12 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2018
HEMPSTEAD
SCHOOL
CRISIS
IN THE NEWS
SUPERINTENDENT CHARGED
BOARD SEEKS REMOVAL
BY ALAN KRAWITZ
In the latest news to rock Hempstead
Public Schools, its board of education
voted recently to bring charges
against former Superintendent
Shimon Waronker, who has been
suspended with pay since January.
Waronker, who was hired in May
2017 to help usher in sweeping reforms,
had alleged corruption in the
embattled district, which has struggled
for decades with violence, one of
the nation’s lowest graduation rates,
school board infighting, poor attendance
and crumbling classrooms.
The charges leveled against Waronker
by the board include bid-rigging,
conflict of interest, official misconduct,
and dozens of other charges. His
attorney called the charges “false and
contrived,” arguing that the board is
attacking the credibility of his client
to try and mask its own misdeeds,
mismanagement and theft.
“What is a shame is that this
board of education has chosen to
follow a path of denial of the real
concerns facing the district and the
children of Hempstead,” Waronker’s
attorney, Frederick Brewington, said
in a statement.
The charges stem mainly from
Waronker’s using New American
Initiative (NAI), a nonprofit he founded
prior to his hiring to reform the
district. Waronker has repeatedly
claimed that he had severed ties with
NAI and was no longer receiving any
compensation from the organization.
“What we are looking at in this
affidavit is the latest round in an
ongoing battle between political
factions vying to control Hempstead
schools,” says Alan Singer, a Hofstra
University professor of teaching,
learning and technology, noting that
he was not defending the decision to
hire Waronker.
Singer adds that Waronker was
hired by a former board majority that
was well aware of his involvement
with NAI and that Waronker never
hid this involvement.
“His relationship with New American
Initiative appears to be one of
the reasons he was hired,” Singer
says. “The affidavit makes clear that
Hempstead High Shool students are caught in the crossfire of the board dispute. (Long Island Press photo)
the former school board majority
approved his fast-track contract with
the organization.”
In part, the charges state, “You
misled the district and expressly misrepresented
the facts, pretending that
you no longer had a professional or
financial relationship with the NAI,
implying falsely that your interests
in the NAI had been severed, and
deceptively presenting your relationship
and interests in the NAI in
the past tense.”
Singer adds that the other examples
of claimed “gross misconduct”
all involve ongoing problems in the
district, especially deteriorating
building and grounds and gang-related
violence.
“Waronker did not cause these
problems and there is no way he
could have addressed them in the
short period he was actively superintendent,”
Singer says. “What is
clear is that this is fundamentally a
political battle for control over the
Hempstead school district.”
On the front lines of that battle are
board members facing questions of
their own. The board majority is affiliated
with Hempstead for Hempstead,
a civic group led by a convicted sex
offender. One board member, Randy
Stith, is a former Hempstead village
police officer who was arrested in
April on charges of theft and fraud.
Najee Jeremiah, the founder
of the educational technology
company YsUp, says the main
problems in the district were
the Alverta B. GRay Shultz
Middle School and Hempstead
High School, his alma
mater.
“There are so many
different reasons why kids
fight in the halls, drop out of
school and join gangs … it’s a
very complex problem,” Jeremiah
says. “I don’t think the
district really needs a new
superintendent to take over
things but what they do need
is like a Joe Clark-type character,”
he says, referring to the
tough principal portrayed by
Morgan Freeman in the film
Lean on Me who sought to
bring order to a chaotic urban East
Side High school in Paterson, New
Jersey.
Jeremiah, who graduated 11th in
his class and then went on to Howard
University, says they have some
“really great teachers in Hempstead
High School and that’s where people
get things messed up,” he said. Many
students face economic adversity
that extends into their schooling;
Jeremiah recalls, for example,
a friend who had to drop out
and get a job to help his parents,
who were about to lose
their home.
Both a state comptroller
audit and state education
department review are ongoing
in the district and there
remains the specter of a state
takeover of the district.
At press time, Waronker had
yet to decide on whether the
hearing on the charges is public
or private.
Shimon Waronker