NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Interim Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero wants to hear from New Rochelle School community members who have concerns about the potential return of Yvette Goorevitch to the City School District of New Rochelle — this time with potentially more power to do harm to minority and economically disadvantaged students.
For years, Goorevitch used her position as Special Education Director to dole out special attention to a chosen few including custom programs, accommodations and sometimes insanely expensive services including placement at private schools costing tens of thousands of dollars a year to cultivate power and influence in New Rochelle. This largely entailed a focus on North End families, predominantly white, predominantly Jewish. Goorevitch is white, Jewish and lives in the North End of New Rochelle.
Goorevitch especially targeted Hispanic families where parents who spoke little or no English would be tricked into signing away their children’s civil rights. Goorevitch would pressure unsuspecting and confused parents into signing English-only documents as a pretext for reducing or denying services.
Principals at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and Christopher Columbus Elementary School complained for years that Goorevitch was routinely denying services and accommodations to students from those schools, mostly Hispanic students, pressuring the Principals not to refer their students. At one point Goorevitch demanded that all special education students be declassified — and they were.
Columbus Principal Yigal Joseph went so far as to set up his own Committees on Special Education so that Hispanic students at his school would not be referred to Central Office where the CSE was under Goorevitch’s direct control.
Low-income African-American students did not fare much better than Hispanic students under Goorevitch.
Goorevitch left New Rochelle in 2017 shortly after the school business office opened up an investigation into alleged Medicare fraud in her department.
Goorevitch retired in New York State and went to work in Connecticut where she soon became persona non grata among parents of Special Education students.
Goorevitch was banned her from SEPTA meetings, 17 parents filed a lawsuit and filed a complaint with Connecticut State Education Department.
State finds Norwalk schools mishandled special education services
Results of a newly released state Department of Education investigation question the city’s public schools’ handling of special education students — violating state and federal laws.
Norwalk special education will re-examine services with new audit
The complaint referenced was filed in 2018 by Norwalk attorney Robin P. Keller, attorney Kathryn Meyer of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, and Special Education advocate Jill Chuckas on behalf of 17 Norwalk students and their families.
The complaint resulted in a state investigation, the results of which, released in July, found irregularities in the district’s initial evaluation of certain children with disabilities, failure to adhere to federal law in providing free appropriate public education for each child with a disability and failure to provide timely special education and related services in accordance with a student’s Individualized Education Plan.
To many New Rochelle parents the results of the state investigation will sound familiar.
Norwalk parents were quick to realize the true nature of Yvette Goorevitch and refused to let her get a toe-hold in their District.
Goorevitch is not attempting to return to New Rochelle as much as escape Norwalk which has been seeking to run her out of town on a rail since the moment she arrived.
Robert Cox who is intimately familiar with Goorevitch malfeasance and open disdain for Hispanics that, for whatever reason, do not serve her aims to accumulate power, reached out to Interim Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero by email: amarrero@nredlearn.org
Dr. Marrero,
As you know, Yvette Goorevitch is a candidate to replace Anthony Bongo as Asst SI.
I am not a fan to say the least.
I want you to be aware that Yvette has a long history of tricking parents who did not speak English into signing away their children’s rights during CSE meetings in order to deny their children services and support. She was particularly aggressive in denying services and accommodations to Columbus students.
I am more than happy to have you sit down with the former Assistant CSE Chairperson who worked directly under Yvette and was a direct witness.
I have already told Board President Rachel Relkin that I have 60 pages locked and loaded on malfeasance by Yvette if she is hired that will become a 20-part series.
Do not let this horrible person back in the door.
Robert Cox
Marrero responded Friday, encouraging those with concerns about Yvette Goorevitch to share them with him now, before Goorevitch is presented to him as a finalist.
There can be no doubt that Goorevitch has activated her various minions — including Chrisanne Petrone, Naomi Brickell, Rachel Relkin, Mary Monzon, Theresa Kump Leghorn, Karen Hessel and others — to advocate on her behalf. Rest assured these people will be among those whining about our exposing Goorevitch should she actually be hired. This includes those whose children were on the receiving end of Goorevitch “goodies and gifts”, to lobby on behalf of her candidacy to become Assistant Superintendent.
It is important that Dr. Marrero and the entire school board hear immediately from those who know the true nature of Yvette Goorevitch, include the many lower-income, Hispanic and Black families.
If you have concerns, especially if you have experienced the dark side of Yvette Goorevitch, and wish to share those concerns with Dr. Marrero and the New Rochelle Board of Education you need to act immediately as Goorevitch has already made it through the second round of interviews.
Interim Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero
amarrero@nredlearn.org
New Rochelle Board of Education
boe@nredlearn.org
ROBERT COX OPEN LETTER TO NRBOE
Dear BOE Member,
I realize that many of you joined the board after Yvette Goorevitch left New Rochelle.
