By Simone Sebastian
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CENTRAL HARLEM — Teachers at a Harlem school where a 12-year-old girl drowned during a class field trip to the beach are crying foul over the weak punishment imposed on the school's principal, the New York Times reported.
Nicole Suriel's teacher, Erin Bailey, 26, was fired and her assistant principal demoted to teacher for their roles in the fatal Long Beach trip. But the Department of Education is allowing Principal Jose Maldonado-Rivera to keep his job.
Maldonado-Rivera will lose his tenure status, according to the DOE and have to serve two years of probation, said spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz. He had been granted tenure in April, but it didn't become effective until after the fatal incident, according to the New York Post.
The principal routinely allowed under-supervised field trips, several of the school's teachers told the Times. There were just three adults chaperoning 24 students during the Long Beach trip, and one of them was a 19-year-old intern while the other was Erin Bailey's boyfriend, who did not know how to swim.
"There was none of ‘This is what you should be doing, this is what you should not be doing,’" Social studies teacher Chris Jones told the Times. "We were all on our own for these trips.”
The teachers revealed to the Times that Maldonado-Rivera was a tough boss, and admitted to tensions between him and staff.
Suriel, 12, was trapped in a riptide with four classmates during their June 22 trip to Long Beach. The other children were rescued, but Suriel drowned. It took rescuers more than an hour to discover her body.
A report on the incident released Wednesday by the city Special Commissioner for Investigation criticized Maldonadoo-Rivera along with Assistant Principal Andrew Stillman and teacher Erin Bailey for a series of missteps in the planning and chaperoning of the field trip.
