“Hamilton” tickets donated to Boston Public School students went to the sons of the administrators

A pair of Boston Public School administrators took their sons to see the hit musical “Hamilton” using tickets donated for students to see the show.

Natasha Halfkenny, the former principal of the Tobin School, and the school’s assistant principal, Coreen Miranda, each paid a $4,000 civil penalty for violations of the state’s conflict of interest law, according to a report by the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission released Tuesday.

The Tobin School is a kindergarten through eighth grade school in Roxbury

A nonprofit organization donated the tickets last year to a dozen students and two accompanists for the award-winning musical at Boston’s Citizens Bank Opera House.

The administrators have chosen themselves to supervise the performance.

Eight students made the trip. But Miranda and Halfkenny also handed out tickets for Miranda’s two sons and Halfkenny’s son, neither of whom were Boston Public School students, the commission said.

According to the committee, Halfkenny and Miranda were also personal friends who socialized outside of school.

“Halfkenny and Miranda denied three Tobin School students the opportunity to attend the show and violated the conflict of interest law,” the commission’s executive director, David A. Wilson, said in a statement.

Public employees cannot use their positions to obtain “special, valuable privileges to which they are not entitled,” he said.

A spokesperson for Boston Public Schools did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

In agreements with the commission, Halfkenny and Miranda each admitted to ethical violations.

The tickets, worth approximately $150 each, were donated for the use of students who would otherwise not be able to attend such a performance.

After receiving notice of the Boston Education Development Fund gift in February 2023, Miranda told Halfkenny that she planned to get one chaperone ticket and use two student tickets for her sons.

Just a month earlier, she and her sons had seen the same Hamilton performance and “enjoyed it immensely,” the committee said.

Halfkenny agreed to accompany the students as well. No other Tobin School employee was presented with the chaperone tickets.

The pair selected nine eighth-graders to attend the March 1, 2023 show, although one ultimately dropped out.

They also decided to use the last student ticket for Halfkenny’s son. None of the administrators’ children were students at the Tobin School or enrolled in the Boston school system.

Miranda did not ask other school officials if her two sons could take the tickets, although an administrator from the Boston Education Development Fund told her that would not be a problem, the committee said.