suits, The Post has learned.

The arrangement, which has the blessing of Chancellor David Banks, financially benefits Queens South High School superintendent Josephine Van Ess, and reeks of cronyism, critics say.

Ed Van Ess is married to Queens South High School Superintendent Josephine Van Ess.Facebook Ed VanEss

Edward Van Ess, the superintendent’s husband, is co-founder and co-owner of “The Modern Day Man,” a for-profit company, with business partner and fashion designer Ilbert Sanchez.

The company, which also does business as “Excellence in Every Thread,” has been hired so far by at least 10 mostly elementary and middle schools — six in the high-poverty Brooklyn district where Josephine Van Ess used to work as deputy superintendent.

It has collected $221,750 in Department of Education funds — all but $5,000 paid out in the past five months, records show. 

Van Ess and Sanchez charge schools $16,000 to lead six weekly sessions for boys meant to build self-esteem, and guide them toward personal and career success.

Optional “add-ons” include field trips costing $2,500 and $1,500 each for sessions on topics such as substance abuse and financial literacy.

The program also provides “custom” suits tailored by Sanchez’s primary business, “Garcon Couture.” 

The fitted suits — priced at $650 each — come in bright colors like purple and magenta.

“It’s unacceptable,” a Brooklyn principal said. “We have children in shelters and temporary housing who need basic necessities and everyday clothing  — not pricey pimp suits.”

The DOE refused to explain whether the schools or the students’ families pay for the suits.

Neither are “required to purchase suits to participate,” said spokeswoman Chyann Tull.

“Suit purchases are an optional service that the vendors provide.”

After The Post inquired about the program on Friday, the price list was deleted from the company website.

The City Charter requires that any full-time city employee with an ownership interest in a company doing business with the city either relinquish it or disclose it to the Conflicts of Interest Board.

Banks sent a letter to the COIB on July 10, asking the board to grant Josephine Van Ess, who makes $205,000 a year, a waiver to retain her “imputed ownership interest” in her husband’s company.  He owns 50%.

Businessman Edward Van Ess and his wife Josephine Van Ess, superintendent of Queens South high schools. [Facebook Ed Van Ess]

The Van Ess business “does not conflict with the purposes and interests of the City,” Banks told the COIB.

The chancellor also noted the company is a registered “Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise.” Mayor Adams and Banks have made the hiring of Black- and women-owned vendors a priority.

The COIB granted a waiver on July 31, but set several conditions that bar Josephine Van Ess from any involvement in her husband’s company or in any DOE discussion or decision concerning the company.

The company agreed not to “solicit or do business” with schools in Districts 27, 28, and 29, which she now oversees in southern Queens, but it “seeks to pursue and perform work for all other DOE schools,” the COIB waiver states.

Josephine Van Ess supervised six of the 10 schools that have hired her husband’s company in Brownsville’s District 23 when she worked as a deputy superintendent for nearly three years before Banks promoted her in June 2022.

She has many contacts there.

The current superintendent, Khalek Kirkland, extolled the Modern Day Man program on X this month.

Van Ess was hired by then-District 23 Superintendent Miatheresa Pate, now a chief of school support, who has come under scrutiny for running a side business selling leadership conferences, online courses and books.

Danika Rux, Bank’s deputy chancellor for leadership, also served as a District 23 deputy superintendent.

Rux was promoted in a secret deal to give her husband a DOE managerial job in exchange for dropping his work for the DOE as a vendor.

“It’s a family enterprise — the family and friends of Banks and Adams,” the Brooklyn principal charged.

Chancellor David Banks, center, endorses vendors Edward Van Ess, at left, and Ilbert Sanchezinstagram @themoderndaymannyc


Two principals in District 23 — Marica Myrie at Mott Hall IV middle school, and Arabelle Pembroke, at Riverdale Avenue Middle School — gave video “testimonials” praising “The Modern Day Man” on its website.

After The Post’s inquiries, this price list was deleted from the Modern Day Man website.

City rules forbid employees to let vendors use their NYC titles in promotional material without written permission by their agencies.

Penalties include fines of up to $25,000 per violation.

The DOE would not say whether it granted the two principals permission.

The principals did not answer questions.

The DOE had no comment on criticism of the COIB waiver, but defended The Modern Day Man.

“The vendor’s programming is built on the foundation of providing mentorship and a safe space for the young people involved, not in providing custom suits,” Tull said.

Edward and Josephine Van Ess did not return messages.

