Schools chancellor, Congresswoman trade heated tweets over school safety
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DOE Chancellor Richard Carranza (left) ended a town hall meeting in Bayside earlier this month after attendees began yelling at him. U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (right) sparred with him on Twitter Tuesday. AP Photos/Richard Drew and Mark Lennihan.
By Jonathan Sperling
The embers of a heated town hall meeting between the DOE and the Northeast Queens community reignited Tuesday, with the New York City Schools chancellor exchanging heated tweets with a Queens congresswoman.
U.S. Rep. Grace Meng criticized Chancellor Richard Carranza for his decision to walk out of a Jan. 16 town hall meeting with parents of students at a Bayside middle school. The attendees jeered Carranza and faulted him for an uptick in violence at M.S. 158, the Marie Curie School. At a press conference Tuesday, Carranza called the event a “setup” and blamed outside “agitators” for the chaotic meeting.
“I will meet with parents, but I will not be set up, especially when that meeting couldn't be controlled,” Carranza said Tuesday. He didn’t “even know if they [were] parents,” he added, referring to two people who yelled questions at the meeting.
Amid the drama, Brooklyn Councilmember Brad Lander tweeted his support for Carranza’s push to bring “equity & integration” to the city’s schools.
“Richard Carranza has had the courage to insist on hard conversations & push for change. We're lucky he has,” Lander tweeted Tuesday night.
But in a tweet reply to both Lander and Carranza, Meng said that Northeast Queens lawmakers’ beef with Carranza has nothing to do with school integration — a separate, and perhaps equally volatile issue in another part of Queens — but rather reports of student fights and sexual harassment running rampant at the Marie Curie Middle School.
Carranza and the DOE abruptly ended the Jan. 16 town hall after the parent of the student who was sexually harassed confronted Carranza, and the crowd began to yell at him. A DOE spokesperson told QNS.com that the town hall meeting ended after it became clear that they were going to be unable to have a “productive conversation” with residents.
“Councilman [Lander], respectfully you have the wrong issue. This was about a situation where local parents were telling him about their children being assaulted. He abruptly left the meeting. These parents were hurt and not pretending. They deserve compassion and the truth.” Meng said in the tweet.
Minutes later, Carranza fired back at Meng in a tweet where he stressed that he and Meng had spoken multiple times about the incidents at the Bayside school.
“No. Enough. I’ve spoken to you personally 4 times about these issues,” Carranza’s tweet said. “You know our superintendent, executive superintendent, and a myriad of support staff are involved.”
Meng replied, clarifying that the Carranza and DOE staff had been responsive to the issue, but also urging the chancellor to not accuse Northeast Queens community members “of pretending or grandstanding.”
“They are hurt and deserve to be treated with compassion.” Meng continued.
The exchange continued, with Carranza asking Meng to work with DOE staff and accusing the congressmember of injecting politics into the issue.
“Then as I have pledged - work directly with the staff I have directed to silence the issue. No more politics.” Carranza tweeted.
Meng rebutted, capping off her exchange with Carranza.
“I’m not playing politics. But please don’t name call or accuse my constituents,” the congressmember tweeted.
Carranza has repeatedly fended off criticism from Northeastern Queens lawmakers and their constituents in the wake of the Jan. 16 town hall meeting. Several lawmakers have sent a letter to Carranza calling for a public meeting on school safety, including Meng, State Sen. John Liu, Assemblymembers Edward Braunstein and Nily Rozic, and Councilmembers Barry Grodenchik, Peter Koo and Paul Vallone.
In a statement to the Eagle on Tuesday, Liu said that Carranza should issue an apology for past comments on the Jan. 16 meeting.
“Chancellor Carranza’s comments today displayed at best lack of judgment and at worst woeful disregard for parent concerns. It’s disturbing that he would marginalize the voices of hundreds of parents at an education town hall meeting by characterizing the meeting as a ‘set up’ and fixating on some participants as ‘outside agitators.’ It’s downright shocking for him to suggest that parents concerned about their children being assaulted might have only been pretenders,” Liu said.
