Investigation Uncovers Improper DOE Contract and Teacher Misconduct
Complaints about a problematic public school teacher prompted an investigation that uncovered an improper contract involving Comer Samuels prior to his appointment as New York City’s school superintendent.
Officials began examining the agreement between Upper West Side District 3, where Samuels served as superintendent from 2022 before assuming a principal role, and Sean Kreiling’s Language Learning Network. This inquiry was initiated after a whistleblower reported misconduct related to teacher Ralph F. Franco, who worked at both Manhattan Children’s School and Community Action School.
Kreiling’s company was responsible for providing long-term foreign language teachers to schools, including placing Franco in a teaching position.
A special investigator’s report revealed that Franco had previously engaged in inappropriate behavior with minors dating back to 2014.
Franco allegedly made sexual comments to a 15-year-old boy and inappropriately touched him at Kingsborough Early College Secondary School.
In a follow-up report from 2025, it was noted that Franco resigned from the DOE as part of a settlement on March 6, 2015. This agreement specified that he could not work for the DOE again without approval from the Department of Human Resources.
A 2014 report detailed an incident where the then-54-year-old teacher allegedly pulled a teenage boy into an empty dance room and made inappropriate comments, which were quite alarming.
Kreiling, a victim of child sexual abuse herself, stated she was not aware of Franco’s previous offenses. “I would never knowingly send a predator into my school,” she expressed.
When questioned about how Franco slipped past the company’s vetting process, Kreiling mentioned that the New York City Department of Energy employed its own fingerprinting system to which Franco did not have access, and he had never been flagged from working in city schools. She noted that Franco still holds a valid teaching license.
Kreiling criticized DOE officials, saying, “They signed the settlement to continue to harm and intimidate students, which is a disservice to any student.”
Franco began teaching at a kindergarten through eighth-grade school on the Upper West Side in September 2024, adopting the name “Rafael,” according to a 2025 report.
The investigation revealed that Deputy Superintendent Mariela Graham had signed a contract with LLN, which was not an approved vendor by the DOE, and had conspired to divide payments between two of Kreiling’s companies to bypass financial oversight.
Additionally, it was discovered that Samuels, then the district superintendent, had signed a similar contract with Kreiling the previous year and was aware of the payment practices, as shown in emails obtained during the investigation.
As a result, investigators recommended that Kreiling and his business be blacklisted from working with the DOE.
Franco, for his part, had denied all allegations made against him in the 2014 report.
