SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Due Process
Showing posts with label Due Process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Due Process. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

A Pervert Grows in Brooklyn Tech

As many others were I was appalled and sickened when I picked up the Daily News and read about the deviancy with students that Brooklyn Tech "teacher" Sean Shaynak allegedly committed.

According to the Daily News, Shaynake is accused of;
  • Taking a 15-year-old to a nude beach in New Jersey without permission and plying her with vodka, tequila and whisky until she passed out at his home.
  • Exchanging some 10,000 text messages with that same girl, in which he asked her to participate in lesbian sex with another student and told her about his experience with a ménage-à-trois and gay sex.
  • Giving another student perfect grades “regardless of the fact she did not do any assignments and left tests blank,” said prosecutor Joseph Mancino.
  • Forcing himself on that 18-year-old student when she resisted his attempt at intercourse.
  • Carrying on a “four-month sexual relationship” with yet another teen, which included a trip to an out-of-state gay-themed sex club where she watched him getting “serviced” by other men.
  • Taking that student on what prosecutors described as a “terror ride” from Queens to Brooklyn that ended with her hiding in the bushes and her teacher screaming and banging on his car. “He threatened to tell her parents,” Mancino said.
  • Sending full-frontal photos to four students, two of whom were minors.
  • Storing an extensive library of pornography in his computer, which included bestiality — sex acts between humans and dogs, horses and goat.
Yes, these all seem pretty damning. If true, it would be hard to disprove the allegations in regards to the full frontal monty shot and the text messages.

But what is this person thinking? He is a teacher, trusted to teach and protect the students he is charged with. Yes, a person who does such acts does not think of others and is selfish. Pedophiles usually are. If he was this hard up for attention and physical release and/or contact there were other ways, safer ways to satisfy his perversions.

But no matter how heinous the accusations are, no matter how angry we are, as parents of the students, as teachers, as human beings, he has every right to due process, full and equal protection under the law and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But according to tomorrow's Daily News, Shaynak was arrested, yet not charged in the beating of an 11 year old in Maryland in 2005, yet the DOE still hired him because he wasn't convicted.

That does not make sense. Yes he wasn't convicted, yet the child he had beaten had a restraining order. Why then did the principal and the DOE hire him? Is not someone at Tweed or Brooklyn Tech culpable for hiring this man? Should this not have been a red flag? ATR's are flagged for much, much, less and don't get hired.

At a time when teachers and tenure are under attack Shaynak is quickly becoming the poster boy of Campbell Brown and Mona Davids as to why teachers should not have tenure, should not have the right to due process, and labeling all teachers and predators.

Worse, Campbell and Mona will beat the drum that even while being held awaiting to be bailed out of jail Shaynak will still be collecting a salary of around $52k. But according to the UFT contract, and something the NYC media won't let anyone know, teacher's accused of sexual misconduct have their pay suspended for 90 days. In fact Mulgrew said in the Daily News;
 “The city has the ability to remove this person from payroll,"
 The in the words of Captain Picard, "Make it so!" The onus is now on the city.

But the city won't. The city doesn't want to. Why? They need a poster boy too. The city needs someone to collect their pay and sit and stew either in jail or a Rubber Room to give fodder to those that want to debase tenure, to cry pervert at every single allegation. Worse, the city and DOE will take the longest time to bring charges to dismiss him just to give the anti-tenure crowd more ammunition.

What to do? Do what they city has done to ATR's, bring an expedited 3020-a hearing. There is no way that this investigation can take over a year. Surely, the NYPD and Brooklyn DA's office can and will share information with the DOE. Again, time for the city and DOE to put it's money where it's mouth is.

We here at SBSB call for Shaynak to do the honorable thing and fall on his sword. We call for him to resign immediately or at the very least take an unpaid leave of absence. Again, we at SBSB are reiterating what was said above. He has the right to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. But accusations such as this call for some action for the greater good to be taken.

We feel for the families of the students affected directly by Shaynak, for the families indirectly affected as well as the entire Brooklyn Tech community.






Sunday, August 3, 2014

Another Reason Why Teachers Need Tenure Part 1(b)

Libel; a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.

I have been wanting to write for a few days about the article in the NY Post last week about a Queens middle school teacher and his relationship with a 14 year old student.

Now mind you, in no way is it being brought into question in this post whether or not he is guilty or innocent, or a little guilty or a little innocent, or condoning the actions of the teacher.

Let's cut to the chase. This teacher was dumb, stupid, and a schmuck for texting a student, especially with anything non-school related and so late at night.

Giving the student expensive gifts and was stupid and wrong.

Letting the student drive his car was stupid and wrong. 

Texting "I love you," no matter how innocuous was stupid and wrong.

Getting facts wrong and making a libelous comment is stupid and wrong.

When this story came out of course Mona Davids was among the first to spew off an opinion. The sad part is not only did Mona play loose and fast with the facts it appeared that she libeled this teacher.

In the Post article it mentioned that the student accused the teacher of; 
...letting him watch pornography in his apartment, according to a report by Richard Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for city schools
What Mona fails to realize is that the above is known as an "accusation." To help Mona understand what an "accusation" is, and for her to reference in the future, The Crack Team has decided to give her a place to reference;
a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong.
But that is not all. As one can see in the above tweet, Mona claimed (Shall we help Mona with the definition?) that the teacher watched kid porn with the student.

Does Mona know something we don't know. Does she have access to the hearing transcript?

There was not one mention of what type of porn was being watched. Yet Mona Davids magically was able to not only ascertain it was kid porn but knew as well that that accusation was substantiated by the hearing officer. Mona has magical powers, who knew?

But finagling with reality and the facts is par for the course with Mona. She has no problem calling someone, anyone who does not agree with her a racist or that that person doesn't care about children. Right Mona? Know what I mean, know what I mean? Nudge, nudge.

Heck Mona, one could look at one's Twitter feed of late and make an assumption that one is anti-Semitic, no?

We here at SBSB find it vile and offensive that Mona avoids fact checking and reality but the fact that she would stoop so low to publish a libelous statement we find reprehensible.

We call on Mona David to apologize for the libelous comment just as quickly and publicly as she did in making the statement and to promise never, never, never do it again.

This is why we need tenure. Do we know here at SBSB if the accusations the students made or true or not true? We have no idea. We were not there, we have not spoken to anyone involved, and we have not read the transcript.

As much as we find what this teacher did is wrong he has the right, a right embedded in the United States Constitution to due process. One person cannot be judge, juror, and prosecutor.

One person can't choose which parts of the Constitution to uphold or ignore.