I am also well familiar with how she operates and so she will have had her minions lobby anyone she believes can aide her in her hoped for return to power in New Rochelle.
Yvette is a highly manipulative person who makes it her business to cultivate people she believes she can use to her own ends. Anyone who has had Yvette sidle up to them and rub their arms knows what I am talking about.
I believe that even in the few years Yvette left to go to Norwalk (where she is widely reviled) the District and board has changed. Above everything else, you cannot preach the rhetoric of equity and diversity and allow Yvette Goorevitch to not only return but to return in an elevated position.
Over the years, I have been contacted by MANY minority families who described heartbreaking accounts of being tricked and abused by Yvette Goorevitch. I have written an article in the hopes that they will tell their stories.
The bottom line is that Yvette Goorevitch represents precisely what many of you have been fighting to reverse. Goorevitch is one of the prime architects of the “North End” system in CSDNR.
Do not let her back in.
JUST SAY NO: Should Yvette Goorevitch Return to New Rochelle?
Robert Cox
Publisher and Managing Editor
Talk of the Sound
RELATED:
Redacted copy of the Connecticut State Department of Education Report stemming from complaints about Yvette Goorevitch filed by Norwalk parents.
Anyone familiar with Yvette Goorevitch will recognize the pattern – what the investigators labeled “systemic” failures — failure to act in a timely manner on referrals, a mess with paperwork, failure to provide service in IEPs, various efforts to push out minority students (using a “residency form”), numerous violations of federal law, FAPE, etc.
The report reads to be a complete vindication of the parents complaints about Yvette.
State finds Norwalk Public Schools has violated SpEd laws; NPS says violations ‘not substantive’
We updated this article..
…with this article
Which gets into issues I raised to the school board but never publicly about Yvette Goorevitch and millions uncollected by the District due to her incompetence:
In a strange twist, the exchange brings to light a multi-million dollar investigation undertaken in 2017-18 by White into so-called “District of Location” services tied to former Special Education Director Yvette Goorevitch. Hastie appears to have duped Cantone into believing the write-offs were proof of malfeasance by White. Records seen by Talk of the Sound show White was in the process of seeking to collect the monies. Sources tell Talk of the Sound, Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business & Administration Tom Ryan “wrote off” the accounts receivable at the direction of Hastie. At a subsequent board meeting Ryan repeatedly and falsely disparaged White, in violation of the Separation Agreement Hastie signed with White in December 2018. It appears Hastie was using Ryan and Cantone, and some board members, to spread false and malicious stories about White in order to justify Hastie ordering then-Interim Superintendent Dr. Magda Parvey to fire White because White would not take orders from Hastie generally and specifically refused to use district-funds to pay Hastie’s thousands of dollars in unauthorized international voice and data services while traveling in Europe, Africa, aircraft and cruise ships.
You have no knowledge of applying for a variance? But your certain that you never received it. Yeah ok I beleive you!!!
I have been told, from the highest levels from the administration that since your article, and all that it has brought to light, Yvette Goorevitch’s candidacy for assistant SI is dead! Thank God for you Bob Cox!
I am happy to see this but…
Until I see someone else in that job I am keeping my powder dry.
But thanks
I prefer not discuss my children’s education in this public forum but it is true that none of my children ever attended Davis Elementary School.
If they had it still wouldn’t be relevant to the story you published that references Karen and her non-existent role in advocating for Yvette Goorevitch. Please issue a correction.
Not sure why you want to go down this path given your wife’s past history of lying which you and I discussed directly in the past.
You and she have zero credibility with me.
But if you REALLY REALLY want to get into this I can pull up all my records and emails and text messages and publish all of them so readers can make their own assessment of your wife’s credibility — and thus yours.
You would be wise to consider how this before posting any more BS here.
Just say the word and I can get to work.
We have no memory of applying for a variance. We never obtained any variance. We don’t understand the relevance to your story about whether or not we obtained a variance.
The essential fact of your story about Karen advocating for Yvette Goorevitch is incorrect and without basis in fact or evidence and deserves a correction.
Is it not the case that you reside in the Trinity District? And that your child transferred to Davis?
Karen Hessel has no involvement whatsoever with this story. She does not know Yvette Goorevitch. She has never advocated on Yvette Goorevitch’s behalf or advocated against or for anyone for any of these positions. Please issue a correction.
Is it not the case that Karen sought and obtained a variance to move her child out of a South End school or a North End school back around 2012?
Is is appropriate to respond to such an email when the interview process is confidential? Who will be the next Superintendent- clearly this man is not the person. Why was the woman even interviewed and who is the Superintendent’s pick in this process? Does he an applicant in this process? Is that why he responded to this email? Inappropriate and now this woman can sue the district!