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Saturday, March 2, 2024

Hire Back the Unvaccinated NYC Department of Education Employees To Lower Class Size

 

Advocates gather outside of City Hall in advance of a City Council hearing on the efforts to comply with the state’s class size law on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 in New York City. (Michael Elsen-Rooney / Chalkbeat)

From Betsy Combier:

I have a couple of suggestions on how to reduce class size in NYC:

 Step 1: hire back all the NYC Department of Education employees who were terminated during the COVID Mandate for not getting the COVID vaccine, and give them their backpay so the City taxpayer doesn't have to pay the salaries of City Law department attorneys for the next 10 years;

Step 2: get rid of the way too high overhead costs at Tweed for "Deputy Superintendents" and others who do little work (we know who they are);

Step 3: set up a business expert/CEO who can have the last word on expenditures before any program is implemented (fix the procurement process);

Step 4: Address the NYC Department of Investigation's Anti-Corruption Report with immediate action, and make it a law to do that - even if there is one now...cause it ain't working.

See: Independent Budget Office on Class Size

Just sayin...

Betsy Combier

NYC may encourage principals to hire teachers over other roles to reduce class sizes

By Michael Elsen-Rooney, Chalkbeat, 

 | February 29, 2024, 6:28pm EST

Principals with vacant positions next year might start feeling more pressure from the city to hire teachers over other roles to comply with the state’s class size law, officials said Thursday at a New York City Council hearing.

The law, passed by the state legislature in 2022, requires that kindergarten to third grade classrooms have 20 or fewer students, fourth to eighth grade classes have no more than 23 students, and high schools classes have 25 or fewer. The law takes effect in phases – requiring that 20% of classrooms across the city meet the mandates by this September, and 40% satisfy the requirements by September 2025. The entire city will have to be in compliance by September 2028.

So far, the city’s Education Department hasn’t had much trouble complying. Roughly 40% of classrooms across the city are currently at or below the caps, officials testified Thursday.

But to make sure the city is still in compliance by next September, and begin preparing for the stricter requirements in coming years, the department is considering some policy changes next school year, Deputy Chancellor for Operations Emma Vadehra testified on Thursday.

One of those changes may be “asking schools to prioritize hiring teachers over other positions” when they have vacancies, Vadehra said.

That could mark a significant shift in a system where principals have traditionally had wide latitude to manage their hiring decisions and decide how to distribute their dollars among classroom teachers and other positions including aides, administrators, deans, and counselors and social workers.

First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said, pushing school hiring decisions “top-down” would be “overrid[ing] the judgment of the people we want making those judgments.”

Officials didn’t offer many details on how that directive would work. Schools already have some hiring restrictions unrelated to the new class size law, such as maintaining the mandated number of teachers and paraprofessionals for students with disabilities and ensuring they have teachers for required subjects.

The plan will need to be approved by the teachers and principals unions, and officials aim to communicate plans to principals by this spring before they have to begin hiring for next year, Vadehra said.

Henry Rubio, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the union representing principals, expressed concerns about the idea, calling it “tremendously short-sighted.”

In addition to more teachers, schools also need “support staff, paraprofessionals, and supervisors to maintain effective instruction and provide the adequate professional development that a school’s staff needs,” he said. “Otherwise, the academic gains from smaller class sizes may be eroded since new teachers and other staff will require more support given their lack of experience.”

Mike Sill, the assistant secretary at the United Federation of Teachers, said the union “like[s] the concept in general,” but there are “caveats.”

Some schools might need more counselors or deans, he said. “It’s a half-baked plan at this point.”Education Department previews other potential changes next year

Officials said they are considering a recommendation from a recently-convened working group to restrict how schools can spend $215 million in funding through a state program called Contracts for Excellence, or C4E.

C4E money is distributed by the city, based on the level of student need at a school, measured by the number of low-income and academically struggling students, as well as English Language Learners and kids with disabilities.

Currently, schools that receive C4E money can use it for reducing class sizes, launching professional development programs to improve teacher quality, offering full-day pre-Kindergarten classes, and running programs for English Language Learners, among other things.

Officials on Thursday said they’re considering restricting that funding so it can only be used to lower class sizes.

More than 1,500 schools got C4E money this year, with an average of nearly $141,000 per school.Bigger changes are ahead

The challenges facing the Education Department are going to grow as the class size law continues to phase in.

