“Trusting my children to someone like her is like trusting my child to a wild animal to be mauled,” former school board member Nereyda Robles writes in a statement to OIB, days after video capturing Tisdale School principal Carmen Perez Dickson dragging children down hallways was released publicly for the first time. Dickson was suspended last year for six months by the school board. Robles writes she would have voted for termination if still a member of the board. From Robles:
This principal has always been abusive. She just got caught. Everyone felt threatened by her political power and contacts. Her actions cannot be justified. Ask the ones who dealt with her on a daily basis, going back to Roosevelt School. She took advantage of the parents … had problems at Roosevelt, she would intimidate them.
She should have been DISMISSED, FIRED … ELIMINATED a long time ago from the whole board of education system! What kind of example are the educators giving? What happened to do unto others as you would like them be done to you? Trusting my children to someone like her is like trusting my child to a wild animal to be mauled. This is what the board of education has come to. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME, SHAME TO ALL WHO ACCEPT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR. THIS SHOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED, NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!
Ms. Robles,
I agree with you 100%. I can personally attest to some of the things you claim. You are absolutely correct.
I agree Ms. Robles, but my question is why wasn’t disciplinary action taken against her before her actions escalated to what was shown on the video? No one, absolutely no one should have tolerated her behavior. It appears she has been a brutal taskmaster for some time now, even prior to this last display of abominable behavior.
My wife and I have agreed to release the photos of the bruises our 10-year-old daughter obtained during the period she was on her school bus. We will tell the story of how the bus video was destroyed. Tamara has autism and is non-verbal.
When I was about 12 years old, I lived on the corner of State Street and Clinton Avenue where the Yellow Building used to be. One day I was walking near that corner and a man who was always hanging around there (a drunk to be clear) asked me to do him some favor. I refused and he suddenly became angry and started to yell at me and ended up slapping me on the face and knocked me to the ground. For years I held a deep hatred for this man and I swore when I was big I was going to get even. By the mid to late ’80s he would appear occasionally in the same area. I was very close to shooting him one time. Many other times I was right in front of him ready to knock his ass out and remind him of why I knocked him out if I saw him again after. For years I held a grudge and a strong desire to get even. I never acted on my desire and felt sorry for the drunk. During the past month I’ve come face to face with this man at 199 Yacht Street and the first thing that came to my mind was the slap to my face–he never seems to remember. I hope Dickson reads this and understand where I’m going with this. Children never forget their abusers. The children she has abused will grow up to be physically strong one day and they will remember her. Don’t stick around for too long as you may not be as lucky as the man who slapped me in 1978. Do the City of Bridgeport and yourself a big favor by resigning and moving far away. Otherwise, you run the risk of one day being the one getting dragged around or worse. I wonder if that drunk will be voting for me. Next time I see him, I will ask him for his vote if he is registered.
*** The politically correct answer would be a call for termination of this 30 year’s service, old school veteran teacher/administrator without giving a second thought to whatever good she’s done in the past while working at the Bpt Public Schools. Also without bringing up any past history where she may have bumped heads with other school staff or administrators. No, what you saw and heard should be just enough to make a 30-year life’s worth of dealing with all the ups and downs in a urban city’s public schools system type decision to terminate this woman’s career and flush it down the toilet because she made a wrong decision as an administrator, that’s taboo in the eyes of all those who watched that 30 second’s tape of her slowly dragging a motionless tantrum-throwing kid down an empty hallway! Seems the present BOE took into consideration, past, present and possible future actions by Ms. Dickson and rendered a fair, just decision in this case. Regardless of what seems politically correct in the eyes of others! ***
Mojo,
I am not sure we are working with the same set of facts in this situation so I will repeat a few simple questions to stake out the issue at hand:
1) Aren’t the three videos released by parents who got their copies courtesy of the Department of Families and Children order showing different days with different youth but the same Principal of a City School?
2) Why did the system take so long to recognize this behavior (over a 12-month period I have been told) and terminate a mid-level administrator in the school security system if the observed behavior falls within some portion of acceptable professional response to youth inappropriate behavior?
3) What current or future fiscal risks does the BOE open itself to (on behalf of the taxpaying public) because of the consequences meted out to the Principal in question?
Getting some answers to these questions would help me in forming a conclusion that attempts to be fair to all concerned. Will we get any of these answers? Or is the attempt to formulate such answers unsettling to those who have already made up their minds without considering answers to questions like these? Time will tell.
*** Though the three videos are separate incidents, they all show pretty much the “same youth behavior and reaction to that type of behavior” by Ms. Dickson. All empty hallways, with slow attempts to pick up the kid and then drag to a more isolated area by the administrator’s office. Again all done by a 30-year veteran public school teacher/principal who’s worked at several schools and has dealt with countless situations in the past and present while also understanding in this day and age styles of reprimanding, either by verbal or physical handling of unruly students has “changed,” especially with the presence of “school cameras” thrughout different areas of the school buildings recording anything and everything! However, Ms. Dickson being aware of these things and constant changes, goes along with her handling of these tantrum-throwing kids at three different times as though there’s nothing out of the ordinary in what’s happening and how she’s addressing the situation at hand? So I wonder, what is the behavior the system’s trained eye was suppose to pick up over the past 12-month period that did not fall under acceptable professional response to inappropriate youth behavior? And just who is responsible to mete out the consequences to the staff in question, the BOE, the media or the taxpaying public who only knows what they saw in a video or heard on the news? Also, regardless of the final outcome in the decision of the BOE, would it really be enough to stop a disgruntled parent from wanting to sue the Bpt Public Schools System anyway? The answer is “no!” *** CONSIDERING ALL THE SCHOOL CHANGES, THE EVERYDAY RESPONSIBILITIES FORCED ON SCHOOL STAFF AND THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN PARENTS, THEIR KIDS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STAFF, I FELT IT WAS A JUST DECISION BY THE BOE. ***