A Bronx charter school is under fire from parents who say a teacher bullied kids — and even forced one child to tell his crush, a girl, that he was gay.
According to court papers filed this week, the teacher, Jared Alessandroni, 29, threatened to “out” a straight 9-year-old boy, James Pastrana, to his class at the South Bronx Charter School for International Cultures and the Arts, unless James told his crush he was gay.
“I was so humiliated,” said Pastrana, who reluctantly scribbled the false confession in a note to the girl. “It started to spread around the whole class and then everyone wanted to call me gay.”
A second lawsuit alleges that Alessandroni twisted an 8-year-old boy’s arm in a school stairwell in 2008 because he didn’t like the way the boy was walking.
“The teacher’s conduct was reprehensible,” said Patrick Mullaney, the lawyer for both boys.
Alessandroni, who left the school last year, said the allegations were probed by the Department of Education and no wrongdoing was found.
“This was thoroughly investigated by the New York City Board of Ed,” he told The Post. “There were copious amounts of paperwork, and every single aspect of it was cleared without any caveat. They did interviews with the students and witnesses, and they all led to the same conclusion, that I was cleared on every count . . . I just hope that [the legal process] doesn’t further upset or hurt James.”