Officials estimate that the city will need to increase its teaching force, which currently stands at around 77,000, by between 10,000 and 12,000 to fully comply with the law. That will cost between $1.4 to $1.9 billion a year, according to the Education Department’s estimates, and require a significant boost in hiring at a time when the number of new teachers entering the workforce is shrinking. The Education Department also estimates that there are about 500 schools that will need more classrooms than they currently have in their buildings to meet the class size standards. Some schools that only need one or two extra classrooms might be able to shift around existing space. But other schools need as many as 78 additional classrooms, Vadehra said.

The School Construction Authority, which is in charge of building new facilities, estimated that it will cost between $22 and $27 billion to build all the new facilities needed to meet the class size mandates – a budget far greater than is currently slotted in the SCA’s capital plan.

State legislators have argued that the Education Department doesn’t need any additional funding to comply with the law because Foundation Aid from the state increased by more than $1 billion in recent years. But Education Department officials say they’ve already committed that money to bolstering school budgets, increasing funding for low-income and homeless students, and paying for increasing mandated costs for charter schools and special education.

Adding to the complexity, the schools with the largest class sizes currently are more likely to have larger concentrations of students from affluent families, creating concerns that the city could have to shift resources away from schools with needier populations to those with lower levels of student need.

One of the city’s cheapest options for reducing class sizes citywide would be capping enrollment at the most overcrowded schools, and redirecting students to schools with more room and lower class sizes. But that policy would likely spur significant pushback from parents, since many of the schools with the largest class sizes are among the city’s most in-demand, especially at the high school level, where students have the greatest freedom to apply to schools across the city.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.
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Saturday, February 24, 2024

NYC Department of Education Radicalizes 5-Year Olds as 'Restorative Justice'

 

Students at PS 321 — which teaches kids from kindergarten through fifth grade — in Brooklyn’s Park Slope were handed the woke coloring book last week as part of a Black History Month lesson.                          Paul Martinka

My dad was Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York for more than 20 years. His boss: Louis Lefkowitz, who my dad held in high esteem, was an amazing jurist. The building in downtown Manhattan, 80 Centre Street, has his name above the door. (I always say hi when I use the law library there or go to a Judge's Courtroom).


One of my family's closest friends (and my dad's best man at his wedding, see my parents' wedding announcement above) as I grew up was David Peck, a stellar jurist as well, who was appointed Presiding Justice of the First Department, Appellate Division, in 1947. When appointed, he was 44 years old, the youngest judge to serve as presiding justice of the First Department. Scott Peck, his son, wrote one of my favorite books "The Road Less Traveled". See my article on Synchronicity. That's me. Who are you? Do you know?

Ok, now you are asking, "Why am I boring you with all of this?"

Because in my opinion, the militant "Restorative Justice" stuff is wrong. Yes, black lives matter, and so do white lives, Asian lives, Hispanic lives, etc. Humans matter - and it isn't important what race, religion, gender, or any other sub-category every human subscribes to during their lifetime, as long as they do not deliberately harm a person or animal or force someone to subscribe to a belief or action against their will which may be contrary to accepted social norms. 

That is why I believe no person or group should decide for one individual who or what to believe. Every person should make that decision for him or herself. Certainly, public schools should not teach radicalism but guide children in critical thinking and creativity. Not conclusions. Kids need to write their own stories and discover who they are. Children should be taught how to socialize, have empathy, be kind, and value every human being as another individual, a unique and equal soul, traveling on the same road through life as we - you - are. Everyone is equal in being human. I didn't teach my kids empathy, but I told them often what I believed, and they had the right to reject my spirituality and love, or not. They did not reject it, but I certainly did not force anything on them. 

Then, when they were 2,5,7, and 9 years of age, I brought them in as volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House for kids with cancer, where I was a volunteer helping to run the program. Empathy and love for all humans happened.

But life happens, and school is mandatory. In school, we should learn how to read, do complex math problems, and enjoy the many adventures of scientific research and history. And we need to teach kids how to write and express themselves through art and music. Two of my children started singing Opera professionally at Lincoln Center, aged 5 and 9. They wanted to sing, so I gave them the opportunity to use their talents on a big stage by getting them both auditions. After that, they were on their own. I spent more than 11 years getting them out of school early so we could get to Lincoln Center on time for rehearsals and performances because that's what they wanted. I planned my time according to their schedules, to support them.

I have four children, now amazingly wonderful adults. We survived the NYC public school system- in one case, barely - but their visions drove their path. 

