A sweaty and thirsty Harold Levy threw a fit on Day 1 as school chancellor when he discovered a water fountain was broken at the junior high school he attended as a child.
“Systemic idiocy,” Levy said after hunching over to get a sip at JHS 52 in Washington Heights and coming up dry.
“It’s bizarre. It makes me angry.”
A day after the Board of Education appointed him the permanent chancellor, an energetic Levy toured five floors of the junior high. He marveled at the classes of students diligently working on their laptop and desktop computers.
But the dash from one floor to another left Levy – sporting a dark suit – perspiring.
The school, undergoing renovations, had few air conditioners – except in the principal’s office.
Levy said a soda machine or water fountain would come in handy, before heading to the fountain on the fourth floor and finding it broken.
“It’s not too much to ask for a water fountain to work in a school building with 1,500 kids,” he said.
“It may be a challenge to try to get all the kids to perform at Regents levels. But we sure as hell want to get the plumbing right.
“This is plumbing! We know how to do plumbing!”
When he became acting schools boss in January, Levy threatened to fire the chief custodian at Board of Education headquarters in Brooklyn because the building was a “pigsty.”
Principal Jose Rivera said the fountain was leaking water onto the floor and had to be shut down to protect students from slipping and hurting themselves. He noted the other fountain on the floor was working.
But Levy wasn’t satisfied.
“This is unacceptable,” he said.
“If we don’t get the dumb, stupid things right, how can we expect to do the bigger things right? If you don’t start somewhere, then everyone says, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It does matter.”
Levy also visited the High School for Leadership and Public Service in the Wall Street area. Students there proposed a citywide voter registration drive at the high schools, and the chancellor vowed to help.
He was also impressed with student artwork interpreting “Dante’s Inferno.”
But teachers sent a message challenging Levy and Mayor Giuliani by sporting red buttons that read: “I’m a hard-working teacher. Mayor, we all deserve respect and a fair raise.”
Levy said teachers deserved recognition for their contributions and expertise, but added it’s his responsibility to weed out the bad ones.
Deputy Mayor Tony Coles said Giuliani offered a merit-pay plan that would have given teachers the opportunity to nearly double their salaries for summer school, if student test scores improved. He said teachers should ask their union leaders why the plan was rejected.