Bronx principal keeps her job after imperiling the jobs of others
The city is keeping the principal of a Bronx high school in place, despite a report’s conclusion that she instructed her assistant principals to give teachers unsatisfactory ratings without ever watching them teach.
For public school teachers, an unsatisfactory rating on their annual observation can mean the beginning of the termination process. For Iris Blige, the principal of the Fordham High School of the Arts, “U” ratings were to be handed out to teachers she wanted to get rid of, regardless of how good they were in their classrooms.
A report by the Office of Special Investigations found that from 2007 to 2009, Blige told several of her assistant principals to give unsatisfactory ratings to half a dozen teachers before those teachers were formally observed.