Schools Chancellor David Banks acknowledged on Tuesday that a high-profile program bringing bilingual educators from the Dominican Republic to New York City is now under investigation amid allegations the teachers were taken advantage of by Education Department staff.

What You Need To Know

  • Schools Chancellor David Banks acknowledged on Tuesday that a high-profile program bringing bilingual educators from the Dominican Republic to New York City is now under investigation

  • It comes after allegations the teachers were taken advantage of by Education Department staff who are also part of the organization that brought them to the city, known as ADASA

  • The New York Post and CBS reported this weekend that ADASA had essentially forced the newly arrived teachers to pay them rent and live in what amounts to a boarding house

  • Banks said he hopes the investigation does not slow down the city's work partnering with the Dominican Republic to hire more bilingual educators

The teachers came to the city in September through a partnership with the Association of Dominican-American Supervisors and Administrators, an organization of Dominican-American educators who hold administrative positions in city schools.

But this weekend, CBS and the New York Post reported that high-ranking members of ADASA had forced the newly arrived teachers to live in rented rooms in a shared house ADASA leases, and forced them to pay ADASA big bucks for rent.

The Post wrote that the rentals, which it said could constitute an illegal single-room occupancy building, were managed by Emmanuel Polanco, principal of Junior High School 80 in the Bronx, where many of the newly arrived teachers work. Polanco is also a past president of ADASA. Teachers were threatened with being fired and losing their visas if they did not agree to the living arrangement, the Post reported.

Banks had high praise for ADASA in September when the partnership was rolled out, and he continued to praise them when NY1 asked him about the investigation Tuesday, after an unrelated event.

“The group ADASA has been an amazing group. They came to me with this idea to help us with needing more bilingual teachers. That wasn’t my idea, they actually came, it was an innovative, it was out-of-the-box thinking,” Banks said.

He said the allegations are under investigation.

“We were made aware that there were perhaps a couple of people in that organization who may have been taking advantage of some of the teachers who have come here from the DR. I don’t know that to be true or not. An allegation has been made, an investigation has been launched, we will see where that investigation leads us,” he said.

But he said he hoped it wouldn’t sour the chances for future partnerships with the Dominican Republic at a time when the city is in dire need of more Spanish-speaking educators.

“No matter how this plays out, I certainly don’t want that to slow down our opportunity to do wonderful amazing things with the Dominican Republic, as well as other places as well, that can help us to do innovative programming for all of our teachers and all of our kids,” he said. “So we’re going to keep hope alive, we’ll allow the investigation to play out, and we’ll go from there. And we’ll inform the public and the media once we know more, but an investigation has been launched once we heard about it.”

Nathaniel Styer, a DOE spokesman, said in a statement that the “implicated staff member” had been reassigned. The Post and CBS reported that Polanco was removed from his post at the middle school.

“We will do whatever we can to protect and defend our staff from mistreatment related to their employment. Upon hearing of these deeply disturbing allegations, we referred the matter to city and federal law enforcement agencies, and we continue to cooperate with them while they investigate,” Styer said.

He said the city is in close contact with the affected employees, and was “taking steps to protect and support each one of them.”