A senior teacher at a Manhattan high school refused to explain what she was doing in a locked staff bathroom with a 17-year-old student, or why she later handed him a wad of cash on a staircase.
Shoshana Leffler, 37, remains licensed to teach after resigning from Health Sciences and Careers High School last year rather than face questions about the seven-minute appointment that was partially captured on surveillance video.
But investigators have concluded that the Princeton University graduate “had an inappropriate relationship” with the boy who should have been in class at the time.
“One can only speculate about what happened in the bathroom, since Leffler resigned from the DOE without an explanation,” said Anastasia Coleman, special investigative commissioner for city schools.
Leffler and his twin brother Abba were child prodigies at the prestigious Bronx High School of Science.
Shoshana Leffler photographed in 2008 during her time as a scientist at Princeton University.
“These are the students who, God willing, will find cures for diseases and be our political leaders,” said then-Bronx Science Principal Valerie Reidy. The charge in 2005.
Shoshana published academic articles and earned a PhD from New York University with a thesis on brain cell development.
In 2019 she began working for the city Department of Education and then accepted a job as a chemistry teacher at Fort George High School.
But in February of last year, video showed Leffler deep in conversation with the 17-year-old for more than 30 minutes on the steps of a school when the teen “should have been in class.”
Seconds later, the couple is reprimanded for the unscheduled conversation by a passing assistant principal and told to “go to the guidance office to get support if needed” for the student.
Instead, they went to another staircase before Leffler took the student to the fifth floor, where she “looked for a private room where the security cameras couldn’t record them.”
The chemistry teacher led the 17-year-old to a bathroom on the fifth floor of Manhattan Health Sciences and Career High School before closing the door.
Anastasia Coleman, special commissioner of investigation for the city schools, concluded that he “maintained an inappropriate relationship” with the boy.
The pair disappeared into a staff bathroom with a locked door, but were interrupted after seven minutes when another staff member tried to open the door and found it locked from the inside.
The couple left separately moments later, but were filmed together again on the staircase the next day, where Leffler was recorded “handing him what appeared to be money, he put it in his pocket, and they left the staircase together.”
An investigation was launched but no record of contact between the teacher and student was found on their phones, and the teen’s mother refused to allow him to be interviewed.
Leffler refused to be questioned and had a “trouble code” attached to her Department of Education file, which would be seen by any other school in the city that might employ her.
SCI investigators passed their report to the New York State Department of Education, but she remains licensed to teach.
Dailymail.com has contacted Leffler and the SCI for comment.