P.S. 166 is located at 132 West 89th Street
Attack on snacks? After a series of repeated incidents dubbed as a “pattern of toxicity,” 64 parents are attempting to oust Debra Mastriano, the principal of P.S. 166 on West 89th Street.
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In a letter to District Superintendent Kamar Samuels (first reported by The New York Post), Mastriano’s behavior is called into question — specifically related to her stringent policies regarding sweet treats. The 66-year-old educator reportedly forced a kindergarten student she deemed “overweight” to throw out their birthday cake, demanded another child trash a candy bar and even habitually hides chips in the cafeteria. Despite being confronted at a recent staff meeting over a donut-ditching debacle, the head honcho brushed off the complaints, saying it was an isolated incident and she “wanted them to be healthy.”
READ MORE: P.S. 333 Principal Claire Lowenstein Will Be Leaving Her Position
It doesn’t stop at snack snafus — parents and fellow employees allege that Mastriano has expressed racist views on numerous occasions. Negative, racially-charged comments regarding a nearby NYCHA building have been heard by a whopping 70% of respondents in an April teachers union poll. She also reportedly griped that the school was becoming “too Asian.” She’s also known for unorthodox punishments, including making students eat lunch standing up or walking in a series of circles at recess.
Needless to say, her leadership abilities are not sitting well with faculty and families alike — on December 1, there was a no-confidence vote, resulting in 28 educators and over 73 current or former parents deeming Mastriano unfit to rule the school. No one voted in her favor.
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According to a Department of Education poll, the average approval rating of NYC principals clocks in at 85 percent. That’s not the case at P.S. 166, where only 14 percent of faculty are satisfied. The next step in this unsavory situation remains to be seen, but Samuels is said to be investigating all allegations.
It’s very frustrating that every headline is about the treats, when the PS 166 parents are actually more concerned about her blatant racism, terrorizing children and staff alike and driving out over 100 teachers in her tenure.
There’s no such thing as a “healthy snack”.
When you are continually snacking between meals you never let your insulin levels drop and that can eventually lead to insulin resistance and T2 diabetes — if you’ve not noticed — we’re in a growing epidemic of T2D and obesity.
We need 4 hours between meals for insulin to drop. Feed them lunch and let them eat their other meals at home at appropriate times.
Look at film footage of school kids 40+ yeas ago — there are few overweight kids. Now it’s becoming the norm.
Stop over feeding them!
This is true. But UWS parents today enjoy a unique blend both privilege and victimhood.
@Loh Phat
‘There’s no such thing as a “healthy snack”.’
School starts about 8:15am. Some kids leave for school at 7:30am. And some kids don’t have lunch until well after 1pm. A snack is appropriate when the break is that long for growing bodies and minds.
Kids are not “continually snacking” so please stop with your nonsense about these kids having snack time.
Oh, and the snack issue is just illustrative of her bad judgement.
My daughter graduated 4 years ago so the whole time she was there Mrs M was the principal. I had no issues at all and neither did my daughter who had a fabulous experience at this school we remember so fondly. Feels like a witch hunt!!! Maybe she’s changed?
I am so glad your child had a positive experience, but this is NOT a witch hunt. The stats don’t lie. When only 14% of your teachers trust the principal (citywide principal trust average is over 80%), you have a serious leadership problem. 64% of the school’s teachers reported hearing Mastriano make racially disparaging comments about students and parents. 71% observed Mastriano make negative comments about a student’s academic performance and abilities in front of other children. 59% witnessed Mastriano display physically menacing or verbally abusive behavior toward students. A whopping 79% of teachers said they wished to seek employment elsewhere, but would reconsider that if there was a different principal. That is not a witch hunt, that is a principal who is unfit for her role on so many levels.
@Jaime
My boy is there now and is having a positive experience overall. But I’m not going to use that to dismiss legitimate complaints.
My children were there at the same time as your child, and the only thing that’s changed (besides losing countless excellent teachers*, eliminating all birthday/year-end/stepping up celebrations, putting an end to science/technology/dance specials, and killing beloved traditions like the spring festival performance & class picnics) about this principal’s MO is that she’s gotten less careful about hiding it and ever more emboldened by the lack of consequence for her bald tyranny.
It does not seem to be a coincidence that families who’ve never encountered this principal’s pathologically anti-child dragooning tend to have impressively self-disciplined, non-wave-making, excellent (and likely non-POC) students who keep their heads down.
