It being reported that former Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina is now the leading candidate to become the next schools chancellor for Mayor Elect Bill deBlasio. The 70 year old Farina goes far back with deBlasio to when he was a member of School Board 15 which hired Farina as their Superintendent. Farina was also said to have been an unofficial advisor to candidate deBlasio, but has said that she was not interested in taking the position of schools chancellor. Her position seems to be changing however with the ever shrinking list of other possible contenders for the position of schools chancellor, and most of those others favoring the school closure model of the Bloomberg administration deBlasio has said he is against.
Farina comes with some baggage however. She is thought to have retired in 2006 from the DOE amid controversy that she had allowed a New York City Principal who lived in New Jersey have his child placed in PS 29 (where Farina had once been principal of) before an investigation was completed by the office of the Special Schools Investigator in a story here. The principal was forced to pay the city $19,441,00 for four years of tuition and resigned. Many other stories have been found about Carmen Farina and her rise to power from teacher to principal to District 15 superintendent to Deputy Chancellor of the NYC DOE.
As a former member of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Panel When Ms. Farina was appointed to the position of Deputy Chancellor I found Ms. Farina to be harsh, and not a person that was friendly to parents. She may continue the "My Way or the Highway" attitude of her former boss Michael Bloomberg, and it would be a mistake for Mayor Elect Bill deBlasio to appoint her as Schools Chancellor.
