Education

Meet America’s most soul-crushingly awful public elementary school principal

Font Size:

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.

Follow Eric on Twitter and on Facebook, and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel