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Sunday, August 3, 2014

The DOE Scripts on How To Get Rid of an "Incompetent" Teacher

Reposted for your information:

The Performance Management Program Manual handed out by the DOE to help Principals and Superintendants to get rid of teachers has the PIP+ letter inside.

PIP+ is a program designed to terminate teachers at 3020-a.

The Performance Management manual has the scripts to help DOE administrators get rid of a tenured teacher.

Betsy Combier


The Script: How To Get Rid Of An "Incompetent" Teacher

The NYC Teacher Performance Management Termination Script
Parentadvocates.org
LINK

 The How To Get Rid Of Tenured Teachers document scripts the entire process of getting rid of a teacher who is, according to somebody with power and influence, "incompetent" - whatever that means. In NYC Mayor Bloomberg leaves nothing to chance. He wants tenure to end, and I have the scripts written as "letters" where principals fill in the blanks.
The UFT is as much at fault here as the NYC Department of Education, because Mike Mulgrew, Ellie Engler, Mike Mendel, Claude Hersh and Richard Casagrande (NYSUT) allowed the PIP+ process (a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement evaluations clause) and the "guidelines" posted below to be used against any teacher, not defined as good or bad by any data or facts.
 
Betsy Combier

The NYC Teacher Performance Management Termination Script

As most people now know, the NYC Department of Education wants to get rid of all tenured employees of the Department. These people are, it is said, lazy, incompetent, and harmful to the health, safety, and welfare of children, and should never have been given a job for life (tenured position).

In fact, the NYC DOE wants teachers with tenure out so badly that they will gladly alter your performance record and change your U ratings to S ratings if you sign your name to a settlement agreement saying you will immediately and irrevocably resign. And you can never sue the Department for any reason.

As I have written many times before, this is a sad joke on the employee, who, thinking that the settlement is a great idea, signs it, and then cannot get a job anywhere else. Why? Because he/she did not demand a giveback - his/her removal from the "Ineligible/Inquiry List". This List is the same as the anti-communist protests of the '50's under Joseph McCarthy. There is no rational reason for the mobbing of individuals simply because they used to work for the Department of Education.

Yet, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) may deny that the Ineligible/Inquiry List exists, so that Special Representatives may continue to earn astonishing sums of money (members' dues) while doing nothing. All the UNITY caucus and UFT Special Reps. say in private that every re-assigned member is "guilty" of whatever is charged against them. There is no effort to help any member win his/her U-rating appeal, grievance, or 3020-a, for that matter. And, it does not matter if this is unfair, as can be seen in the Special Complaint filed by Gail Friedman. The 2005 UFT contract took away the right to grieve "unfairness".

Anyway, the basic bottom line is, to get tenured (and expensive) teachers out of the system in order to hire two newbie teachers for the price of one. The rating and evaluation processes have nothing to do with individual performance. A person may be Teacher of The Year, but if he/she makes too much money, out he/she must go.

Of course Mayor Bloomberg is a control freak. He does not have too much faith in the capabilities of anyone to accomplish quickly and efficiently what he wants (i.e., get rid of tenure and tenured teachers). Therefore, he created the Teacher Performance Unit in 2007, and opened a new floor - the 7th - at 51 Chambers Street to accommodate the expedited hearings under the TPU, the "incompetency" 3020-a.
These are all expedited and there is no room for error.

Mike Bloomberg had his underlings create a script for all the Principals who may not be aware of how to quickly get rid of a teacher in the building. The Office of Labor Relations is at the same location as the Gotcha Squad, and drew up, in 2007, the document below. I was given this document several months ago by a principal.

I turned around the first couple of pages from the original, in order to make for easier reading:

Saturday, January 12, 2013


The Gotcha Squad and How the TPU Charges Teachers


To the New York State legislature: 
please review and change the 3020-a/grievance/U-rating Appeal process! As it exists right now, this process is not fair, balanced, factual, rational or beneficial to children who need to have good teachers in their classrooms.

Thank you.

