Metro

Qns. school plagued by snafus

This screw-up hits close to home.

The school where the chancellor’s daughter teaches has been plagued by snafus that forced students to endure as many as 10 course schedule changes in the past two months.

Fed-up parents at the Queens Metropolitan HS in Forest Hills said a string of foul-ups has left students in some classes bewilderingly twiddling their thumbs without instruction for weeks on end.

“We were told they’re being given work to be done but according to all the kids, they’re not,” said John Sadowski, whose son is in the 10th grade. “It’s November. I’m tired of hearing that ‘We’re working on it.’ Something’s gotta be done.”

The lag time in addressing issues at the second-year school comes despite the fact that chancellor Dennis Walcott’s daughter, Dejeanne, teaches physical education there – one of the impacted courses.

The presence of city councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley’s two sons – who she said have not been offered foreign language instruction – has also done little to help get problems resolved quickly.

“I’m very concerned,” Crowley (D-Queens) said. “Right now the way it looks is that they’re not getting services they need to stay on track to graduate on time.”

Department of Education officials said some of the scheduling slip-ups have arisen because the school, which is in its second year of operation, has enrolled 650 ninth- and tenth-graders rather than the planned 500.

Walcott, who said he keeps an educational separation from his daughter to avoid the appearance of favoritism, said all the kids’ schedules would be fixed by the time students return after Thanksgiving weekend.

“If you have one problem with programming for one class or one student it can have a domino effect and we can’t afford to have that this late in the year,” he said.