Scandalized Bronx principal Sharron Smalls resigns, keeps paycheck

By Ben Chapman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012, 11:42 AM
Updated: Thursday, January 26, 2012, 12:30 PM

    
Principal Sharron Smalls of Jane Adams HS is still under investigation for fudging her students’ course credits.

Jane Addams principal, Sharron Smalls will resign Friday.

The disgraced principal of a Bronx high school embroiled in a massive course credit scandal has resigned.

Sharron Smalls - whose students received chemistry credits for cosmetology courses, endangering their graduations - will step down Friday.

The leader of Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers, who also landed in hot water for a Facebook picture in which a bare-chested stud hosed her down with chocolate, refused to explain her departure.

“I can’t comment on anything,” said Smalls, who will who continue to draw a city paycheck as an assistant principal.

City investigators are still probing Smalls -- who earns $140,000 a year -- for credit-fudging that may have affected nearly every student in the school.

Since 2008, administrators have given hundreds of kids credit for courses they never took, teachers and staff said.

A school-issued “Dual Credited Course Table” obtained by the Daily News used course codes to show teachers how to award bunk credits.

Furious teachers said Smalls perpetrated the scheme to make the F-rated school look better to Education Department brass. Tourism classes passed for geography courses and beauty classes for studying the periodic table, they said.

Days after the Daily News broke the story in December, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott downplayed the scandal, saying that investigators hadn’t found much evidence of wrongdoing.

But now agency officials have changed their tune, and guidance counselors have altered spring class schedules for more than 100 seniors to make up for missing math credits.

“This is a school that has been in distress for a long time,” said deputy schools Chancellor Marc Sternberg, who declined to comment on the progress of the city’s probe.

Two teachers told the News that they spotted Smalls shredding hundreds of papers in her office last week, prompting fears that the disgraced principal is destroying evidence.

“The city needs to seize all of the evidence and see how far this scandal really goes,” said math teacher Steve Tavano, adding, “Hundreds of kids who already graduated could be affected.”

Education officials will name a replacement for Smalls on Monday.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/scandalized-bronx-principal-sharron-smalls-resigns-paycheck-article-1.1012290#ixzz1ki69uqAu