Assistant principal caught on camera in boozed-up hotel party
A Brooklyn school administrator was caught on camera holding a bottle of booze and falling off a bed at a raucous hotel-room party during an upstate planning retreat, sources said Sunday.
The revelation came a day after The Post revealed the drunken high jinks that took place during the taxpayer-funded retreat.
A cellphone photo shows Diana Rendon, assistant principal of Progress HS for Professional Careers, in Williamsburg, jumping on a bed with two other educators at a suburban conference center, sources said.
A 13-second video clip also shows Rendon, 33, struggling for balance before sliding off the bed as another woman shrieks and a man exclaims, “Oh, s–t!” the sources added.
The hotel room was packed with educators, some holding bottles, who were partying to loud music while a strobe light flashed in a corner, the video shows.
The hotel’s management had to call the cops to quiet down the boozy bash, but no one got arrested, sources said.
The party took place late May 16 and early May 17, 2015, during a “planning retreat” at the HNA Palisades Premier Conference Center in Palisades, NY, sources said.
Nearly the entire staff of Progress HS — about 60 employees — attended the event, at which the costs for food and lodging were paid for with tax dollars.
A school staffer who was there said a group of teachers was partying in the hotel room when Rendon showed up and joined in.
“I was surprised that it was OK,” the staffer said.
On Sunday, The Post revealed that Rendon walked in carrying a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
“She walked up to me, put it in my mouth and poured it down my throat, saying, ‘Drink! Drink! Drink!’ ” a source said.
“She was drunk. I was drunk. Everyone was drunk.”
The Department of Education has said that it “does not have regulations concerning [employees’] alcohol consumption off work time.”
But administrators and teachers can be subjected to discipline — ranging from a reprimand to firing — for “conduct unbecoming” their positions.
On Friday, Rendon denied allegations she got liquored up during the retreat by claiming she was pregnant at the time. “I don’t know how a seven-months-pregnant woman could be jumping on beds and drinking,” she said.
But Rendon also admitted during that interview that her baby was born on Sept. 1 of last year — meaning she didn’t get pregnant until around December, more than six months after the wild party.
Staffers said the images were brought to light because Rendon, despite her fun-loving behavior, was a bullying administrator who created a “culture of fear.”
At the end of the 2014-15 school year, some 25 teachers — nearly half the staff — left the school.
“It was posed as an optional weekend of professional development,” one employee said of the retreat. “But if you refused to go you would be retaliated against in the form of negative observations.”
Rendon is extremely close to Principal William Jusino, and calls the shots, the staffer said.
“She is the one is charge. Whatever she says goes.”
Rendon didn’t return requests for comment on Sunday.