The “cringeworthy” day Donald Trump paid a visit to an elementary school in a poor neighbourhood of New York has been relived by teachers who said he “insulted” their students.
The Republican nominee for the US presidency took part in a “principal for a day” scheme at P.S. 70 in the Bronx back in 1997 as part of a charitable project to forge relationships between the city’s schools and those in the private sector.
But according to the people working at the school on the day Mr Trump visited his appearance was less than successful.
Whereas other influential New Yorkers taking part in the scheme, organised by the nonprofit Public Education Needs Civic Involvement in Learning (PENCIL), donated computers and funded school trips, the reality TV star instead offered to buy a randomly selected group of students a pair of Nike sneakers.
According to onlookers, the offer of sneakers was immediately challenged by one boy, who wanted to know why the property mogul was not offering a scholarship instead.
Sylvia Simon, who was principal of P.S. 70 at the time, recalled the disappointment she felt when Mr Trump came calling.
Speaking to website the The 74, the now retired Ms Simon said: “I’m not so sure that he - he didn’t understand, to give low-income kids a lottery for sneakers was an insult. But hopefully he’s learned ... it was a long time ago.”
She compared his visit to that of a Scholastic executive who donated books to every grade for a year after he spoke to the students, many of whom were on free school lunches.
Former assistant principal Mark Singer told The 74 of how Mr Trump used a tissue to protect his hand from touching the school’s stairwell handrail while on a tour of the building.
Another witness on the day was David MacEnulty, who ran a chess program at P.S. 70.
“The thing that it really left me with was that this man had absolutely no clue about education,” he said. “He certainly had no clue where he was and who he was working with, and I just got the impression that this is a guy who shoots from the hip and whatever’s on his mind at the moment is what’s going to come out. I’d like for somebody to be a little more thoughtful.”
Mr MacEnulty was trying to find the money to pay for a trip to take his chess players to a national tournament in Tennessee.
“Donald Trump showed up and gave the people behind the counter a fake million dollar bill as his donation,” Mr MacEnulty said. “And then he took that back and gave them an actual $200, which is kind of slim.”
To read the full account visit The 74.
