They should fire these teachers. And, they the parents should sue them.
The NY Daily News reported today that school investigators slammed Harlen school teachers over a beach field trip that ended in a student’s drowning. But what wasn’t said in earlier reports was that at least four other kids needed to be saved from the waters.
In a report released Wednesday, investigators bashed the staff at Columbia Secondary School for allowing kids in the water without lifeguards on duty.
Wh0 are these teachers? Who hired them? What were there superiors thinking? If anything.
Investigators also revealed that at least four other students were in distress and had to be rescued before sxith-grader Nicole Suriel drowned.
City officials said the obvious: “It was poor judgement for allowing kids in the unguarded water.” But I want to know who hired these people? Don’t they bear some of the responsibility?
Teaching intern Victoria Wong, 19, one of just three chaperones, said Bailey called out for help from the lifeguards when she saw her students struggling in the water.
“‘Where is the lifeguard?’” she screamed. They weren’t on duty. And, everyone who had responsibility for these children should have seen that.
Principal Jose Maldonado-Rivera and Stillman were faulted for poor planning. Poor planning? He should be charged with reckless endangerment of minors.
Both Stillman and Maldonado-Rivera spoke with investigators, insisting there was a clear policy at the school forbidding swimming when no lifeguard were on duty. Right take kids to the beach and tell them not to swim on a hot day. Right.
The 24 chaperones carefully watched over the 51 students from that school, making a circle around them, investigators found. But this effort clearly didn’t work. How did the kids end up in the deep six? The ocean is a dangerous place. It’s criminal to let kids swim in the Atlantic when guards are nowhere to be found.