A New York principal and his wife have accused the mastermind behind a bilingual teacher scandal exposed by The Post, they’ve collected more than $500,000 in salaries over the past two years — while the foreign educators they recruited are barred from visiting their families back home if they want to keep their jobs.

About 20 teachers from the Dominican Republic have been barred from traveling outside the U.S. without losing their high-paying Department of Education jobs and enrolling in a city-paid master’s program amid a federal investigation into Bronx principal Emmanuel Polanco, his wife, Professor Sterling. Baez and a group of Dominican-American administrators who allegedly exploited the newcomers.

The Department of Homeland Security gave the teachers, who lost their original visas during the unrest, a “Continuous Presence” statute, which is meant to keep victims of human trafficking in the US as potential witnesses to crimes. Under the rules, they cannot travel out of the country and return pending the investigation, teachers told The Post this week.

“The last I heard was they were still investigating,” said one. “Sometimes I wonder when this is going to end because it’s already been two years and we’re still waiting.”

“We don’t know what’s going on.” said another Dominican teacher who was warned she could lose her job and protected status if she visited the DR when her mother had cancer surgery.

“We’re in limbo.”

A third teacher, who works in a high school in the Bronx, cannot visit his family in the DR, although his wife and three children have come to the US twice to see him in the past two years.

“No one is telling us anything,” he said. “How long do we have to wait?”

All three teachers requested anonymity, saying supervisors had warned them not to talk to reporters. But they want to know their situation.

Homeland Security launched an investigation in November 2022 amid complaints that Polanco, the principal of JHS 80, ran a racketeering scheme to force teachers to rent overpriced rooms leased by ADASA, a fraternal group of Dominican-American administrators — and threaten them with deportation if they refused.

The DOE yanked Polanco from the JHS 80. His wife Sterling Baez, a teacher at PS 595 in the Bronx, was also removed when she appeared she personally took in over $3,000 a month from three teachers told him to share an apartment on Marion Avenue owned by Polanco’s late mother.

Neither has been charged with any crime. They did not return requests for comment.

Polanco and Baez have not returned to their schools, but remain on the city’s payroll — making a total of $245,850 in fiscal year 2023 and $311,303 in fiscal year 2024, records show. Polanco’s current salary is $185,112; Baez” is $95,365.

Polanco, as first vice president of THAT’S ITwas a pet of the then chancellor David Banks, who praised the group — dormant since the scandal broke — for “getting things done,” to use Mayor Adams’ mantra.

But disturbing details soon emerged.

ADASA put 11 teachers in a cramped two-family house on Baychester Avenue in the Bronx, charging 10 of them $1,450 a month each and one $1,300 a month for single rooms with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The station reported.

The total income of $15,800 would have a monthly profit of $8,900 above what ADASA paid to rent the duplex.

Daniel Calcaño, an ADASA treasurer and former assistant director, collected about $4,500 a month in rent from three teachers and a husband in a three-bedroom apartment on Pilgrim Avenue — once knocking on their doors at 23.00.

Calcaño, still on the city payroll, he earns $151,409 a year.

Calcaño, Polanco and Baez have all been “reassigned to central administrative roles,” the DOE said, declining to specify their duties, if any. “Reassigned” is DOE parlance for rubber cameras, meaning they do little or nothing while being investigated.

Five Dominican teachers quit their DOE jobs in frustration and returned permanently to the DR. The remaining 20 have since found housing on their own. They receive DOE salaries of $66,000 to $75,000, plus overtime.

They also attend City College for a master’s degree in education — paid for by the DOE — that can lead to certification and permanent status as active immigrants.

A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Investigations did not respond to questions about the investigation: “Due to law enforcement sensitivities, HSI cannot confirm or deny the existence of an open investigation.”