Lies Factory

Three days before the end of the 2003 summer session, I was accused of (what else? ) corporal punishment !
On 8/7/03, at around 12 :30 , a loud announcement interrupted instruction : "Mr Fofana, please report to room 126 immediatement." Moment later, the chapter leader, Mr Lingaya, came in to replace me. Weston and Adonai were already waiting for me in room 126. Right off the bat, he said : "The Superintendant asked me to remove you immediately from the building. According to Ms. Adonai, you said to students they were "stupid" and their mothers should have 'abortions'." The customary "allegedly" was omitted, because he is a man of conviction, a-no-nonsense brother from the hood. I protested : " When ? What students ? Please, be specific. There is a procedure. It's all in the Chancellor's Regulations A-420 and A-421, dealing with such allegations. " He ignored my remark and said : "you will be escorted out of the building immediately. If you come back, you will be arrested for trespassing". I need a copy of the letter or fax you received from the Superintendent, I said. There is none : it was all verbal. Put in writing the instructions you received. No, he said. Then, give me a letter ordering me to leave the building and the reason. Once again, No. Then I won't leave. At that point, he called security in and asked him to escort me to the classroom so I can to pick up my personal belongings and leave the building. Uneasy, Mr. Williams, the security guard , told me that he was doing his job. I replied “ Do your job. Nothing personal, but I will resist, and we will end up in the criminal court.I will leave the building at the end of the day like everybody.” He went back to Weston who did not probably expect such resistance from an immigrant, black at that (easily intimidated, right ?) The "brother" blinked first, but told me shortly before I left at the end of the day : "If you come back tomorrow , I will call the police and you will be arrested for trespassing." I replied : "I will be back tomorrow accompanied with the media to get arrested."

Didn't she warn me ? Recall Adonai advising me to give up the summer position : "If I were you I would have left".
Ms. Buckery, knowing she was wrong, and probably nervous about being the focus of the media attention barely two month into her new position, called me at 4 PM at home, and asked me to return the next day : she would be in the buiding to discuss the matter. "Are you not aware of the Chancellor Regulations that govern allegations of corporal and verbal abuse ?" She would not answer, simply repeated "I'll see you tomorrow." And yet she did not show up ; instead she instructed Weston to follow the procedure outlined by the DOE bylaws.

I arrived at 7:55 and clocked my time card. Moment later Mr. Weston accosted me, in a belligerent manner : "you are confined to the cafeteria ; you are not allowed in the classrooms". He threw a letter at me, yelling : "You should not be permitted to teach. You have a sick mind". Apparently he perceived my return as a personal affront. In reality, Weston's true motivation can be traced back to my criticism of their appalling management : most students were assigned to classes whose attendance sheet did not include them : their program cards and the rosters did not match; many students marked absent may be attending class next door ; students got bounced from classes to classes, as incompetent supervisors tried to balance them throughout the summer. Sadly enough, Wiltshire did not learn much since September 2002, when Superintendent Charles Majors fired him for incompetence, largely based on similar programming disaster. (He was reinstated after two dozens noisy parents, led by Assemblyman, Clarence Norman Jr., a political thug who is currently serving time on three counts of felony, rallied at City Hall to force the Chancellor's hand.) Surrounded by another principal and four assistant principals in a school of barely 700 students, Wiltshire failed miserably once again.( Buckery herself was shown the door in August 2006 for repeatedly trampling the rights of people who were not as vulnerable as this teacher -- I believe in divine justice.)
Wiltshire, coming from a short break, refused to get involved :" I won't investigate anything because I was not in the building." The West Indian probably smelled an ambush, probably because the letter was signed by Weston : he did not get along with his African American counterpart, I was told. I was amused. No "investigation" was conducted. They are accountable to nobody.

In September, Charley Turner, Brooklyn Borough UFT representative, advised me to contact Angela Santoro, Region 6 Personel Director, Regional Operations Center (Staten Island), to discuss my "dangling" situation (Wiltshire would not let me back). I did, and she asked me to wait for her to inquire about my "status" with the DOE general counsel office ! It took her the whole school year to send me back to Middle College High School (September 2004): in effect, I was a rubber room "honorary guest" from September 2003 to August 2004.

I resumed teaching on September 7 -- the mother of all semester. It was retribution time : on December 7, I was removed from classroom for yet another "corporal punishment". The bogus charge was the culmination of the conspiracy Wiltshire and Adonai methodically orchestrated with the input of lesser characters like Angela Smith, Wiltshire's former girlfriend in Jamaica, the AP for Pupil Personnel Services (guidance counselors' supervisor.)

Retrospectively, it became obvious to me 1) that "humiliated" Buckery was behind my arbitrary stint in the rubber room without charges ; 2) that I was sent back to school only for Wiltshire to find something against me and resend him back to the rubber room : he succeeded in less than three months as discussed here in details.