*I encourage you to make a list of all the teachers your daughter had during her 166 years, then find out how many of those teachers are still at the school. Then, compare that number on a percentage basis to NYC, NY state, and national teacher attrition rates. I imagine that may be enlightening.
G@d forbid anyone try to encourage healthy behaviors in today’s society.
Targeting children and throwing away snacks is not promoting healthy behaviors. The school would have to do a policy wide intervention telling all parents sweet snacks are not allowed. This won’t change how kids eat at home or what parents allow them to eat and creating unhealthy relationships with food singling our overweight kids is not the way to go about it! Healthy eating promotion takes an action plan and evaluation program to implement! Which the DOE has no time and money to do correctly so a loud mouth racist attacking kids won’t change a thing.
Sorry but disagree with some of this. What is unhealthy is giving children non stop snacks. It is OK to teach children moderation, it is OK to teach children that one cannot consume whatever they wish at all times, it is OK to put down the sugar. It is OK to teach moderation and not being needing to satisfy every impulse. The unhealthy relationship with food is not having them restrict, it is what is going on today (all time high of obesity and type 2 diabetes). I do agree with you on the implementation of a school wide plan. 100 percent there. I do think there should be policies of no snacks in school minus a health condition where someone has the true risk of low blood sugar.
But it has to be done in the right manner. Deeming a child “overweight” and forcing them to throw out their treat is not something the child will forget and will more likely cause future issues with food and self image rather than promote anything healthy. I’m sure that kid was sad and embarrassed. You don’t forget treatment like that.
If a parent sends something from home, that is their choice.
Kids in the school do not have “non-stop snacks” They have snacks at appropriate times based on when their lunch is scheduled.
My boy leaves our house at 740am and has lunch after 1pm. Partway through this year the teacher implemented a brief snack time around 11am. This entirely appropriate.
” I do think there should be policies of no snacks in school minus a health condition where someone has the true risk of low blood sugar.”
This is crazy.
Funny, Name calling when you cannot provide scientific rationale for your “argument?” What is “crazy” is you seem to think most humans cannot go two to three hours without a snack, and that there should be no limits or restrictions placed on what any of us eat. Most of us SHOULD be going more hours without constantly spiking our insulin receptors as another poster noted correctly above. It has been scientifically proven that the whole “graze all day” advice is unhealthy and that humans were not developed for grazing. Humans actually do best with periods of fasting to be honest. Not only weight, but inflammation, disease, aging. As I said, if one has a medical condition then of course they should be excused, but I promise you that we would all be better off without thinking we cannot function without eating every two-three hours. What is “crazy” is resorting to names, belittling and weaponizing terms when someone either disagrees with them, OR provides the actual valid information.
“What is “crazy” is you seem to think most humans cannot go two to three hours without a snack, ”
What is crazy is that I mentioned a 5 hour gap between when my boy departs for school and when he has lunch, and you try to play that as 2 to 3 hours. Clever.
You are on some kind of diet rant that is not relevant to this story. Kids should not be forced to go four or five hours without food if they are feeling hungry. They are growing and working hard.
PS – I did not call you a name. I called your ideas crazy. Not the same.
and also, I was simply agreeing with another poster (who I disagreed with on another point but agreed with on that point). We can have civil discourse without name calling for different opinions.
and also, I was simply agreeing with another poster (who I disagreed with on another point but agreed with on that point). We can have civil discourse without name calling for different opinions.
One more thing,
In all fairness, the article talks about snacks like donuts, cake, chips, candy bars and it comes across as this being at various times of day. We were all kids at one point, and I am sure a lot of us snuck treats in our desks or passed around to friends etc, then got caught in our day….So that is what it sounded like to me. It doesn’t seem to state that there is a monitored snack time, so we might not have all the info and can only respond to what we are reading.
” the article talks about snacks like donuts, cake, chips, candy bars and it comes across as this being at various times of day.”
IOW you made assumptions that were wrong and brought them into a serious conversation about what is happening in a school. Excellent.
As a public health research professional! You cannot have it all especially in public schools there’s no way this works by singling put some kids vs others and there’s legit no way to create a metric to decide that unless you have every kids medical information! Not profiling a chubby child that’s eating a cookie or donut! Let’s be real! It’s all nutrition and diabetes talk with no plan. Interventions have to be carried out properly through, continuous parent involvement and education, a school wide program etc in order to create true sustainable measures. Not to mention you have no idea what food insecurity issues some parents deal with the structural measures that lead the to take the “low cost fast, unhealthy option more than not”
Buried the lede here, surely?
Why would @ilovetheupperwestside lead with snacks?
