Battle for NEST+m Triggers a Job Search by PTA

Members of a Parent Teacher Association that resigned en masse to protest a Lower East Side school's leadership are advertising for a new principal.

The advertising campaign, which includes a Web site and an ad in the New York Times paid for with PTA funds, is the latest jab in a battle by a group of parents at New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math to overthrow the school's principal.

The former PTA members, who quit during a chaotic meeting two weeks ago that ended with police being called, set up a Web site last week listing the qualifications and responsibilities they are seeking in a new principal. Yesterday they also took out a small ad in the Times.

While the former PTA members' ads say they are seeking a new principal on behalf of the gifted and talented school, they have no authority to hire someone. The current principal, Olga Livanis, has said she doesn't plan on leaving.

Ms. Livanis was appointed as an interim principal last year to replace the principal who resigned after a legal battle between the PTA and the Department of Education over plans to put a charter school inside the NEST+m building.

The education department is accepting applications for the position during the 90-day interim period and also has a posting on its Web site advertising for the position. But a spokeswoman, Kelly Devers Franklin, said the department is hoping to appoint Ms Livanis permanently. Although parents will be included in the interview process, which will happen this winter, the department has the final say in who will be appointed.

"Whenever there's an interim acting principal, there's a listing up on the Web. That doesn't mean in any way shape or form the chancellor is looking to replace Olga," Ms. Devers Franklin said. "The feeling is that she's doing an excellent job."

The conflict between the parent group and the department, which was first sparked last year during the lawsuit to keep out a charter school, has escalated over the past two weeks. After the PTA quit, the Department of Education launched an audit of its finances over the past two years. The former PTA members said the audit was an attempt to sully their reputation. The department said it was because all their financial reports were missing. On Saturday, the Times reported that the department was investigating favoritism in the school's admissions process.

Yesterday, department officials said the advertising campaign was fraudulent and possibly illegal because the former PTA is misrepresenting itself as if it were the current, acting PTA.

The former PTA president, Emily Armstrong, says the ad and Web site, which directs applicants to the Department of Education Web site, are legitimate because the PTA approved them during one of its first meetings this year.

"Parents decided early on," she said. "The ad was voted on."

She said parents also approved the language of the job description, which includes requirements that the candidate "communicate with and work side-by-side with parents" and promote "the nurturing of a culture in which the exchange of ideas is encouraged respected, and valued."

The former PTA has charged the current principal with attempting to dismantle and destroy NEST+m, in part by ignoring parent input. Ms. Devers Franklin says the group is a small minority among parents at the school, and that the department was inundated last week with phone calls and letters in support of Ms. Livanis.

A parent of a third-grader at NEST+m, Joel Hirsh, said he hasn't decided what he thinks of Ms. Livanis, but that ousting her isn't the solution.

"If I were to take a stance, I would give her the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I can't see that there has been that much that could really outrage parents."

Most parents at the school are like him, he said, and many are getting frustrated with the former PTA's constant battle stance.

"I think they are not necessarily an accurate representation of the parent body," he said.

"It's unsettling, because I think that when it gets to this kind of point, emotions take over and people start to lose focus of where the priorities are."