A New York City elementary school principal runs a crumbling dump of a school where many students have no math or reading books; kindergartners spend their days in ramshackle, rodent-infested trailers that reek of piss; and the library is a “junk room.”
The most obscene part of the third-world-esque spectacle is the lifestyle of the Marcella Sills, the principal at PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, reports the New York Post in a damning series of articles.
Sources told the Post that Sills, 48, routinely shows up ridiculously late for work, if at all. Last week, for example, she missed almost four days. On Monday and Friday, she was absent. On Tuesday, she appeared at school at 3:30 p.m. On Wednesday, she left her house at 2:50 p.m. — in a truly preposterous fur coat — to drive around in her $40,000 luxury BMW X3.
Sills, who has been at PS 106 for nine years, receives a base salary of $128,207 annually. Strangely, given last week’s shcedule, she also reported — and was paid — $2,900 for 83 overtime hours in 2011.
The school serves a low-income student population almost exclusively; 98 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunches.
The school’s budget is $2.9 million. There is an unspecified amount of additional federal funding as well.
It’s a mystery where the money is going.
The school nurse has no office. The school has rejected the concept of substitute teachers as well. When a teacher is absent, students are just herded into other classes.
There are no art classes. There are no gym classes. Instead, students watch movies—a lot of movies.
According to the Post, recent celluloid fare has included “Monsters, Inc.,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Fat Albert.”
“The kids have seen more movies than Siskel and Ebert,” quipped an unidentified source.
PS 106 was ravaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, which hasn’t helped matters at the school. The neighborhood around the isolated school is a wasteland.
A pre-kindergarten class currently occurs in the PS 106 auditorium—except during the throng of movies during which it moves to the cafeteria.
In another article, the Post reports that financially struggling parents who have fifth graders at PS 106 have been forced for at least the last three years to pay over $110 per kid for a ludicrously strange wedding ball of sorts.
The kids have to dress up like little brides and grooms—flowing white dresses, tuxedos, the whole bit.
Sills selects the duds for students to rent at places such as David’s Bridal and Men’s Wearhouse.
She is the star of the event, of course. At the 2013 version of the gala at a schmaltzy banquet hall called Russo’s on the Bay, Sills wore a strapless, flowing dress complete with elbow-length white gloves.
“This is a school where children are given a free breakfast and free lunch, and you’re asking them to pay money for a lavish, unnecessary event,” a former teacher at the dilapidated school told the Post.
“She’s evil,” another teacher, Patricia Walsh, added. “She finds pleasure in ruining people’s lives.”
This week, New York City’s new public schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, promised an investigation. On Monday, Fariña’s deputy, Dorita Gibson, appeared briefly at the school.
Also on Monday, the Post reports, Sills managed to drag her ass to school on time. An unidentified source told the Post that the fur-loving principal “hasn’t shown up that early in six or seven years.”
On Tuesday, when Sills showed up on time for a second consecutive day, angry parents jeered her.
“Booooo!” yelled one mad dad, according to the tabloid.
“Terrible! Terrible!” a woman hollered. “Terrible principal!”
This was at about 8:10 a.m.
About an hour earlier, Sills had pulled up in her fancy BMW and backed into her reserved parking space. After idling for a minute or so, though, she changed her mind and zoomed out of the parking lot.
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