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Coney Island principal tampered with parent surveys: staffers

A Coney Island school principal who caused a furor by refusing to let kindergartners sing “God Bless the USA” at their graduation is in hot water again — this time for allegedly having an aide tamper with parent questionnaires.

Two staffers at PS 90, the Edna Cohen School, say Greta Hawkins instructed an aide to open envelopes holding Department of Education parent surveys and fill in “bubbles” with a pencil.

Tiffany Stars, an aide at PS 90, appears to open envelopes containing parent surveys in a video taken by staffers who say she had been told by Principal Greta Hawkins to alter the responses.

“She was ripping open white envelopes that were sealed and bubbling in answers to the survey,” a teacher told The Post.

The DOE prohibits any breach of the confidentiality of the surveys, which rate schools on “academic expectations,” “safety and respect,” “communication” and “engagement.” They help city officials gauge a school’s environment and principal performance.

Last school year, PS 90 received average and below-average scores on its survey, with 76 percent of parents participating. In its last progress report, for 2011-12, PS 90 earned an overall grade of “B” but an “F” in “school environment” based mainly on parent and teacher surveys.

At parent-teacher conferences Tuesday, parents picking up their children’s report cards were also handed surveys. Hawkins said parents who filled them out on the spot would get two “No Homework Passes” for their kids.

Greta HawkinsFacebook

When a parent picked up a report card Wednesday, a source said, Hawkins directed a staffer to give her a survey and tell her “the school has no drugs or gangs.” Last year parents cited concerns about both issues.

Parents get a green envelope containing the survey and a white first-class-postage-paid envelope addressed to a processing center in St. Paul, Minn. Parents are supposed to seal their completed surveys in the white envelope, then mail them or leave them for the school to mail.

Two school staffers said that while Hawkins ran a conference Wednesday, they saw the school’s community assistant, Tiffany Starks, in the main office with a box of survey envelopes. Both staffers said they saw Starks open green and white envelopes.

“She broke open the seal of a first-class envelope and altered surveys completed by the parents,” the teacher said.

A video taken by the teacher shows Starks removing a survey and discarding the green envelope. The two staffers do not know what Starks did with the uncompleted surveys.

Asked why she was marking completed surveys, she replied, “I’m just making sure they did it right,” and said she was “fixing” bubbles not filled in properly, according to the second staffer.

Starks admitted she felt uncomfortable with the task but said, “She [Hawkins] told me to do it, so that’s what I’m doing,” according to the staffer.

Reached Thursday night, Starks declined to comment.

Hawkins did not return a call or e-mail seeking an explanation.

DOE spokesman David Peña said officials will investigate.