Latest news with #PS21
Sky News AU
2 days ago
- Sky News AU
NYC principal's ‘illicit' affair with younger teacher exposed by scorned wife after helping lover get tenure: probe
The furious wife of a philandering Staten Island principal blew the whistle on her husband's affair with a younger teacher at his school, where he helped his lover win tenure, The Post has learned. Principal Anthony Cosentino, 43, engaged in a 'consensual sexual relationship' with the married staffer, Jacqueline Sinodinos, 28, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools found in a newly released report accusing him of possibly violating the city's conflict-of-interest rules. The scandal broke up two marriages. Both Cosentino's wife and Sinodinos' husband filed for divorce. After receiving an SCI report on the alleged misconduct in July 2024, the city Department of Education removed Cosentino, 43, from PS 21 in North Shore. But he remained on the DOE payroll making $187,632 despite what SCI Anastasia Coleman called 'an absence of judgment and professionalism.' Coleman recommended 'strong discipline, up to and including termination' of Cosentino. Instead, he may get a new assignment as principal of another school in the borough, sources said. In March 2024, Cosentino's wife – a DOE teacher at another school – filed a complaint with SCI that her husband had carried on an 'illicit sexual relationship' with Sinodinos since June 2023, and given her extra school funds to spend on a Thanksgiving party and other festivities for her class. The DOE had already received a complaint in November 2023 that Cosentino was engaging in an extramarital affair with the teacher and giving her preferential treatment, the SCI says. It's unknown what, if anything, the DOE did about it. SCI received another complaint in February 2024, and launched its own probe. Romantic relationships between co-workers are not forbidden by the city Conflicts of Interest Board unless they involve a financial component, or when 'a superior has the power to affect … a person's employment, including the power to evaluate job performance, assign work, or approve leave requests.' Cosentino finally admitted his extramarital relationship to another DOE administrator, while insisting it involved no special considerations or financial favors. But SCI learned he gave Sinodinos 'highly favorable' reviews and and recommended her for tenure – a permanent job status with due-process rights and protection from firing. Teachers typically come up for tenure after four years. His confession came only after Sinodinos won tenure in January 2024. Another administrator who approved her tenure had 'suspicions of bias' by Cosentino – but found no evidence the teacher didn't deserve it, the SCI reports. Sinodinos made $77,771 in 2024. In other questionable conduct, Sinodinos tried to enroll her son in a 3-K program at PS 21, though the child was zoned for another Staten Island school. It's unclear whether PS 21 accepted him. Meanwhile, Sinodinos' husband filed for divorce in July 2024. Their split was finalized in June, court records show. Cosentino's wife sued for divorce in October. That breakup is pending. The turmoil comes as SCI completed another investigation which, sources said, found Cosentino 'negligent' for failing to adequately supervise the school's purchasing secretary, Michele Cenci, who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $145,000 from PS 21 coffers over seven years. Sinodinos, described as a friend of Cenci, had pumped Cosentino for information on that probe, the SCI said. Instead of terminating Cosentino, the DOE plans to assign him as principal of PS 3 The Margaret Gioiosa School in Elm Park, sources said. 'These documented failures in judgment and oversight raise a tremendous amount of concerns for the school community We don't understand how this individual could be cleared to run an elementary school or still manage to work under a license that should have been revoked,' an outraged PS 3 parent told The Post. 'Our students, the staff and families deserve a leader that exemplifies integrity and accountability for their actions. P.S. 3 deserves better and our leaders in District 31 should feel the same way.' DOE spokeswoman Chyann Tull said Cosentino 'is not currently assigned to P.S. 3,' where a retiring principal will be replaced. 'We take all allegations of this kind seriously, and always follow established protocols to ensure the safety and well-being of our school communities,' Tull said. Cosentino and Sinodinos did not reply to requests for comments. Both declined to be interviewed by investigators, 'citing their tenured status,' the SCI reported. Originally published as NYC principal's 'illicit' affair with younger teacher exposed by scorned wife after helping lover get tenure: probe
Daily Mail
02-08-2025
- Daily Mail
Outrageously forgiving sentence for secretary who embezzled $150K from elementary school
A New York City secretary who admitted embezzling $145,000 from the elementary school where she worked has avoided jail. Michele Cenci, 55, of Staten Island, exploited her full access to the checkbook and purchasing system at PS 21 Margaret Emery-Elm Park, quietly diverting school funds to herself and her family for over seven years. She pleaded guilty to one count of grand larceny this week, securing a deal that sentenced her to five years of probation instead of prison time, as reported by The New York Post. 'While my office fought for even more serious consequences, including imprisonment, for Ms. Cenci's shameless criminal behavior, the judge's plea offer ensures some semblance of accountability for her criminal acts,' Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon told the outlet. In January 2024, Cenci was arraigned on an 18-count indictment for stealing nearly $150,000 over the course of her career. Cenci used the stolen funds to 'supplement' her $84,950 Department of Education (DOE) salary, all at the expense of PS 21's 398 students, a third of whom have disabilities. 'This defendant's alleged crimes over a period of several years robbed the students and staff of PS 21 of funds meant to be used for books, materials, and other supplies to support the pursuit of a high-quality education for Staten Islanders as young as five years old,' McMahon said. Officials said Cenci used a variety of deceptive tactics to steal from the school, including writing 127 checks totaling nearly $89,000 to herself and to family members' accounts she controlled. Cenci, who full access to the checkbook and purchasing system at PS 21 Margaret Emery-Elm Park (pictured), used the stolen funds to 'supplement' her Department of Education (DOE) salary - totaling $84,950 in 2024 - all at the expense of the school's 398 students She disguised the checks as legitimate vendor payments or fake reimbursements, some for purchases that never happened, others as duplicates of real expenses and some made out to other staff members. 'Instead, she was lining her own pockets,' Anastasia Coleman, Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools, said. Cenci also used the school's payment system a staggering 257 times to take an additional $56,000 in a similar way. In January, the district attorney charged Cenci with two counts of grand larceny, a felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison. She was slapped with handed charges of tampering with public records, falsifying business records and forgery. Although she initially pleaded not guilty, State Supreme Court Judge Lisa Gray offered Cenci a plea deal that spared her prison time, despite objections from the prosecutor, McMahon told The Post. In addition to a five-year probation period, Cenci agreed to pay $46,000 upfront in restitution, followed by monthly payments of $1,500 until her probation ends. The ultimate goal of her sentence is to ensure that she 'pays back every dollar and cent she robbed from our students', McMahon added. 'Every single day, thousands of Staten Islanders travel to work in our borough's public schools to honestly and earnestly do the best possible job they can on behalf of our children, so when the trust we place in them to do that job is broken, there must be serious consequences,' he said. Following Cenci's indictment, Coleman issued a sharp warning to deter similar fraud schemes from taking root anywhere else in the city. 'We ask that all school administrators take the time to review their school's budget, books and records to ensure that their funds are being allocated appropriately, and that no one else is attempting the same sort of scheme,' she said. The Department of Education, according to The Post, confirmed that Cenci has since retired.
