NYC Teacher Allegedly Received Thousands for Tutoring Dead Pupil

NEW YORK – A public school teacher collected almost $6,000 in city money for tutoring a pupil who had died, a city schools investigator said.

Cheryl Edwards, a teacher at P.S. 288 in Brooklyn, was paid for tutoring a 15-year-old homebound boy between Jan. 23 and June 12 last year, according to Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for city schools.

But the boy's family had taken him to their native Vietnam in mid-January of last year, and he had died in a hospital there on Jan. 29, Condon said Wednesday.

Edwards, 37, denied the charges.

"That is not true," she told the Daily News. "I tutored the kid, and that never took place."

City Education Department spokeswoman Dina Paul Parks said the department would take steps to fire Edwards.

"We will not tolerate the theft of resources intended for the benefit of our students," the department said in a statement.

Condon said Edwards logged more than 154 hours of tutoring, totaling about $5,865 in payments. The allegations against her emerged in October, he said.