The Nation - News from Nov. 24, 1988

A New York grand jury is investigating allegations that an elementary school was used as an after-hours drug den in a school district that employed a principal arrested on charges of buying crack cocaine, authorities said. Bronx Dist. Atty. Paul Gentile, amid the onslaught of allegations focusing on Community School Board 9 in an impoverished section of the Bronx, said a grand jury is probing all six of the New York City borough’s school boards. Among the 34 elementary and junior high schools Board 9 oversees is Public School 64, which the Village Voice newspaper said often was the site of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol parties held by four of the board’s eight members. Schools Chancellor Richard Green indefinitely suspended all eight members of the school board, replacing them with four trustees, who will oversee the operation of the embattled district.