Jolanta Rohloff, who left Brooklyn's Lafayette High School in March after clashing with teachers and students there, was, until yesterday, one of two finalists for the principal slot at East Harlem's Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics.
Her candidacy for the Manhattan job had been challenged by teachers and parents, who sent a letter to schools Chancellor Joel Klein complaining that they weren't given full information about her history at Lafayette when they interviewed her.
Yesterday, Klein's office said Rohloff has been hired by the Education Department's Office of New Schools and is no longer interested in Manhattan Center. As the second finalist at the high school did not pass a reference check, the hiring process will start over for that school in the fall.
"We're very pleased and relieved," said Lise Hirschberg, who heads the school's chapter of the teachers union. "Klein objects to moving bad teachers around the system, but that is apparently what they're doing in this particular case."
In her new $130,000-a-year job, Rohloff will be developing a new high school that she will run when it opens in 2008 - a job specially created for her, said schools spokeswoman Melody Meyer.
"We do have other people who are on the Department of Education payroll working on schools that are yet to open, but this is not typical," Meyer said. "This is a show of support for a talented school leader."
Rohloff, who could not be reached for comment, took heat at Lafayette for paying teachers to clean the school before a visit from school officials, for improperly altering student grades and for distributing a pie chart to students and parents that added up to 140%.