Betsy Combier

With the talk about evaluation and teacher performance coming to the deadline for getting $millions here in NYC, I am listing the documents which I have posted on my website (Parentadvocates.org) and this blog that are important to the argument that teachers have not been fairly assessed, and tenure rights have been generally ignored under the umbrella of a sham version of "due process".

The RMC Contracts and Training Manual for the PIP+, TAC memos, Performance Management document, and the Office of Labor Relations' Disciplining Teachers are all now available to anyone.
These documents reveal that there is, actually, no data being used to assess teachers, and observations are simply a higher-up's opinion, or hearsay, and are not final determinations (Elentuck v Green). According to the case McPherson v NYC DOE this hearsay is not enough to prove that the process is arbitrary in a federal court, and I think that observations without data (such as test scores, student grades and IEPs, OORS and SOHO reports) are not enough to prove by any standard that a teacher is not effective.
A few guidelines: Do NOT, under any circumstances, sign up for PIP+. This program is designed to get you terminated. PIP+ is in the CBA as "approved". If you turn it down as I suggest (I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice) and you are brought to 3020-a, the DOE's argument will be that you turned it down because you will not recognize how bad you are as a teacher. Your argument is that the PIP+ process is designed to create the necessary documentation to terminate you, and you will not succumb to a set-up where the principal gets the observations and can change them before they are given to you. Or something along those lines. All the documents below are used by the Gotcha Squad to get rid of tenured teachers, who are already defined as "incompetent". Notice I say "defined" as opposed to "determined". The bizarre fact of the incompetency hearings are that if a principal says you are an "ineffective" teacher", this suddenly is transformed into a fact. 

Unfortunately, at 3020-a, NYSUT has not brought in any factual data that would help support another argument, and the teacher is terminated on the basis of hearsay. Ask your NYSUT attorney when you meet with him/her how many cases he/she has won. There are many reasons why NYSUT Attorneys do not win their cases (the arbitrator makes a difference as well - there are strong, fair arbitrators on the 3020-a panel, and weak unfair as well).

 When a principal finds Just Cause to terminate you, the NYC Department of Education takes this as not as hearsay/opinion, but "Fact". And here's the problem: UFT and NYSUT believe the opinion of a principal is a fact, too. 

The denial of rights started with this:
Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice from NYC Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo

 Pages index -11
Pages 12-25
Pages 26-41
Pages 42-58
Pages 59-80

 Editorial: The New York City DOE is a Sham and Mike Bloomberg is the Flim-Flam Man
David Brodsky
  
Education Law 2590-h (The NYC Chancellor MUST have a contract)
  PIP+ Peer Observation and Evaluation
The Administrative Trials Unit (ATU) has hired a team of lawyers who work in a new ATU subgroup called "Teacher Performance Unit". Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers, calls them the "Gotcha Squad". The use of TAC (Technical Assistance Conference) memos in the preparation of charges to prefer against allegedly incompetent teachers is an outrageous process that I hope, with this exposure, will end.

In New York City, tenured teachers are being removed from their classrooms and positions by Principals and administrators suddenly and, in many cases, without probable and/or just cause. In fact, the entire structure of the New York City Department/Board of Education is intertwined with the General Counsel and the lawyers working in the Office of Legal Services. It's hard to separate the two, and this is one of the biggest problems with Mayoral control as it now stands in New York City. The New York City Board of Education ("NYC BOE") keeps all documents and information secret under the description "Attorney Client Privilege".

However, the BOE gladly gives journalists all the information he or she wants, to "prove" by a preponderance of the evidence that a teacher is guilty of something. Steve Brill's article in the New Yorker magazine is a great example of this.

A teacher may be accused of "verbal abuse" or "corporal punishment" in the same way as being charged with "incompetence" - see the story of Glenn Storman, his complaint in federal court, and the decision in New York State Supreme Court where Judge Kornreich said the OSI investigation and the New York City BOE were "irrational". But this did not stop the NYC BOE, PS 212 Principal Josephine Marsella, OSI investigator Dennis Boyles, and Deputy Chancellors Andres Alonso and Marcia Lyles, both of whom have left New York City. We might ask Joel Klein if Alonso and Lyles were forced out because of this case. Read the Report and Recommendation filed by Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck and you will get a very good summary of the "Gotcha Squad" at work.

