New York City Department of Education employees take lavish Disney vacations meant for homeless students: report

Six New York City Department of Education (DOE) employees used “forged permission slips” to fund trips to Disney World for themselves and their families with resources that were intended for use by homeless students, according to allegations by investigators, the New York Post reported.

The total cost of the package deal for Disney World came to $66,000 for 50 adults and children. The education department employees also allegedly took a series of day trips between 2016 and 2019 to Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Boston, upstate Rocking Horse Ranch Resort and Frost Valley YMCA campground, according to a report just released by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools and obtained by the Post.

Linda M. Wilson, a Queens supervisor of DOE’s “Students in Temporary Housing,” allegedly was one of the employees to take family on these trips as she encouraged colleagues to take their own families as well, but was tight-lipped when investigators came calling, the SCI report said.

While some homeless students were able to take advantage of the trips, many were not because slots were filled by education department employees and their families. One DOE educator “had to beg Wilson to allow him to add two of his students” on a Disney World excursion while Wilson and others allegedly booked themselves aboard, the report said.

“Taking money meant for homeless students is extremely inappropriate,” said Naveed Hasan, a Manhattan public-school parent and member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy who assists homeless students. “I’m shocked.” The taking of such trips is contrary to all DOE policies and rules, even if employees pay back the money.

Wilson and other staffers allegedly used the names of homeless students to write phony permission slips and even forged the signatures of the students’ parents on the forms, investigators were told. “Few of the homeless students listed on the paperwork actually attended the trips,” according to a whistleblower who spoke to the SCI.

The money for the trips came from a $300,000 federal grant from the National Center for Homeless Education that was intended to assist the lives and education of have-not children. Wilson was in charge of 20 staff who worked with students who live in “temporary housing,” meaning those who inhabit an emergency shelter, car, park or abandoned building.