Saddled with old debts, a Brooklyn school blames decline on cuts
When a Brooklyn elementary school principal sunk her school nearly $180,000 in debt and was eventually removed from her post, teachers expected a fresh start.
Instead, they experienced the city’s typical solution for bankrupt schools: a payment plan.
P.S. 114 in Canarsie, Brooklyn was given four years to repay the city. Now that the city plans to begin closing the school next year, the teachers union, parents, and teachers are blaming the school’s decline on the debt left by a principal they asked the city to fire. City officials are calling this claim is unfair, since other schools manage to pay the city back while keeping their test scores up.
City schools can easily overspend if they don’t factor budget cuts and enrollment decreases into their spending plans. When this happens, the city doesn’t eat the loss and give the school a clean slate the next year. Instead, schools are put on payment plans in which they’re given several years to pay the city back. A spokeswoman for
