Some school employees in Brooklyn say they believed they would earn prizes for signing up parents to join advisory councils from officials seeking to drum up enthusiasm for the groups.
With participation at an all-time low since Mayor Bloomberg created the councils to replace the community school boards, school officials in Region 6 — covering Flatbush, Brownsville, and East New York — told a group of parent coordinators they could win rewards for persuading more parents to join.
The parent coordinator for P.S. 167 in District 17 in Brownsville, Ronald Moore, said he attended a meeting during which he said officials "mentioned a television."
"They just want us to go out and get as many parents as we can to participate," he said.
Sixty-nine parents have signed up to join the councils in District 17, the highest number in the city.
A Department of Education spokeswoman, Lindsey Harr, confirmed that a Region 6 official had named a television as a possible prize, but said department officials had retracted offers of expensive gifts during the same meeting. She said no prizes have been given out.
"If anyone believed that they would receive a gift of cash value, it resulted from a misunderstanding," a department spokesman, David Cantor, said. The parent coordinator at P.S. 398 in District 17, Mona Lucas, said she attended a meeting where she left with an understanding that the parent coordinator who recruited the most parents would receive a gift, but that the gift would be educational.
