Exclusive | NYC school staffers claim they’re being forced out of their jobs after sounding alarm on ‘rampant antisemitism’

A pair of staffers at a Brooklyn high school are being forced out of their jobs after they sounded the alarm about “rampant antisemitism,” they claim in new court papers.

Teacher Danielle Kaminsky and administrator Michael Beaudry allege in a lawsuit that the city Department of Education is now retaliating against them for speaking out about the anti-Jewish and anti-LGBTQ hate they experienced and witnessed at Origins High School in Sheepshead Bay, complaints that landed them on The Post’s front page in March.

Kaminsky, 33, told The Post she was called a “dirty Jew” and terrorized by a gang of Hitler-loving teens who scrawled swastikas in the classroom, gave the Nazi salute and told her “I wish you were killed” during the Holocaust.

After her grievances went public, she received a “safety transfer” to Richmond Hill HS in Queens — but the new position expired in three months. And she was then unfairly slapped with a poor rating, hindering her ability to land a new job, according to court documents.

Beaudry, 48, campus manager and athletic director of the Frank Macchiarola Educational Complex, which houses Origins and three other high schools, backed Kaminsky’s allegations that students yanked an Israeli flag from an international display in her classroom and targeted her with hate speech.

The DOE removed Beaudry from the campus, ordering him to stay at home, and warned of possible termination.

“It is outrageous that after a teacher experienced antisemitic horrors at Origins, she and the school’s campus manager are now facing ongoing retaliation for properly reporting it,” said Adam Cohen, a lawyer for Kaminsky and Beaudry. “They deserve the DOE’s protection, but instead their careers have been put at risk.”

The whistleblowers sued the DOE and school officials in May, and added to their allegations Friday with an amended lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court.

The legal papers described the bullying and harassment of Kaminsky, a global history teacher, and another Jewish teacher whom a student threatened to rape because the teacher is gay.

The boy was arrested but returned to school, where he walked the hallways with a “Hitler-style mustache” drawn under his nose, stood in classroom doors and gave the Nazi salute, the lawsuit says.

After Beaudry accused Origins principal Dara Kammerman of dismissing antisemitic misconduct, the principal retaliated by charging that Beaudry had failed to submit reports on two incidents in school, the new papers reveal.  

DOE investigators upheld the principal’s complaints despite Beaudry telling them that Kammerman and ex-principal John Banks had instructed him in early 2021 not to file incident reports without their explicit orders to do so, the suit says.

“The reason for this directive was to exert control over the data for their school—i.e., to keep the reported incidents artificially low,” the court papers say.

In April 2023, Beaudry told Kammerman that a guidance counselor had struck a Jewish student in the face, but the principal never reported it, the suit says.

Beaudry filed a complaint against Kammerman with the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools.

The SCI referred that and six other complaints about Kammerman to the Office of Special Investigations, an SCI spokesperson said. The OSI is an arm of the DOE, not independent.

On May 8, five days after the suit was filed, schools Chancellor David Banks told a Congressional committee, “What we have found is a wide range of deeply troubling antisemitic things that have occurred at Origins.”

But Banks has not removed or openly disciplined Kammerman.

At the hearing, Banks took heat for keeping ex-Hillcrest High School principal Scott Milczewski on the DOE payroll. Banks removed him from the school in December for failing to prevent a 400-student riot that targeted a Jewish teacher who had attended a pro-Israel rally.

DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer asked The Post for a copy of the lawsuit, but after receiving it said, “We do not comment on pending litigation.”