The principal
Principal Jazmine Santiago heads PS 269 in Flatbush, New York, a troubled elementary school where last year only 16 percent of the students passed state English exams and only 12 percent passed math. Yet she used scarce school funds to install her own private gym on the third floor, complete with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser.
Questioned about the gym by her staff, Santiago claimed she allowed older students to use the equipment. That would be the K through 5 school’s eleven-year-olds, most of whom are under five feet tall. The adult-sized exercise gear in the principal’s work-out palace would be almost impossible, not to mention dangerous, for children to use.
Santiago has had her job for four years and now makes $124,319 annually. Jonathan Turley notes that since the gym is technically a school improvement and not personal enrichment, she has avoided criminal liability. Well, that’s nice. She is still spectacularly unethical: selfish, irresponsible, incompetent, unfair, wasteful, untrustworthy.
State Department of Education spokesman Harry Hartfield said the matter of the principal and her private gym will be investigated. It shouldn’t take long: the photo above should tell them everything they need to know.
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Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
Facts: New York Post
Ethics Alarms 
Anyone wanna put money that the principal comments here?
Ooooh! Good guess!
Only a good guess if she actually comments…
I’m surprised at you! Pure moral luck! It’s a good guess now…it my be proved a good guess that was wrong, but that’s outside your control. Like that time I bet all my chips on my four 7s in Vegas. It was a good bet, the right bet. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a losing bet, because the little old man next to me who looked like he had a kings over boat had four tens. Damn it.
Caramba!! I predict she’ll get promoted to De Blasio’s staff as education advisor.
Side topic: I googled the principal, and the first hit is this article in People: http://www.people.com/article/new-york-principal-uses-school-funds-private-gym. Notice the photo of a large, well-appointed gym, which readers might assume is her gym. In small print, though, it says “File Photo” underneath. Ethical?
I don’t think very many public schools have a loft level for such a personal gym. Only unethical if using Pazuzu to illustrate a blog entry about a US Senator’s comments is unethical…
No, I hate that small print stuff, like the disclaimers in tiny print after miraculous weight loss stories. Unethical: the photo was obviously misleading, and intended to be.
I wonder what makes someone think that this is even remotely a good idea. I mean even if all the kids moved on successfully to higher level schools and it was a top notch school this wouldn’t pass the smell test.
But just think, in a couple of years when those 5th graders have to repeat the 5th grade a few times, they may very well be able to use the gym.
Now that’s seeing the bright side!
Monty Python sang words of wisdom. Always look on the bright side of life.
Unethical? Nope. Ridiculous? Nah. Perfectly reasonable expenditure of public school funds, in my never to be humble opinion. I mean, public schools spend large sums of cash on athletic facilities, football and basketball and baseball and soccer stadiums. Is it too much to ask to take care of the public school principals, to give them an opportunity to get a good work out in between their difficult, challenging jobs? Every school principal needs a private gym or exercise facility.
Let’s face it: Public school principaldoom is a thankless, anxiety-riddled, and woefully under-appreciated occupation, what with having to deal with dress codes, anti-bulling campaigns, disciplining 4 and 5 year olds for munching their Pop-Tarts into dangerous weapons, keeping track of high school students’ off-campus complaints about too-strict teachers, and somehow mold the vulnerable, thirsty minds of pre-and-post-adolents with their pearls of wisdom (and yes, even if it means ‘borrowing’ from another intellectual giant for inspirational advice published in the yearbook). The principal needs time to recharge batteries. What better than working out before Detention Hall?
This principal, the Illustrious Jazmine Santiago, is a role model, I tell you. A role model! Don’t you understand? Her young charges will look upon her toned physique with awe and admiration, especially when they see her captaining her very own yacht, which she earned from her years of dedication, commitment, struggle, and yes, her daily exercise routine. One day they, too, will be able to reach the bar to complete a set of lateral pull-downs. This will state, unequivocally and without reservation, that perseverance and discipline are their own virtues: “You can look like me and be just as successful if you do your homework and keep up with Pilates, leg lifts, and crunches, along with bench presses, and a good diet as prescribed by Department of Education.”
jvb
I hear her next plan to solve the school lunch budget shortfalls is to eat all the low income students too…
Wait, I thought Lucky was the sarcasmmeister on this site.
I would like to think I have taught and inspired others to do even better.
PS Well done, jvb! I got stuck on pondering the incongruity of the photo and its relevance to some place called Flatbush.
Lucky:
Thanks. I worked a lot on that post to make it properly snarky. And yes, you have taught and inspired me.
jvb
Is there a noun for “one who uses sarcasm”?
I’ve always called them “sarcasts”…
But sarcasmist?
Sarcasmmeister
You could make “sarcastic” a noun, like comic.
“Meister” is bourgeois-fail, even if you’re trying to fight fire with fire.
“-asm” is SO much better than “-ism.” World is already way too full of -isms and -ists.