And what are the next steps to get rid of such a lousy leader?
The days of valuing teacher opinion above principals and/or parents ended in 2020.
I will be attending their open school in early January next year as this is our zoned school. I am intrigued to ask questions about this article and the negative reviews I keep seeing recently.
If you kid is a pretty well behaved child, it is a good school. My boy is like that and our experience has been good. The parent body is very welcoming, most of the teachers are good, and the parent coordinator and some of the other staff (nurse, guard, and more) are good too. The kids tend to be nice.
If your kid is rowdier than average, it might not be so good. The kids do not get enough free time to play and it can be an issue. There is a big focus on the standardized tests.
Maybe that will change if the current principal is removed.
We had a good experience, but I recognize others have not.
For context, the information in this article is pulled from the NY Post. That article used selective info, admitted to by a parent quoted in the article. Also, a picture of the child was used WITHOUT the parents permission! The no confidence vote is without context, only those parents looking to out the principal were asked, this was NOT a schoolwide vote.
I’d say the fact that “28 educators and over 73 current or former parents” met to discuss concerns is all the context anyone should need. More than 100 people at that meeting and NOT ONE SINGLE vote in favor of the principal’s fitness to lead the school?
Of course every family hasn’t had negative experiences, but that SO MANY HAVE is telling. I don’t need to have been personally assaulted by Harvey Weinstein to believe that he assaulted all the women he did. Parents have everything to lose and little chance to gain new leadership by coming forward; like the prosecutors in the various Harvey Weinstein cases have repeatedly said, what we know comes from those willing to bravely expose themselves to the mostly negative consequences of telling their stories… and for every person willing to do that, there are countless others whose stories will never be made public.
Same behavior different year . THIS has been happening since year ONE ….can’t fake OLD REVIEWS https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/2547-Ps-166-The-Richard-Rogers-School-Of-The-Arts-And-S/reviews/
The boos always come from the cheap seats. Mastriano is the only thing keeping this school from devolving into another failed DOE school, where the teachers union run the show and educational standards are thrown out the window. Mastriano is passionate about the kids and that’s all that matters. I’ve seen it first hand. The fact that she specializes in special ed and was a huge proponent of g&t should debunk all these made up excuses about her biases — given the diversity of students who populate these programs. The teachers who left were unfit to teach. I would recommend you judge Mastriano by the high reading and maths scores she consistently delivers, and all the kids who graduated from this school and went on to Booker T and then other great schools.
WTH- how can you say the people who left were “UNFIT” . OVER 100 educators who left were unfit to teach??It.is the teachers there & the teachers who left their implement and instruct and have systematically raised the scores of that school -despite hemorrhaging over 100 qualified educators. But YOU think they were all unfit because THEY LEFT? – TEACHERS/Family aide workers/school guidance counselor/Special Ed and general Ed teachers who, when they tried to speak or advocate/ defend children – many ICT/ESL students; TO advocate FOR children from middle to low income families were blackballed or retaliated against! People committed to working with children. Teachers who worked there for years. These reviews scream volumes. These reviews from parents from year one https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/2547-Ps-166-The-Richard-Rogers-School-Of-The-Arts-And-S/reviews/ TEACHERS AND Families who SPOKE to her and about her, who TRIED TO GET HER TO SEE HER and address HARMFUL practices but whose words fell and still fall on deaf ears ( or are apparently mocked ). Each and every person who left now enjoys a happy wonderful career doing what they were meant to do as teachers and services providers and they’re in schools where the schools are AGAIN ABLE TO BENEFIT from their experience; skill and their ability to serve. The music/ dance, gym teacher ( who lead a running club) ,teachers with a specialty in reading and licensed g& t teacher; a computer teacher who had a PhD in technology and one with a phd in multicultural education, bilingual ed certified— teachers ALL left and are all doing wonderful things AT SCHOOLS that APPRECIATE THEIR GIFTS. And These children deserve to have those teachers. This parent population deserves to have those teachers- what they don’t deserve is somebody who has had year after year of single digit low approval ratings& trust ratings FIR YEARS. Those reviews highlight her lack of effectiveness and her abuse from year One. This is a bed of this “PRINCIPAL / leader’s own making . But YOU “know better ? You think that you know better than those – SO GO AHEAD put your name OUT… standup, stand proud and give her your support, but you won’t and don’t you vilify those that left. You won’t put your name because YOU never served under her. Those teachers that left did and IF YOU DID OR DO shame on you For saying that about people you know wanted to stay but left