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Mostly Cloudy Residents question new principal hire
Baldwin residents packed into the middle school auditorium on June 8 for the first Board of Education meeting since the district hired Caterina Lafergola, the controversial former principal of Automotive High School in Brooklyn. Lafergola will replace the retiring Susan Knors as principal of Baldwin High School next month.
Critics of Lafergola’s hiring cite reports in the New York Post about her work habits and her lack of leadership skills, according to some former teachers who worked under her. In the 2014-15 school year, a survey conducted by the New York City Department of Education found that only 58 percent of the students, teachers and parents who responded believed that the Automotive High School had effective leadership.
But the Baldwin School District is standing by its hire. District officials have cited an increase in AHS’s graduation rate by 11 percent from 2013 to 2015, and added that Lafergola increased work-based learning initiatives at the school, including job shadowing and internships.
“Ms. Lafergola has an outstanding vision for education, which parallels the hard work that has successfully taken place in Baldwin over the past two years,” Baldwin Superintendent Shari L. Camhi said in a statement. “She has the capacity, the will and the desire to make it happen.”
Lafergola’s opponents point to her tenure at the helm of a failing vocational school with mostly minority male students as a main reason why, they say, she is not the best candidate for the position.
“Having a proper preparation in the high school is pivotal,” said Shani Bruno, a Baldwin resident and a parent of children in the district. “If that’s not there, then our students, our children, will not go on to the Ivy League as they’ve been doing … The opposition that I hold is that this person has only been principal of a vocational school.”
Bruno has started a petition on change.org, urging the school to reopen the hiring process and not to move forward with Lafergola. The petition had more than 500 signatures as of press time.
A lengthy statement on the welcome page of the petition highlights facts from the city Education Department as well as articles from the Post. “Our greatest concern about this hiring decision,” it reads, “is that Baldwin High School will lose rather than gain on its long-standing track record of academic excellence and achievement.”
Before last week’s board meeting, the district held a meet-and-greet with Lafergola and parents. Reporters were prohibited from covering the event.
The search for a new principal began in January, Camhi said, when Knors informed her that she would be retiring. The search included input from faculty and parents, Camhi said.
Many parents and residents spoke out against the hire at the public portion of the meeting, but were told by the district’s attorney, Chris Venator, that board trustees could not comment on personnel matters, and that residents could not personally criticize district staff. This infuriated many in attendance, who demanded a forum in which to voice their displeasure with Lafergola’s hire. Venator explained that such discussions are welcome and should be held with Camhi in private.
“You may not do things illegally,” Baldwin resident David Welsh said, referring to the board’s decision to vote on Lafergola’s hire at a special board meeting on May 25, “but you do them wrong. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Susan Knors said that the high school is the flagship of the community, and you just hired the captain of the Titanic.”
Some did speak up in support of Lafergola. Matthew Salmon, a Farmingdale resident who is married to a Baldwin High graduate, is an AHS employee, and credited Lafergola for her leadership skills. “The people that I work for care about the students, care about the teaching and learning,” Salmon said. “Baldwin High School is lucky to have Ms. Lafergola employed.”
Lafergola will take over as principal of Baldwin High on July 1.
Nakeem Grant contributed to this story.
