A Friendly Warning from a helpful source....

I'm excerpting an email I got from a source I don't want to disclose right now because after reading other material I've researched, they've already been through enough of a hard time with the DOE. But I felt I needed to post this because this is the agency that we're trusting with our childrens' education; this is the organization that has total control over public education in NYC and chooses to ignore what communities say to protest their decisions. I'm posting this here because I want the public to be aware of what we're up against when we challenge the DOE.

"A word of advice, be careful. The DOE
will resort to anything to get what they want.Keep your teachers and
administrators out of your fight. The DOE will send their Gestapo organization,
the Office of Investigative services (OIS), after them and ruin their careers...
OIS has no oversight, will never release reports of their investigations and are
really scary. I don't want to scare you, but be SO careful, and keep meticulous
records.You are right, the charter school is probably in violation of NY State
regulations, but winning your battle will require deep pockets and political
protection."

The last thing I want to do is cause problems for PS15 or any other school or their administrators, but if left unchecked, the DOE will continue to do whatever they can get away with. Where and when do we say "enough is enough"? The back story that goes along with the larger email the excerpt below is taken from involves a high functioning public school that was essentially abandoned and gutted by the DOE as a retaliatory measure after parents won a case against having a charter school c0-sited in their building. According to the source, the administration and PTA of the school were also harrassed viciously by the DOE following the lawsuit. The DOE apparently feels that "winning", even through punitive measures, is more important than serving the public by providing a decent public school education to our children - and our children deserve better than merely decent. Please keep in mind that the DOE also operates the charter schools, and appear to favor them over traditional public schools, and the charter schools are being allowed to act as parasites on the public school system when they co-locate within public school buildings. Why should this be tolerated?

We need to get as many politicians in our corner as possible - and make sure we have their full support. The Mayor and Chancellor need to be put on notice that this way of operating is unacceptable and not to be tolerated. The press needs to be kept informed of each and every incident. School administrators, PTA and parent groups should not be harrassed and intimidated. Our children should not be forced to attend schools operated by petty and vindictive agencies that don't put their interests first, all the time.