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
PS21, a Hub for Forward-Looking Art Upstate, Names a New Director
PS21, a newly prominent center for contemporary performance in Chatham, N.Y., has a new artistic and executive director, it announced on Thursday. Vallejo Gantner has already stepped into the role. Gantner comes to the position from a long career in arts administration, including leading the similarly named but unconnected East Village theater PS122 (now Performance Space New York) from 2005 to 2017. 'I'm looking forward to maintaining a trajectory of seeking out work by the most exciting artists in the world and demonstrating what can be done outside of the usual urban artistic centers,' Vallejo said in an interview. Founded in 2006 by the local philanthropist and conservationist Judy Grunberg, PS21 presented shows in a tent on its 100-acre site until 2018, when it opened a state-of-the-art proscenium stage with roofed open-air seating. (It can also be converted to a black box theater.) The next year, just before Grunberg died, the center hired its first artistic and executive director, Elena Siyanko, who quickly established PS21 as an internationally recognized destination for new music, experimental dance, circus arts and genre-blurring performance. The current season — which starts on May 30 with the Hatched Ensemble, led by the South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza — was organized by Siyanko, who left at the end of last year to work on projects like Down to Earth, a new multidisciplinary festival in New York City. But Vallejo said he planned to introduce new programming as early as the winter. 'I want to think about what we can do when it's dark and cold and local businesses are suffering,' he said. 'We're going to turn that bug into a feature and build out programs that speak to local audiences.' In addition to taking better advantage of the center's grounds and looking more deeply into its ecology and Indigenous history, Vallejo's vision for the future of PS21 is centered on that kind of audience expansion. 'We're going to increase the quantity of work that is engaged with long-term, multigenerational local residents and communities that the venue might not have served,' he said. 'This is a moment, politically and culturally, when we need to be going outside of our comfort zones and trying to speak with people who might not necessarily think like us.' He cited Siyanko's practice of requiring all artists to engage in community workshops as a good start. The arts are under threat, he said, citing the cost of urban real estate and the changing priorities of institutional funders and the federal government, as well as what he called 'a crisis of relevance.' In facing these challenges, PS21 has some advantages, including access to a different donor base and grants earmarked for rural communities. But Vallejo also noted a difference in attitude among local donors and arts lovers. 'In the city,' he said, 'the arts are often taken for granted, but I don't think that complacency exists up here. You can make a difference in Chatham.' Siyanko agreed, though her next project is focused on New York City. The Down to Earth Festival, debuting in September, will bring performances to the stages of the City University of New York and to city parks. 'The need for the festival is really obvious,' she said in an interview. 'In the New York performing arts scene, there is a glut of expensive new real estate, from the Shed to the Perelman Arts Center, with overpaid executives and tickets so expensive that the majority of New Yorkers can't afford to go.' To counter these trends, the Down to Earth performances will be free. And by presenting on CUNY stages and in parks 'without the extravagant resources of destination ZIP codes,' she said, the festival seeks to meet new audiences in their own spaces. This is an idea that Siyanko first tried at PS21, bringing events to Crellin Park in Chatham. When Amoukanama Circus gave a free performance there in 2023, 800 attended. 'The people who came to Crellin Park simply were not the same who used to come to PS21,' she said. Siyanko and Down to Earth's co-director, Frank Hentschker, the longtime executive director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center, are relying mainly on private donors — a safer bet, Siyanko said, at a time when federal arts funding may not be reliable. (During Siyanko's tenure at PS21, she greatly expanded the donor base and grew the organization's board from a few of the founder's friends to a formidable collection of philanthropists and artists.) Along with an edition of Prelude, the Segal Center's annual experimental theater festival, the inaugural season of Down to Earth will include the tightrope walker Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga, whose performances rope in the public; acrobats from Senegal's only circus troupe; a British installation opera sung by New York's Master Voices in Green-Wood Cemetery; local flex dancers; and an Italian work that makes music from jump roping. 'New York feels more atomized than ever,' Siyanko said. 'We hope that this kind of creation in public spaces will help bring people together.'
