by Terrance Kible
Six New York City Department of Education employees used “forged permission slips” to take their children and grandchildren to Disney World and on other city-funded trips intended for homeless students, investigators allege.
The alleged scheme deprived some of NYC’s most disadvantaged children of the opportunity to go on a publicly funded $66,000 trip for 50 adults and children, the New York Post reported.
A Special Commissioner of Investigations report, dated January 26, 2023, but only posted on the city’s Department of Education website last week, alleged the fraud also occurred on other trips from 2016 to 2019 to places like the nation’s capital, New Orleans, Boston, the upstate Rocking Horse Ranch Resort and the Frost Valley YMCA.
Linda M. Wilson, a Queens supervisor of the program “Students in Temporary Housing,” allegedly took her two daughters on trips and encouraged other officials to take their children and grandchildren.
Wilson tried to cover up the trips when SCI began investigating, the report alleges.
“What happens here stays with us,” Wilson allegedly told colleagues.
Wilson allegedly told one colleague, “Everyone should stick to the same story that we did not take our children on the trip,” an anonymous source told the New York Post.
While some homeless students did benefit from the city-funded trips, staffers’ children allegedly took up valuable seats.
SCI recommended terminating the employees and mandating restitution after completing its investigation in January 2023.
None of the staff named in the report are employed with the Department of Education, spokeswoman Jenn Lyle said.
Lyle declined to say whether any of the employees implicated in the alleged scheme had been disciplined or paid restitution.
Wilson told the New York Post she retired from her position.
Citing a lack of available documentation, SCI declined to refer the cases for criminal prosecution.
– – –
Terrance Kible is a National Security Correspondent at Just the News.
Photo “Disney” by Leah Kelley.
