http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_rubber_rooms
QuoteHundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.
Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.
The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.
"You just basically sit there for eight hours," said Orlando Ramos, who spent seven months in a rubber room, officially known as a temporary reassignment center, in 2004-05. "I saw several near-fights. `This is my seat.' `I've been sitting here for six months.' That sort of thing."
Ramos was an assistant principal in East Harlem when he was accused of lying at a hearing on whether to suspend a student. Ramos denied the allegation but quit before his case was resolved and took a job in California.
Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.
"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.
City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work.
Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, said the union and the Department of Education reached an agreement last year to try to reduce the amount of time educators spend in reassignment centers, but progress has been slow.
"No one wants teachers who don't belong in the classroom. However, we cannot neglect the teachers' rights to due process," Davis said. The union represents more than 228,000 employees, including nearly 90,000 teachers.
Many teachers say they are being punished because they ran afoul of a vindictive boss or because they blew the whistle when somebody fudged test scores.
"The principal wants you out, you're gone," said Michael Thomas, a high school math teacher who has been in a reassignment center for 14 months after accusing an assistant principal of tinkering with test results.
City education officials deny teachers are unfairly targeted but say there has been an effort under Mayor Michael Bloomberg to get incompetents out of the classroom. "There's been a push to report anything that you see wrong," Forte said.
Some other school systems likewise pay teachers to do nothing.
The Los Angeles district, the nation's second-largest school system with 620,000 students, behind New York's 1.1 million, said it has 178 teachers and other staff members who are being "housed" while they wait for misconduct charges to be resolved.
Similarly, Mimi Shapiro, who is now retired, said she was assigned to sit in what Philadelphia calls a "cluster office." "They just sit you in a room in a hard chair," she said, "and you just sit."
Teacher advocates say New York's rubber rooms are more extensive than anything that exists elsewhere.
Teachers awaiting disciplinary hearings around the nation typically are sent home, with or without pay, Karen Horwitz, a former Chicago-area teacher who founded the National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse. Some districts find non-classroom work — office duties, for example — for teachers accused of misconduct.
New York City's reassignment centers have existed since the late 1990s, Forte said. But the number of employees assigned to them has ballooned since Bloomberg won more control over the schools in 2002. Most of those sent to rubber rooms are teachers; others are assistant principals, social workers, psychologists and secretaries.
Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.
The nickname refers to the padded cells of old insane asylums. Some teachers say that is fitting, since some of the inhabitants are unstable and don't belong in the classroom. They add that being in a rubber room itself is bad for your mental health.
"Most people in that room are depressed," said Jennifer Saunders, a high school teacher who was in a reassignment center from 2005 to 2008. Saunders said she was charged with petty infractions in an effort to get rid of her: "I was charged with having a student sit in my class with a hat on, singing."
The rubber rooms are monitored, some more strictly than others, teachers said.
"There was a bar across the street," Saunders said. "Teachers would sneak out and hang out there for hours."
Judith Cohen, an art teacher who has been in a rubber room near Madison Square Garden for three years, said she passes the time by painting watercolors of her fellow detainees.
"The day just seemed to crawl by until I started painting," Cohen said, adding that others read, play dominoes or sleep. Cohen said she was charged with using abusive language when a girl cut her with scissors.
Some sell real estate, earn graduate degrees or teach each other yoga and tai chi.
David Suker, who has been in a Brooklyn reassignment center for three months, said he has used the time to plan summer trips to Alaska, Cape Cod and Costa Rica. Suker said he was falsely accused of throwing a girl's test sign-up form in the garbage during an argument.
"It's sort of peaceful knowing that you're going to work to do nothing," he said.
Philip Nobile is a journalist who has written for New York Magazine and the Village Voice and is known for his scathing criticism of public figures. A teacher at Brooklyn's Cobble Hill School of American Studies, Nobile was assigned to a rubber room in 2007, "supposedly for pushing a boy while I was breaking up a fight." He contends the school system is retaliating against him for exposing wrongdoing.
He is spending his time working on his case and writing magazine articles and a novel.
"This is what happens to political prisoners throughout history," he said, alluding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "They put us in prison and we write our `Letter From the Birmingham Jail.'"
Once again, Berk, we see that you suck at finding ways to get some of that sweet public money.
Quote from: garbon on June 22, 2009, 05:25:51 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_rubber_rooms
Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.
Well that's the problem, what the hell? Why can't the arbitrators work 5 days a week?
Quote from: garbon on June 22, 2009, 05:25:51 PM
Once again, Berk, we see that you suck at finding ways to get some of that sweet public money.
He fails at the free market. :(
Tim, you should get on board here. Seems like a pretty sweet deal.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 22, 2009, 05:29:45 PM
Well that's the problem, what the hell? Why can't the arbitrators work 5 days a week?