Mr. Cox,
Just to clarify. I did not take issue with the District Office of Special Ed over racial or ethnic grounds. I took issue with the inefficient and laborious process set up by the state for adjudicating special ed entitlement and services, while kids languished in a kind of mandated purgatory until the process was exhausted.
We took responsibility at the school level to monitor student success through our Instructional Support Team by assessing student needs and, if needed, deliver more quickly and directly the requisite instructional or behavioral support through the 504, AIS and non-handicap Resource Room, as well as counseling and parent, support services.
We developed a school-based Individualized Education Plan based on progress monitoring, as well as teacher, student and parental feedback, to regularly evaluate our instructional and behavioral interventions and modify them, as needed.
It was only after extensive, rigorous and documented support and progress monitoring that we would make a referral to CSE, if we needed to request more intensive services were required.
Regards,
Dr. Yigal Joseph
Please correct any misunderstanding on my part.
You were the principal of Columbus School for many years. Then and now, the Columbus School student body is almost entirely Hispanic, mostly kids where English is not the primary language spoken at home, lower-income, with a large number of families who were recent immigrants, all of whom resided in the South End.
In my experience, when you run a school whose student population is 95-100% Hispanic in a District that was, in your day, run almost exclusively by white people then ir cannot help but be the case that everything has an “ethnic” component to it whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
In Yvette’s case, she favored families who were like her – White, Jewish, upper-income, and lived in the North End and did so at the expense of Minority, Christian, mostly Catholic, lower-income students who lived in the South End which would accurately describe almost the entire student population at Columbus, then and now.
You say you “did not take issue with the District Office of Special Ed over racial or ethnic grounds” but rather “the inefficient and laborious process set up by the state for adjudicating special ed entitlement and services”.
Let’s explore that.
The process you are talking about is referrals to the CSE. That process is required under FEDERAL law (IDEA) but enacted under state law and each state is different.
So, how slow is New York?
To take a few states at random, in Connecticut the process is 45 days from the date of the referral; in Maine the process is 45 days from the date a CSE meeting is scheduled which can take 15 days so Maine is 60 days from the date of the referral; in California it’s 60 days; in Texas the process is 90 days; and so on.
New York is 30 days.
Is it not the case then that New York State is among the most if not the most aggressive state in the country when it comes to requiring a swift completion of referrals to the CSE?
Given this is it credible for you to claim that your concern with Special Education under Yvette was that THE STATE set up a slow process. In fact, the process in New York is the fastest in the United States and therefore the best process for students and families.
Right?
I trust we can agree that the referral process in NEW ROCHELLE was “inefficient and laborious”. And only for lower-income, minority students, from the South End which aptly describes your students at Columbus. And that is precisely the point, that under Yvette YOUR “kids languished in a kind of mandated purgatory until the process was exhausted” because she threw up all sorts of roadblocks for your kids. And none of that had anything to do with how New York State set up the process and everything to do with how Yvette administrated the state process and that was to expedite the process for a favored few and discourage, delay, defer and deny for the rest.
Your response to how Yvette treated your kids was highly unusual. To my recollection, you were the only Principal in the history of the District who set up his own Committee on Special on Education at his school.
It is amazing you even got away with that but your insistence on it is a measure of your displeasure with your kids were treated by Yvette.
Right?
I mean, it cannot actually have anything to do with you disliking the state process because your holding CSEs at Columbus rather than City Hall did not result in holding those meetings in a different state; having CSE’s at Columbus did nothing to change the STATE process because your school was still in New York, still governed by the same process.
The only thing you did by setting up your own CSE was to cut Yvette out of the referral process.
Right?
There were occasions when your students WERE referred to CSE’s at City Hall, under Yvette’s control. And you had such little confidence in Yvette that you did something I never heard of, to my knowledge, you were the only principal who would routinely go to City Hall and sit as a member of the CSE committees.
Again, please correct any misunderstanding on my part. But until then, from where I stand, you were so deeply concerned that your students would not be treated equitably by Yvette’s Special Education Department that you effectively set up your own Special Education Department and served as the Director.
It has been 8 years, and maybe you forgot, but I interviewed you for about three hours for an article in 2012 looking back on your career as your prepared to retire. We discussed all of this. I do not know why you are being bashful about it now but I came away with the clear impression you had a very low opinion of Yvette and it had nothing to do with the state process and everything to do with your looking out for your students.
——-
Farewell, Dr. Joseph — New Rochelle Says Goodbye to a Principal Who Made a Difference in Many Lives
https://talkofthesound.com/2012/04/30/farewell-dr-joseph-new-rochelle-says-goodbye-to-a-principal-who-made-a-difference-in-many-lives/