Teacher that faked daughters death, now works in a Navajo Nation school

Zia myspace photo

She’s banned from Teaching in New York State

With the Navajo Nation being remote, you can easily harbor your secrets. Zia Managaytay, a teacher at the Ch’ooshgai Community School in Tohatchi, N.M. was reported to have faked her daughters death.

Alex Goldsmith, with KRQE reported, Managaytay was a teacher in New York before coming to the Navajo Nation to teach. According to Goldsmith, she lied about her daughters death to get leave with pay to travel back to to her country of the Philippines to mourn- at least that’s what they thought.

While on leave, she apparently received over $13,000 and the whole time she was on leave, she was teaching on the Navajo reservation.

Frank Shepard, a school administrator issued a statement to KRQE, “Ch’ooshgai Community School is fortunate to employ Dr. Managaytay as a teacher who provides the best academic education for our special needs children,”adding, “This organization was not aware of the allegations… and our organization should not intervene with this investigation. Our organization firmly believes that this issue is between Dr. Managaytay and [the New York City Department of Education].”

No other information was provided. The Navajo Post made several calls to the Ch’ooshgai Community School, we were not able to reach Managaytay.