Arbitrator is probably a part-time position, or an additional responsibility assigned to full-timers.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 22, 2009, 05:38:31 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 22, 2009, 05:29:45 PM
Well that's the problem, what the hell? Why can't the arbitrators work 5 days a week?
Arbitrator is probably a part-time position, or an additional responsibility assigned to full-timers.
For $65 million a year, I'll bet they could get more of them. Hell, I'd do it for half that!
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 22, 2009, 05:38:31 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 22, 2009, 05:29:45 PM
Well that's the problem, what the hell? Why can't the arbitrators work 5 days a week?
Arbitrator is probably a part-time position, or an additional responsibility assigned to full-timers.
If there is so much work to be done, then maybe they should look into hiring permanent ones.
Quote from: DGuller on June 22, 2009, 06:26:20 PM
If there is so much work to be done, then maybe they should look into hiring permanent ones.
Your business-like sensibility has no place in (New York's) modern society, mister.
The inefficiency may be by design. NYC wants to decide when teachers are unfit to be in the classroom, while the union doesn't want teachers laid off (and may not want the bad publicity of fighting to keep bad teachers in the classroom). Sending teachers into an administrative limbo may be the compromise.
Hate unions.
Privatize schools?
Private schools work well when they are well funded and have active involvement from well educated parents. Lord knows what would happen if our inner city and bible belt schools were privatized.
I understand that someone may be accused of sexual misconduct, but what is it about being "accused of insubordination"? I didn't know it's a crime in the US, if you are not in the military. :huh:
Quote from: Martinus on June 23, 2009, 07:27:07 AM
I understand that someone may be accused of sexual misconduct, but what is it about being "accused of insubordination"? I didn't know it's a crime in the US, if you are not in the military. :huh:
Um...where did you get that they were charged with crimes?
Where do I apply?
Really strange that they wouldn't be allowed to do paper work though.
Quote from: Tyr on June 23, 2009, 07:30:48 AM
Where do I apply?
They would tear you apart in NY.
Wow... I can understand there being a wait. But 700 teachers? Shows this goes on for a long time period. They need to get these cases resolved one way or the other a lot faster, so that teachers can return to work or if they're fired then new teachers hired to replace them. Keep the system functioning. Quite the mess apparently though, and has to be costly in money and lack of teachers to fill classrooms for the kids.
Quote from: KRonn on June 23, 2009, 07:45:06 AM
Wow... I can understand there being a wait. But 700 teachers? Shows this goes on for a long time period. They need to get these cases resolved one way or the other a lot faster
Dude, it's the government. ^_^
Quote from: Valmy on June 23, 2009, 07:29:59 AM
Quote from: Martinus on June 23, 2009, 07:27:07 AM
I understand that someone may be accused of sexual misconduct, but what is it about being "accused of insubordination"? I didn't know it's a crime in the US, if you are not in the military. :huh:
Um...where did you get that they were charged with crimes?
Ok, but what is an "offense of insubordination" then? I thought the word "offense" implies some sort of misdemeanor at least. If that just means not performing their work properly, they should say so.
Quote from: Martinus on June 23, 2009, 08:05:07 AM
Ok, but what is an "offense of insubordination" then? I thought the word "offense" implies some sort of misdemeanor at least. If that just means not performing their work properly, they should say so.
"Offense" can mean things other than crimes, and does not imply criminal behavior. Insubordination would be an offense against the work rules that are part of the employment contract.
Not that this makes the disgraceful situation any less disgraceful.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 22, 2009, 05:29:45 PM
Quote from: garbon on June 22, 2009, 05:25:51 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_rubber_rooms
Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.
Well that's the problem, what the hell? Why can't the arbitrators work 5 days a week?
Too expensive!
Ahhh, the free market that is NYS public service employees unions at work once again! I bet in North Carolina you are not allowed to do nothing for $70k/year plus benefits! Silly non-free market union free states!
America is incredibly Socialist compared to Sweden.
Quote from: The Brain on June 23, 2009, 03:38:51 PM
America is incredibly Socialist compared to Sweden.
Don't confuse NYC with America. NYC is just a dysfunction layered upon dysfunction layered upon dysfunction.
Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2009, 03:49:04 PM
Quote from: The Brain on June 23, 2009, 03:38:51 PM
America is incredibly Socialist compared to Sweden.
Don't confuse NYC with America. NYC is just a dysfunction layered upon dysfunction layered upon dysfunction.
No, I will equate it with America.
He might.
I support my meatball brother with his equatin'.
Quote from: The Brain on June 23, 2009, 03:54:49 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2009, 03:49:04 PM
Don't confuse NYC with America. NYC is just a dysfunction layered upon dysfunction layered upon dysfunction.
No, I will equate it with America.
Unfair--that flatters the rest of America.