Troubled NYC teachers bouncing around "rubber rooms" wasting $22 Million

[Shortline Bus]

 

 

 

 

Educators accused of breaking rules, abusing kids — or simply failing to provide students with a decent education — will be paid a stunning $22 million by the city this year for doing absolutely nothing.

More than two years have passed since city officials and the teachers union announced with great fanfare that they’d found a way to shut down the infamous “rubber rooms” where as many as 800 teachers languished — sometimes for years — awaiting disciplinary hearings.

 

Since then, the number of teachers collecting a salary to twiddle their thumbs while their disciplinary cases plod through the system has dropped dramatically to just over 200 teachers, but a new kind of rubber room has emerged in its place.

 

t lives now in broom closets, unused offices — even stinky locker rooms — in school buildings all over the city.

“You start to go a little crazy,” said former Bronx middle school teacher Michael Portnoy, 43, who earned more than $78,000 for sitting in a dark, unused girls’ locker room for 13 months until being fired last spring over what he said was an argument with his principal.

Portnoy, who is appealing his firing from Middle School 142, began each day by getting a few hours’ sleep in a beach chair while mice scurried past him on the concrete floor, he said.

He battled boredom by sticking a miniature batting cage to a peeling wall and taught himself how to pitch a softball.

“You ever see anyone in solitary confinement? It was awful,” said Portnoy, who taught in city schools for 14 years. “I wouldn’t go back there for anything.”

Officially called “reassignment centers,” rubber rooms have been around for years, populated by teachers who face disciplinary charges but are allowed to remain on the payroll by a union contract that gives them the right to a hearing before they can be fired.

Before the major rubber room reform in 2010, teachers routinely waited two years for a hearing as massive administrative holding pens overflowed with increasingly disgruntled teachers who read books, taught themselves to knit and led yoga classes at taxpayer expense

 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-schools-rubber-rooms-bounce-back-article-1.1184406#ixzz29TFlA9YY

 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-schools-rubber-rooms-bounce-back-article-1.1184406#ixzz29TFRqfOE

 

[Threxx]

Well, the NYC public education system continues to roll down the crapper...

[checkmatechamp13]

DOE wasting money. What a surprise......

 

Sadly, this is probably one of the more justifiable instances of them wasting money. (I mean, it's understandable that they would have to pay them until they receive their hearing, but they should at least try to get some administrative work done or whatever)

[DJ MC]

Like no one saw this coming. Not a shocker.

[CenSin]

DOE wasting money. What a surprise......

I think unions are to blame for part of this. It's their job to make unreasonable demands like paying for nothing. Normally a sensible medium is reached, but not in this case.

[Joe]

Why work for a living when you can be an NYC schoolteacher?

[R10 2952]

Well, well. Incompetent teachers being paid to do nothing. Reminds of my days at a sub-standard high school in Brooklyn.

[Shortline Bus]

Well, well. Incompetent teachers being paid to do nothing. Reminds of my days at a sub-standard high school in Brooklyn.

 

 

Why is NYC public school teachers the only ones in America with this rubber room crap? Almost everywhere else if teacher is suspended they stay home and if they found not gulity or cleared of their charges they just get retroactive pay?

Oh yes no common sense here.

[realizm]

Well, well. Incompetent teachers being paid to do nothing. Reminds of my days at a sub-standard high school in Brooklyn.

 

 

NO that is not correct. Stop feeding into the hype, you don't know if the teacher was harrassed by superiors over something that really administration screwed up, looking for a scapegoat to cover up their actions! Oviously there is something wrong with the DOE. Forcing qualified teachers out by means of attrition by the orders of Bloomberg AND Obama indirectly!!

 

Was you there to see what happened? It's not always good for a person to jump to conclusions. It makes a person looking to harras other teachers look like an ass in the long run.

[realizm]

I think unions are to blame for part of this. It's their job to make unreasonable demands like paying for nothing. Normally a sensible medium is reached, but not in this case.

 

 

The unions work with the Bloomberg Administration, NOT the common public of lower income or for those teachers who really have the passion to teach kids well.Heh the UFT? they do not work in behalf f the teachers represented and protected by this shit union.

 

There are alot of politics that goes on even in the schools themselves. Unfortunately many hard working teachers will fight for their rights, and of course look like the bad guys in the face of superiors. YES many administrators abuse their power all the time making good for bad and bad for good. As with any professional level job.

 

Wow. Will the public get a f**king clue!! Of course all the so called wealthy conservatives living within their box refusing to even want to deal with this problem will NEVER understand this or refuse to understand this shit.

 

Boy I feel so sorry for some of the kids caught up in this monkey shit of a mess with the DOE for some time now

[Turbo19]

Why is NYC public school teachers the only ones in America with this rubber room crap? Almost everywhere else if teacher is suspended they stay home and if they found not gulity or cleared of their charges they just get retroactive pay?

Oh yes no common sense here.

 

The whole point of this is to break people, but it's obvious it doesn't work.

 

The unions work with the Bloomberg Administration, NOT the common public of lower income or for those teachers who really have the passion to teach kids well.Heh the UFT? they do not work in behalf f the teachers represented and protected by this shit union.

 

There are alot of politics that goes on even in the schools themselves. Unfortunately many hard working teachers will fight for their rights, and of course look like the bad guys in the face of superiors. YES many administrators abuse their power all the time making good for bad and bad for good. As with any professional level job.

 

Wow. Will the public get a f**king clue!! Of course all the so called wealthy conservatives living within their box refusing to even want to deal with this problem will NEVER understand this or refuse to understand this shit.

 

Boy I feel so sorry for some of the kids caught up in this monkey shit of a mess with the DOE for some time now

 

Agreed.