Schools investigators are probing the drowning of a Brooklyn student during a field trip at upstate Bear Mountain State Park.
Chancellor Dennis Walcott yesterday claimed there was an “appropriate ratio” of adults to students for the June 19 outing, but later referred the case to the special commissioner of investigation.
Jean Fritz Pierre, 16, died in Hessian Lake, which is off-limits to swimmers, after breaking off from his International HS classmates during a hike.
There were five adults assigned to watch over the 48 students, which Walcott said was adequate.
“It’s totally wrong to think there wasn’t supervision there. There was the proper staff-student ratio,” he said.
Friends saw Pierre wade into a shallow area of the lake at around 3 p.m., when he suddenly disappeared, cops said. He had plunged into a drop-off, where natural springs create an undertow.
“His friends watched him walk into the shallow water just below his waist. He fell straight in and disappeared,” said a state parks cop at the scene.
Walcott said Pierre slipped away from the pack with a pal.
“They were on their way down and these students disappeared, and unfortunately and tragically, one of them was found in the water,” Walcott said at a later event.
The Rockland County medical examiner ruled Pierre’s death an accident.
Four other students on the trip were lost for hours when one said they were told to head down the trail by themselves.
“We decided to go down and couldn’t find our way,” said Priscila Martinez, 16. “I don’t know where the chaperone was. We were really scared.”
A teacher called the police for the lost teens, but they found their way out of the woods after three hours.
Meanwhile yesterday, an outpouring of grief appeared on Pierre’s Facebook page.
“i cried all night wishing it didnt happen i couldnt sleep, all prayers also goes to your family and what they have to go through,” wrote Sarah Jordan.
The tragedy came almost exactly three years after Harlem student Nicole Suriel, 12, drowned on a class trip to Long Beach.
Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick