A former BPS principal and assistant principal have paid $4,000 fines after they were caught using tickets donated to the school to take their sons to “Hamilton.”
Ex-Boston Tobin School Principal Natasha Halfkenny and Assistant Principal Coreen Miranda have each paid a $4,000 civil penalty for violating the conflict of interest law, according to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission.
They both admitted that they allocated donated tickets for the musical Hamilton to themselves and their sons, who were not Tobin School students.
“By choosing to allocate three of the donated Hamilton tickets to their own sons who were not Tobin School or BPS students, Halfkenny and Miranda denied three Tobin School students of the opportunity to attend the show and violated the conflict of interest law,” said State Ethics Commission Executive Director David Wilson.
“This case is a reminder that public employees must not use their official positions to get themselves or others special, valuable privileges to which they are not entitled, and that there are legal consequences for doing so,” Wilson added.
Last year, the Boston Education Development Fund notified Miranda that a nonprofit had donated 12 tickets to a performance of Hamilton at the Citizens Bank Opera House. The tickets were for Tobin School students who would otherwise be unable to attend such a show.
The nonprofit also donated two additional tickets for chaperones. Each ticket would have cost about $149 to purchase.
Miranda told Halfkenny, her direct supervisor and personal friend, that she planned to allocate one of the chaperone tickets to herself and two of the Tobin School student tickets to her sons — who were not students at the Tobin School or in Boston Public Schools.
Miranda asked Halfkenny if she would like to chaperone. Halfkenny allowed Miranda to bring her sons to the show and agreed to chaperone. No other employees of Tobin School were offered the opportunity to chaperone.
“Rather than making the opportunity to attend Hamilton known or available to all Tobin students, Halfkenny and Miranda themselves chose a group of nine eighth-grade students to attend the show,” the State Ethics Commission wrote. “At some point, Halfkenny and Miranda allocated an extra ticket to Halfkenny’s minor son, who was not a Tobin or Boston Public Schools student.”
By providing their sons with Hamilton tickets intended for Tobin School students, Halfkenny and Miranda violated the conflict of interest law’s ban against public employees using their official positions to obtain for themselves or others valuable privileges that are not properly available to them.
