What happens at Disney stays at Disney: NYC education bureaucrats took their own children to the Magic Kingdom on trips intended for homeless students

According to investigators, six Department of Education employees used “fake permits” to take their own children and grandchildren to Disney World and other city-sponsored trips for homeless students.

The secret perks deprived some of the city's most disadvantaged children of the chance to enjoy the Magic Kingdom – a trip that cost $66,000 for about 50 adults and children, according to one employee – and other multi-day trips from 2016 to 2019 to Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Boston, the Rocking Horse Ranch resort in the north of the state and the Frost Valley YMCA campground, according to a recently released report by the city's special investigator for schools.

Linda M. Wilson, a director of DOE's Students in Temporary Housing program in Queens, took her own two daughters on the trips and encouraged colleagues to bring their sons, daughters and grandchildren. But when SCI asked questions, she tried to cover up these shady practices, the SCI report said.

“What happens here stays with us,” Wilson reportedly told his colleagues.

“She said everyone should stick to the same story that we didn't take our children on the trip,” a Post employee told the Post.

“She told us to lie to the investigators.”

While some homeless students participated in the trips, the children of the employees took up valuable places.

A DOE educator “had to beg Wilson to allow him to take two of his students” on a trip to Disney World, while Wilson and several staff members she supervised brought family members, according to the SCI.

“Accepting money intended for homeless students is extremely inappropriate,” said Naveed Hasan, a parent of a Manhattan public school student and a member of the city's Education Policy Panel, which advocates for students in need of housing. “I'm shocked.”

According to Chancellor's regulations, family members are not permitted to participate in field trips, even if the DOE is reimbursed for the costs.

Wilson and other staff members used the names of homeless students to forge permission slips and then forged parents' signatures on the papers, witnesses told investigators.

“Few of the homeless students listed in the records actually participated in the trips,” a source told SCI.

Initially, Wilson used a Department of Energy contractor to book transportation, hotels, meals and activities.

The city funded the trips with a $300,000 federal grant from the National Center for Homeless Education, which is designed to provide the children with support and incentives to improve their attendance or academic performance.

Wilson supervised about 20 staff members who worked with students in transitional housing, which included those living in a homeless shelter, a car, a park or an abandoned building.

According to Advocates for Children of New York, a record 119,320 students in New York City were homeless last year, or about one in nine public school children.

Most out-of-town trips had four to six staff members supervising them and one or two buses carrying about 30 children each, the SCI report said.

The buses alone cost around $2,700 per trip, said one employee. Those who went to Disney took the train.

Wilson would decide which employees could go on a field trip, assign students to each employee as chaperones and then replace the seats assigned to those students with the employees' children, the SCI said.

Wilson planned trips to universities, including Howard University in Washington DC in 2019, ostensibly so that homeless children could tour the campuses.

However, she did not contact the universities to arrange visits, the SCI claims.

On a three-day trip in June 2018 supposedly to visit Syracuse University, the DOE group ate only lunch at the campus in the north of the state, the report said, before heading to Niagara Falls, more than three hours away.

After planning numerous trips, Wilson abruptly canceled a visit to Philadelphia in 2018 when she had to process payments for the trips directly through the Department of Energy rather than through a contractor.

Wilson, whose last salary was $99,726, took one or two of her daughters with her on trips, the SCI said.

Other employees accused of bringing family members include Mishawn Jack, who brought two daughters; Shaquieta Boyd, who brought one daughter; Virgen Ramos, who brought two granddaughters; Maria Sylvester, who brought two daughters, and Joanne Castro, who brought two sons.

Boyd was fired but blamed Wilson: “The supervisor in charge not only gave me permission to do this, she encouraged me to do it, and I had no reason to believe it was against the rules.”

After completing its investigation in January 2023, the SCI recommended that Finance Minister David Banks dismiss all six employees and demand compensation from them, with the amount to be determined by the Department of Energy.

According to the documents, the DOE also fired attendance teacher Mishawn Jack on September 5, 2023.

In a settlement with the city's conflict of interest committee last month, Jack admitted that she used time slots set aside for homeless children to see the Broadway show “Wicked” with her two daughters and to travel to Washington, D.C., in 2016 – trips for which she had been hired as a chaperone.

Jack agreed to pay a fine of $1,200, which was waived by the COIB due to the “financial hardship” of losing her job of $3,000, the approximate cost of the trips.

She also blamed Wilson for claiming the benefits, saying she “told staff they could bring family members,” according to the COIB agreement.

When we contacted Wilson this week, she categorically denied that her daughters participated in the trips and that she allowed employees to bring their own children. She insisted that the DOE's “checks and balances” would have prevented such abuses and called the SCI investigation “a witch hunt.”

Wilson, 63, said she was not fired but resigned from the Energy Department.

The DOE declined to say whether anyone was disciplined or paid damages. “All employees named in this report are no longer employed by New York City Public Schools,” said spokeswoman Jenna Lyle.

A spokesman said the SCI decided not to refer the cases for prosecution, citing “the lack of available documentation.”