A Bronx principal raised more than just eyebrows with his pre-Halloween school get-up – he also raised his hemline.
Students and parents at PS/MS 4 in Crotona Park alternately reported being shocked, outraged and amused when they saw first-year principal Vincent Resto ambling about the hallways dressed in drag – high heels, blond wig and all.
They said the Oct. 30 outfit included lace stockings, a snug blouse and a skirt, accessorized with fake fingernails and white sunglasses.
“I didn’t approve of it at all. I didn’t find any humor in it,” said a mother of a seventh-grade student. “For a teenage boy to see a man dressed as a woman and think it’s OK – especially his principal, who he’s supposed to look up to – it was definitely unacceptable.”
An eighth-grader at the school, Neida Cosma, said: “I thought it was kind of weird, but I didn’t think it was something bad,” a sentiment expressed by several students.
Some others emphasized the humor behind the garb, which several students said had resulted from a bet Resto lost with a group of seventh graders.
One student even noted Resto’s impressive agility in high heels.
“I don’t think he did anything inappropriate. My son thought it was so funny,” said Janet Negrone, 42, the mother of a fourth-grader. “He’s a very good principal. He’s very accessible.”
Asked to explain the wacky wardrobe, Resto would neither confirm nor deny that it even happened.
“The protocol here is that when a parent has a concern or issue, they come see me and we meet and we hash it out,” he said in a phone conversation. “I would have to get a list of the parents and address the concerns they have in a private fashion.”
Resto was appointed principal July 1, 2007, after serving as assistant principal at the school for two years. He taught at a Bronx middle school before that, according to the Department of Education.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said the matter had been referred to its internal-investigations unit, the Office of Special Investigations.
If the kooky costume was the result of a lost bet, Resto would not be the first principal to suffer humiliation in the name of motivating students.
On a frigid December night last year, Scott Davies, principal of Harrington Park School in New Jersey, slept on the roof of his school after students met his challenge of reading 10,000 books.