Four families have alleged that a NYC public school principal and teacher at PS 235 is bullying their students. Parents allege that their students have been mentally and physically abused with bullying tactics used by the school’s principal, Laurence Lord, and 5th grade teacher, Ms Rainbow, who is reportedly known within the school for flipping and throwing desks at students.
After one mother came forward on behalf of her 12-year-old, earlier this week, others followed including Giniva Rivera-Meija.
“As a parent of a 5-year-old who is currently enrolled in PS 235 in kindergarten, I am standing up to say my family was verbally abused, disrespected and berated by Mr. Lord when all we were asking him was why my 5-year-old after having been unsupervised on occasion and outside of the school bleeding from his face with no staff insight?” she said.
In response to the alleged bullying the Simpson, Rivera-Mejia, and Eltenberg families along with Tony Herbert, the President of the Brooklyn East Chapter of the National Action Network, held a rally outside of the school on March 21 to protest the alleged treatment of these parents and students.
“It troubles me that the four families that have come forward have been complaining and filing reports of abuse for sometime now with no substantive actions taken by the DOE,” said Herbert. “We have the responsibility as parents to sound the alarm and send the immediate message to those in charge that we want all bad teachers out of our school system now.”
Laurence Lord was not available for comment.