An angry city teacher recently sprung from a rubber room spewed online threats against the children involved in a lawsuit to end tenure in New York state, the kids’ parents claim.
Franceso Portelos, who was allowed to return to teaching even though charges against him were substantiated, darkly tweeted that another teacher should “look away” from helping the kids of Sam Pirozollo and Mona Davids, who claim tenure protects lousy educators.
“U need your protection removed so if you see a disservice to little Franklin P or Eric D u look away,” Portelos said under his twitter handle, Mr. Portelos.
He was discussing Franklin Pirozollo and Eric Davids, who are among students named in the suit.
Mona Davids, a member of the Parents Union, responded on Twitter: “ru encouraging tcher 2 ignore a child in need.” An hour later, Davids tweeted: “We are taking this threat very seriously.”
On Monday night, Davids said, “He’s targeting our children, my son.”
Portelos denied ill intent.
“No. It was a sarcastic tweet to another teacher,” he said Monday night, while joining 60 other teachers and union activists who showed up at a Staten Island Community Education Community Council meeting to protest the anti-tenure lawsuit.
Portelos also discussed the personal details of the student-plaintiffs on his blog site, protectportelos.org.
He posted a link to a New York Times article about another student-plaintiff in the case, Izaiyah Ewers, who is identified as having a mood disorder and acting out. The report also said the youngster’s mom entered homeless shelters to avoid an abusive husband.
“Really unfortunate story, but . . . Teacher’s fault?” Portelos asks.
Despite his whining, Portelos seems to be the epitome of the kind of teacher for whom the Parents Union is pressing the suit.
Even though a a report by Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon’s office substantiated allegations that he tampered with a school website, and posted student information on his personal website, a state arbitrator refused a city DOE request that he be fired.
He was fined $10,000, and some parents at Staten Island’s Dreyfus Intermediate School 49 defended him as a good teacher.
But the city Department of Education placed him in the absent-teacher reserve pool instead of reassigning him to Dreyfus.