Rampant corruption: The heartless scheme by DOE crew targeting homeless kids.

In a shocking display of greed, six Department of Education employees misappropriated slots reserved for homeless children to take their own children and grandchildren on trips funded by taxpayers, including visits to Disney World, according to the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools.

Linda M. Wilson, a supervisor of DOE’s “Students in Temporary Housing”, appears to be the mastermind, as she took her own daughters on the trips and encouraged colleagues to do the same. She allegedly attempted to cover up the scheme by instructing coworkers to lie to SCI investigators.

Using a $300,000 federal grant from the National Center for Homeless Education, the group took advantage of the needy children from 2016 to 2019 by falsifying permission slips with the names of homeless kids and their parents’ forged signatures, allowing them to take their own children on the trips instead.

While these underprivileged children were left behind, their privileged peers visited destinations like Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Boston.

A whistleblower revealed that “Few of the homeless students listed on the paperwork actually attended the trips.”

Comparatively, “Stealing candy from babies” seems mild.

The SCI recommended that Chancellor David Banks terminate all six employees and require them to reimburse the funds.

One of the six, Shaquieta Boyd, claimed that Wilson “encouraged it, and I had no reason to believe that this was against the rules.”

As if stealing from the homeless would be permissible.

Unfortunately, this mentality of doing whatever one can get away with is prevalent in the city’s public-school system, fostered by a lack of accountability.

Consider Eric Goldstein, a former DOE official who accepted bribes from Somma Foods to serve contaminated chicken to public-school children, receiving a lenient two-year jail sentence as punishment.

Or Amanda Lurie, a top Office of Student Enrollment bureaucrat who showed minimal dedication to her work, sold clothes online during work hours, and was rewarded with a promotion and a $9,000 raise by the SCI.

In this case, all six employees eventually left the DOE – with delays in accountability. The SCI report was finalized in January 2023, years after the incidents, and many avoided full restitution.

This situation further exemplifies that the priority of the Big Apple’s school system is not the well-being of the children.