Newsday (New York)

June 22, 2001 Friday QUEENS EDITION

Stancik: Doc Didn’t Belong;
Hired by school despite conduct

BYLINE: By Nick Chiles; STAFF WRITER

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A08

LENGTH: 474 words

The Board of Education hired a psychiatrist to teach high school biology, even though his medical license had been suspended twice for misconduct, special schools investigator Edward Stancik said yesterday.
Stancik said board officials and administrators at Murry Bergtraum High School did no background checks before hiring Dr. Franklin Simon, 60, last September.
Simon, whose license was suspended because he masturbated in front of another doctor and waived a gun at a patient, never provided a resume, Stancik said.
Simon also lied on his application about whether he had ever had any license revoked and he left blank the employment history and personal data, Stancik said. Stancik’s office received an anonymous phone tip about Simon’s past.
“The Board of Ed, as hard as it is to believe, does not require a resume, does not check prior jobs, does not check information on licenses,” Stancik said. “To have a system where you employ over 100,000 people with access to children without having mechanisms for checking the honesty and accuracy of their job applications, you are simply courting disaster.”
By going on the state Department of Health’s Web site, in a matter of minutes Stancik’s investigators determined that Simon had lost his license first in 1981 because of conduct that included sexual advances toward patients and trying to induce patients to perform “lewd and lascivious” acts under the guise of marriage counseling.
After he managed to get his license back, according to the state Board for Professional Medical Conduct, in 1995 Simon kissed and bit a patient and touched her buttocks. Then he tried to disrobe another doctor and touch her in a sexual manner and he exposed his genitals and masturbated in front of her, causing the medical board to revoke his license again.
According to Stancik, this is the third time in the past seven years he has had to castigate the Board of Education for hiring employees who work around children without doing background checks. Yet he said no procedure has been put in place.
In a 1994 report by a joint commission formed by Stancik and former Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines to prevent child sex abuse, one of the commission’s many recommendations was that the board extend its screening procedure for prospective employees beyond fingerprinting and checking for criminal arrest.
The commission said the board also should contact employment references. In a 1999 report by Stancik submitted to former Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew, it was revealed that the board repeatedly hires unfit substitute teachers because it doesn’t do simple background checks.
Schools Chancellor Harold Levy released a statement yesterday saying that Simon had been terminated on June 8, after the chancellor’s staff learned of the doctor’s past.