By Matthew Monks
Two weeks after the 131-year-old school closed its doors, staff members who did not receive a final paycheck were considering legal action, while the 912 students enrolled at the Astoria campus scrambled to get their tuition reimbursed or enroll in other programs.
“Everybody I've spoken to since the closure is very, very, upset about it,” said Lois Citron, the school's former vice president of academic affairs. “We really think that Drake did not treat us fairly in the end.”
She said that 125 employees at the school's branches in Astoria, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx were told June 2 they would not get any pay for their last two weeks, despite a promise to the contrary from the school's chairman.
Once she rallies several co-workers, Citron plans to complain to the office of the state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. It is to soon to say if they will sue, she said.
“We feel we worked very hard and we stayed with Drake to the end and we deserve this money,” Citron said. “Everybody needs the money and we weren't making high salaries there.”
The school announced last week it would file for bankruptcy, meaning its employees would have to wait with other creditors to get paid, The New York Post reported.
As of Tuesday, the school had not sought bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
Citing overwhelming financial problems, Drake threw in the towel a week after its chief executive officer and president, David Cary Hart, was mysteriously shot in the buttocks May 24 while walking through a Steinway Street Subway turnstile. Police have made no arrests and the investigation was continuing.
Citron said Drake had been in dire straits for nearly a year – in part due to as much as $1 million in deferred state grants. Board members who were relying on Hart to keep the school afloat decided to fold after learning that the CEO would be disabled for up to a year to recover from a shattered pelvis, The Post reported.
Bewildered students enrolled in business or medical office assistant programs were told on the first day of summer classes they would have to continue their education elsewhere.
The state Education Department visited each campus June 2, telling students they could enroll in a dozen similar local schools with the financial assistance of the state or be reimbursed for their out-of-pocket expenses.
The school catered to low-income students, all of whom relied on financial aid to cover the majority of the $16,000 tuition, said Donna Hallam, the school's former president.
Comparable schools such as Plaza College and Franklin Career Institute Brooklyn have received dozens of calls from displaced students, officials at each school said. They said it was to soon to tell if they would be enrolled by the next cycle of classes.
The Education Department has been flooded with hundreds of calls and e-mails the past several days, a school official said, many from Drake students confused about how their financial aid carries over to other schools.
“I would say most have mentioned that they want to continue (their studies),” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I don't really know what's going to happen. This was a terrible thing that happened to them.”
Reach reporter Matthew Monks by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
