When we posted the report about the tragic field trip taken by students at Columbia Secondary School, we noted that it had arrived in record time, less than a month after sixth-grader Nicole Suriel drowned at Long Beach. Today, we received a report that reflects a more typical timeline for the Special Commissioner of Investigation.
Today’s report is about a trip that several Beacon High School students took to Cuba — in 2007. A three-year investigation revealed that Beacon students had traveled to Cuba in previous years, that Principal Ruth Lacey had opposed the 2007 spring break trip, and that a Beacon teacher organized a trip anyway, with the help of a pacifist nonprofit. All of this should make headlines, except that newspapers reported most details within days of the group’s return — when the teacher, Nathan Turner, and five students were stopped while trying to reenter the country.
SCI chief Richard Condon is recommending that Turner, a Communist who posted pictures of Fidel Castro in his classroom, not be allowed to work in city schools. That would have been a useful recommendation two years ago, before Turner resigned from Beacon.
Why the delay? It’s unlikely that Condon’s office was preparing reports about charges of systemic misconduct, such as grade-changing and test-tampering, but one can only hope.