Parents, students show support for Sewanhaka principal

Shouts of “Let her speak!” broke out at the Central High School District Board of Education’s Feb. 25 meeting when board President David Del Santo cut off Sewanhaka Student Council Vice President Nia Stewart’s speech in support of Principal Christopher Salinas after he was denied tenure. Del Santo cited a board policy that prevents residents from speaking about personnel issues at a public meeting.

“We’re not trying to cut you off,” Bernadette Gallagher-Gaffney, the board attorney, explained. “You have to understand that anytime somebody gets up to talk about a student by their name, or maybe a parent has something to say or somebody’s not happy with somebody who works in the district, we can’t have them come to the microphone . . . [and] we need to apply the rules fairly.”

Stewart and the almost 100 other Sewanhaka parents and students were there to show support for Salinas.

According to Parent Teacher Student Association President Judy Staiano, district officials denied Salinas’s tenure earlier in the month, and students and parents were told they could submit letters to the board opposing the decision. But, she said, no one received confirmation that the board received their letters, and so people prepared speeches about Salinas to be read in front of the board. Some created a Change.org petition asking the board to grant Salinas tenure. As of March 2, it had 900 signatures.

“He’s such a great guy,” Staiano said of Salinas, adding, “Students know they could go to him for anything.

District officials and Salinas declined to comment.

Salinas became the Sewanhaka High School principal in 2016, after PTSA presidents met with three candidates for the position. “We provided our feedback on each candidate, but we all knew that Dr. Salinas had the leadership qualities of a great principal, and was the only person for the job,” Lee-Ann Cruz recounted. “He was someone we knew could bring the change to Sewanhaka High School that it needed.”

When he took over, they said, he implemented a weekly Spirit Day contest for students, and recognized student accomplishments with his weekly Principal Awards. He kept parents informed with weekly updates, Staiano said, and directed traffic at drop-off and dismissal times daily. “He wanted to make a difference,” she said, adding that Salinas walked to Landau Avenue daily after school to prevent fights.

Since Salinas started, Staiano said, more students are taking Advanced Placement courses and are scoring higher on Regents exams. Once, she said, he shadowed a student who was having difficulty with science to see firsthand where he needed improvement.

Salinas also promotes the school’s after-school programs. He created the Men of Elmont mentorship program, according to Student Council President Oumar Cisse, and attends the meetings every Tuesday. This year, he also brought the Model United Nations students to see the U.N. in Manhattan, and arranged for them to speak there next year.

On a personal level, students and parents said, he welcomes each of the more than 1,600 pupils into the building each day, and tries to get to know them. Junior Karina Thomas said, on the day of the Board of Education meeting, Salinas pulled her aside to send his condolences on the recent death of her grandfather.

“He goes above and beyond each day to make sure that we are seen and cared for, not only as students, but as human beings,” she would have told the board that night. “The school is better for it.”

But now Sewanhaka parents and students said they feel their voices are not being heard. Staiano told board members that they were shutting down the Sewanhaka community, and told the Herald that if the board would have let the parents know about its public comment policy, they would have adjusted their speeches. “We try to unite and not divide,” she said of the PTSA.

Instead, however, the meeting became heated as parents and students grew more frustrated with the board. It started with Ray Ramos telling the board that “insensitivity speaks volumes to the community,” and ended with Jon Johnson saying, “Each person in this room is going to look at your budget, and look at you, and I bet you won’t get what you want,” before Del Santo called security to ensure everyone that left the building.