Six U.S. Department of Education employees used funds intended for disadvantaged students to take their own children and grandchildren on several trips, including to Disney, New York state investigators alleged Sunday.
The total amount is $89,000 Canadian for around fifty adults and children who were able to go to Disney World, Washington, New Orleans, the Rocking Horse Ranch Resort and the Frost Valley YMCA campground.
The trips took place from 2016 to 2019, according to a report released by the city’s special investigating commissioner for schools, a copy of which was obtained by the New York Post.
“Falsified authorizations”
Linda M. Wilson, supervisor of the department’s Students in Temporary Housing program in Queens, is leading the scheme.
She and other staff members used the names of disadvantaged students to fabricate exit permits and then forged parents’ signatures on the documents, witnesses told investigators.
This allowed them to send their children and grandchildren on trips.
“Few of the disadvantaged students listed on the documents actually took part in the trips,” said one person who alerted inspectors.
One teacher even “had to beg to allow him to add two of his students,” investigators wrote.
Lying to keep a secret
It was when an investigation began that Ms. Wilson tried to cover up the questionable practice, according to the investigators’ report.
“What happens here stays with us,” the woman reportedly told her colleagues.
Employees confirmed to the American media that there had been a subterfuge.
“She told us to lie to the investigators,” one employee said.
Family members are not allowed to participate in school trips, the chancellor’s rules state.