Notice in my background above I didn't say anything about race. That's because I never heard the word in my apartment while growing up. My dad and the various politicians and television/Broadway stars who came to dinner (my mom was a Broadway angel and trustee of the Neighborhood Playhouse) talked politics, rights, due process, and the law. It's in my bones. My mom was the daughter of German Jews, my dad's family were Christians from France, and I grew up going to a Presbyterian Church every Sunday, where my mom ran the music program as a volunteer for 49 years. I moved to Cairo, Egypt, for 5 years, etc., etc. See my article on Synchronicity. That's me. 

Who are you? 

Do you know?

Do not let others decide for you.

Betsy Combier

BLM movement’s social justice politics and ‘queer, trans-affirming’ lessons delivered to kids as young as 5 in NYC school

By Aneeta Bhole, Susan Edelman and Emily Crane

A New York City elementary school is giving kids as young as 5 a woke Black Lives Matter coloring book that focuses on “queer and transgender affirming” lessons, revolutionary politics and demands to “fund counselors not cops” to teach them about Black History Month.

Students at PS 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope — which teaches children from kindergarten through fifth grade — were handed the “What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book” coloring book last week as part of a Black History Month lesson.

The book, which is based on the 13 “guiding principles” of the national Black Lives Matter at School curriculum, was reportedly assigned as coursework for the young kids. It includes dedicated pages with headlines like “transgender affirming” and “queer affirming.”

“When a person is born, their grown-ups generally decide whether to call them a girl or a boy. Sometimes that decision doesn’t match who the person really is, and that person is transgender,” a description on the trans page reads.

The book also lists off a slew of the BLM’s national demands and ways children can support the movement — including a push to “have counsellors in schools instead of police.” “use restorative justice” and “teach black history and ethnic studies.”

Some parents, however, insisted the coloring book didn’t actually teach their kids about black history and instead presented controversial ideas “as fact.”

“It’s not necessarily true. It’s not like every black person believes in these principles,” the mom of a fourth grader told The Free Press, which first reported on the woke coloring book Thursday.

She added the book doesn’t go “into enough detail and there is no mention of specific people. It just feels very vague.”

Other parents expressed outrage over the movement’s guiding principles, which are splashed across the website for Black Lives Matter at School, the Seattle-based group behind the coloring book. The woke org offers resources for schools across the country, including for “early childhood” lessons.

Under the “Transgender Affirming” section of the Black Lives Matter at School site, for example, the group spells out that “we are self-reflexive and consistently do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege.”

Some parents at the school also took issue with a section titled Empathy and its use of the word “comrades” — with some interpreting it as a political term and push to promote communist propaganda.

“Using the word comrades comes from communist times,” the mom of the fourth grader, whose grandparents fled China for the US, told The Free Press. “They are using words that I don’t think are appropriate for elementary school.”

PS 321, with 1,217 students, has a reputation as one of the best elementary schools in the city. It also has one of the highest portions of white kids — 67%. Only 3% of students are black, city records show.

While parents acknowledged that some of the lessons from the coloring book — and wider BLM curriculum — appeared harmless, such as the importance of forgiveness, they argued that others were rooted in revolutionary politics.

The “Black Villages” principle, for example, describes disrupting “the narrow Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” And the “Intergenerational” section calls for a “communal network free from ageism and adultism.”

Robert Pondiscio, a teaching expert and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, weighed in on the backlash, saying he wasn’t convinced the book was an attempt to indoctrinate kids.

“But the poor judgment and lack of common sense among educators in selecting material is sometimes jaw-dropping and inexcusable,” the ex-Big Apple teacher wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Phil Wong, a parent and former president of Community Education Council 24 in Queens, ripped the racial justice element associated with the coloring book.

“If schools really want to teach racial justice, then the materials should be about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglas or Harriet Tubman. Recent movements have erased these names from history classes,” Wong told The Post.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many PS 321 students were given the coloring book last week. One mom said she only learned of its existence when students were sent home for remote learning due to a winter storm last week.

Park Slope parents seemed in short supply in the neighborhood on Thursday, with schools closed for midwinter break. The kids who were out and about were mostly accompanied by nannies.

PS 321 on Thursday refused to comment on the distribution of the BLM coloring book until school resumes.

The city’s Department of Education confirmed the existence of the book, but declined to answer questions about whether officials knew of its dissemination – or if it was being taught in any other Big Apple public schools.

Instead, a DOE spokesperson only said: “Anytime parents have a concern about resources used in school, we encourage them to share their concerns to the school principal or district superintendent.”

Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts

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Friday, February 9, 2024

Justice Brendan Landry Slams Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg For Prosecuting Fake Vaccination Cards While Letting Violent Criminals To Go Free

City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli lashed out at Bragg for prosecuting the nursing student even though she never used the fake vaccination card.Paul Martinka

Thank you Justice Brendan T. Landry! 

State Supreme Court Justice Brendan T. Lantry dismissed felony charges against a nursing student and city DEP employee that were charged for fake COVID-19 vaccine cards.Linkedin Brendan Lantry

Sometimes it takes a State Judge to force Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to get it right.

Oh, wait. Bragg is not getting it right, now or ever. Begin impeachment of this guy Bragg!! He needs to go to a place where he can think about priorities.

Manhattan DA Alvin was blasted for trying to throw the book at two New Yorkers who bought fake COVID-19 vaccine cards.REUTERS

Just sayin.....

Betsy Combier

betsy@advocatz.com

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg slammed for prosecuting fake vax cards while letting ‘violent’ perps walk

By 
Social Links forRich Calder and
 
Social Links forMatthew Sedacca
Published Feb. 3, 2024, 9:49 a.m. ET

A judge blasted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for trying to throw the book at two New Yorkers who bought fake COVID-19 vaccine cards — despite routinely going easy on others charged with far more serious crimes. 

In a ruling issued this week, state Supreme Court Justice Brendan T. Lantry dismissed felony charges against the pair, who were not publicly identified, calling the case overkill.

J.O., a nursing student, and R.V., an employee with the city Department of Environmental Protection, were among hundreds accused of buying fake vaccination cards from a New Jersey stripper, Jasmine Clifford. 

The two were among just 16 people Bragg’s office “cherry-picked” to prosecute and charge with felony criminal possession of a forged instrument, the judge said. 

Fourteen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, but J.O. and R.V. moved to dismiss the charges, prompting the DA’s office to contest the effort — and sparking outrage from the jurist.

“These motions submitted [by Bragg and his prosecutors] are made months or even years after the 45-day period has expired to dismiss . . . sexual assaults, drug sales, robbery, burglary, and other violent and non-violent serious felony offenses.”

City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli (R-Staten Island) cheered the judge, who is the former chairman of Staten Island’s Republican Party, while pointing out that one of the defendants got the forged card to maintain her nursing school enrollment only to get the jab anyway.

“This is what Alvin Bragg is — a clown,” Borelli told The Post. “Imagine prosecuting a scared woman for this, even though she didn’t even use the fake card, while at the same time letting violent perps go. I’m glad the judge called him out for the world to see.”

Since taking office in 2022, Bragg has come under attack for not seeking prison time for various charges and downgrading felony charges in a slew of cases, including armed robbery and drug offenses.

On Wednesday, the DA’s office declined to ask for bail for five migrant men who allegedly beat a pair of cops in Times Square.

Doug Cohen, a spokesman for the Manhattan DA, declined to address Lantry’s remarks, but said major crimes in Manhattan were down 5% overall in 2023, and during Bragg’s first two years in office, shootings were down 38% and homicides down 24%.

Bragg’s office “routinely — nearly daily — move[s] to dismiss significantly more serious counts or entire indictments” to avoid harsher penalties for previously convicted felons or to avoid jeopardizing people’s immigration status, the judge wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday.

“These motions submitted [by Bragg and his prosecutors] are made months or even years after the 45-day period has expired to dismiss . . . sexual assaults, drug sales, robbery, burglary, and other violent and non-violent serious felony offenses.”

City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli (R-Staten Island) cheered the judge, who is the former chairman of Staten Island’s Republican Party, while pointing out that one of the defendants got the forged card to maintain her nursing school enrollment only to get the jab anyway.

“This is what Alvin Bragg is — a clown,” Borelli told The Post. “Imagine prosecuting a scared woman for this, even though she didn’t even use the fake card, while at the same time letting violent perps go. I’m glad the judge called him out for the world to see.”

Since taking office in 2022, Bragg has come under attack for not seeking prison time for various charges and downgrading felony charges in a slew of cases, including armed robbery and drug offenses.

On Wednesday, the DA’s office declined to ask for bail for five migrant men who allegedly beat a pair of cops in Times Square.

Doug Cohen, a spokesman for the Manhattan DA, declined to address Lantry’s remarks, but said major crimes in Manhattan were down 5% overall in 2023, and during Bragg’s first two years in office, shootings were down 38% and homicides down 24%.

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