By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A Communist teacher took 30 students from the Upper West Side's Beacon School on a 2007 spring break jaunt to Cuba, violating federal travel restrictions, according to a Department of Education report released Tuesday, the New York Times reported.
The report concluded that history teacher Nathan Turner, who resigned in 2008, should never work in a New York City school again. It also exonerated Beacon School principal Ruth Lacey, who told Turner not to go on the April 2007, 10-day trip, according to the Times.
Turner, who hung pictures of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro on his classroom walls, reportedly told Lacey that he had to see Fidel Castro one more time before the communist leader died. "You know, Ms. Lacey, I'm a Communist," he told her, according to the report.
Only college age students are allowed to visit Cuba, but students from Beacon, a selective public school, went in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 with the permission of the school and the Department of Education. Lacey said she didn't learn about the travel restrictions until later, according to the paper.
Rebuffed by Lacey, Turner went on to organize the 2007 trip on his own, with the help of religious non-profit Pastors for Peace; parents were told that it was not an official Department of Education trip, the Times reported.
