A star Bronx principal tried to game her school’s letter grade — and advance her own career — by coaching kids to give positive marks in an annual student review, a bombshell staff letter reveals.
Harry S Truman High School leader Sana Nasser — whose successes have earned her a fat paycheck and congenial media reports — instructed teachers last week to tell kids to give the school glowing ratings in a high-stakes survey.
But a whistleblower leaked the letter to the Daily News — and now education officials are investigating Nasser, 54, for an apparent violation of ethics rules.
“We feel it is important for students to fill these surveys out not by the preconceptions that exist in their minds but by accurately reflecting what is happening at Truman,” wrote Nasser in the devious missive that was sent to all teachers last Wednesday.
The much-ballyhooed principal of the A-rated school told teachers to remind kids that “when people criticize a school, they are really demeaning the students who attend it.”
Teachers were also told to remind kids of Truman’s impressive safety record and tell them the Co-op City school “has facilities that most other schools dream of,” such as a planetarium and swimming pool.
Some teachers refused to go along with the scheme, but others did as they were told, using two class periods last Friday to persuade kids to say good things about Truman.
“They basically tried to show the pros and keep out the cons,” said Hamed Dembele, 17, a senior from Hunts Point. “They told us Miss Nasser told us to write good things.”
“It was like a pep talk,” said senior Calistro Roman, 17. “I saw some kids brainwashed who didn’t know what to put” on the survey.
Instructors who were given the letter feared they would be penalized if they didn’t follow Nasser’s directions to fudge the survey — but some refused on principle.
“I felt that it was unethical, so I ignored it,” said one teacher who asked to remain anonymous. “She was trying to influence how kids answer the survey, which isn’t right.”
The city’s annual school environment surveys are designed to assess public schools from the point of view of students and parents.
The results of the surveys are used by education officials to decide which schools to close and which principals should be awarded bonuses.
Truman has scored exceptionally well on the surveys for years — earning an A on the 2012 progress report and B’s in 2011 and 2010.
But officials couldn’t say if Nasser — whose salary of $154,295 makes her one of the top-paid workers in the public schools — ever landed one of those bonuses.
The 30-year veteran of the public schools took over leadership of Truman in 1998 and soon became a media darling for turning around the once-troubled school.
Nasser was praised with a glowing report in The New York Times last year, and the New York Post awarded her an “Educator Liberty Medal” in 2011.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), in her first major education policy speech as a mayoral hopeful, praised Nasser on Jan. 15 for her “incredible work.”
Now officials are investigating whether Nasser violated city ethics rules that prohibit school leaders from trying to game survey results.
“The school survey code of ethics explicitly states that it is inappropriate for school staff to influence or suggest how respondents complete the survey,” said city Education Department spokeswoman Erin Hughes.
Nasser did not respond to multiple calls for comment for this story.
With Corinne Lestch
bchapman@nydailynews.com