A crusading retired teacher– who recently won an appellate case to keep School Leadership Teams open to the public– has now filed a suit against the city’s Department of Education over a notorious grade-fixing scheme first exposed by The Post.

Former math teacher Michael P. Thomas has zeroed in on John Dewey High School in Brooklyn.

The Post first reported in 2015 that Dewey administrators colluded with teachers during the 2013-2014 school year to boost graduation rates through bogus make-up courses students jokingly dubbed “Easy Pass” classes.

The scheme ensnared over 100 students, according to Thomas’ self-filed Manhattan supreme Court suit.

Some failing students earned science credit for watching “Jurassic Park” while others played games instead of completing worksheets, sources said.

An Office of Special Investigation report found that students didn’t receive any instruction, and the make-up courses didn’t meet DOE policy.

“They had the option of completing the work without ever meeting with a teacher,” according to one assistant principal.

The report also found that courses were graded by teachers who weren’t even certified in the subject areas.

Yet the DOE gave the students a pass and Principal Kathleen Elvin was reinstated and is back on the payroll earning $157,000.

Elvin argued at her reinstatement hearing that a DOE audit “concluded that students had been correctly programmed and had been appropriately credited,” according to court papers.

But when Thomas filed a Freedom of Information Law request for a copy of the audit he was told by a records access officer last September that “no such audit in fact exists.”

So Thomas sued to correct what he sees as a major failure of the city’s public education system.

“The illegal awarding of credit imperiled the public interest in ensuring that children receive the education that is necessary for them to become productive members of society,” Thomas says in court
papers.

He’s asking the court for three things. First he wants a judge to declare that the credits were illegally awarded to students. Next he’s demanding a proper DOE audit, and is asking that the state
Commissioner of Education review the findings. Lastly he says the teachers involved in the scheme should repay thousands of dollars in overtime for the no-show jobs.

A city Law Department spokesman said the complaint will be reviewed. Reps for the DOE did not immediately comment.

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