The Gotcha Squad is empowered by the absolute immunity given to NYC BOE managers and administrators, who are defended in court by the Corporation Counsel, the Law Department of the City of New York...nice free legal help. Additionally, the arbitrators and NYC BOE Attorneys in the 3020-a proceedings ignore the "Labor FAQs" of the collective bargaining agreement policies established between the NYC BOE nd the UFT, all the time. I know, because I have attended the open and public 3020-a hearings of tenured teachers since 2003.

It is obvious that the Mayor has total control over every part of the public school governance structure. A tenured teacher has no rights at all, and can be removed as easily as a non-tenured teacher or any employee. The tenured teachers have holding pens called temporary re-assignment centers or "rubber rooms". There are currently 7 such places located throughout New York City. A teacher may end up re-assigned because a principal may decide that he/she doesnt like him/her, must remove a him/her because he/she is talking about crimes being committed in the school, or must remove a him/her because he/she is earning a salary that is very high due to more than 20 years in the system, etc. The real reason may be that the teacher is too old, too fat, too short, wears red, doesn't wear red, and other such nonsense.

Then, after the Gotcha Squad at 51 Chambers Street in Manhattan have been informed that a teacher, let's say you, are the subject of an investigation, Director Theresa Europe may place you on her "Ineligible/inquiry List". This list is keyed into the computer under your social security and file number, and will prevent any prospective employer from hiring you any time in the future. Theresa Europe gets the last word. In the case of Philomena Brennan, she wanted Ms. Theresa Europe to take her off of the "no hire" list, and had to sue to get her name removed. Ms. Europe removed her name from the Ineligible List rather than have to submit to New York State Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger why and how she keeps such a list, and the method she uses to remove names, as Schlesinger ordered.. Theresa Europe wants to remain in control of this career-ending list.

We all must defend our right to know who is saying what to whom. In New York City today, however, I believe that the NYC BOE's secret disciplinary process is unfair and I have posted this story to hopefully find another, more just way to deal with alleged "incompetent" teachers, whatever that term means. (See "Strategic Management of Human Capital")

The Teacher Performance Unit (“TPU”) is a unit comprised of experienced attorneys who litigate incompetence cases against ineffective tenured pedagogues. This unit provides counsel to principals and other school officials in connection with the preparation and litigation of 3020-a disciplinary charges involving allegations of incompetence. TPU’s goal is to help principals improve teacher quality in their schools by bringing and litigating these cases in a thorough, expeditious and effective manner.

The Labor Support Unit (“LSU”) is comprised of education consultants who work in partnership with TPU to provide direct support to principals who are confronted with ineffective tenured pedagogues. The goal of LSU is to work with the principal to help them design support plans for ineffective tenured pedagogues, to provide guidance and general assistance to the principal; to assist the principal in organizing the documentation; to conduct additional observations upon request of the principal; and to coordinate with the Peer Intervention-Plus (PIP+) Program and Teacher Performance Unit. (See Peer Intervention Program)

Marcia Lyles

The problem is, well...one of the problems is: what does "incompetence" mean? Who defines whether or not a teacher is, really, "incompetent"? The No Child Left Behind legislation requires that every classroom have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. The problem with this is, what does the term “highly qualified” mean? Who is a “good” teacher and who is a “bad” teacher? We have no ‘American standard’ to help us define what it means to be a “good” teacher, other than to record the scores on standardized tests of students in each class. There are thousands of reports on how this happens, but in the end, defining a “good” performance is almost always a subjective judgment.

The parents of public school children and the teachers of the public schools in NYC know that Mayor Bloomberg and NYC BOE CEO (the Chancellor) do not want anyone to have any power over educational policy decisions except them, and their people. So they designed a process which I call the "rubberization" process to remove anyone from his or her job for any reason, at any time.

How The New York City "Gotcha Squad" Gets Tenured Teachers Declared "Incompetent", and Placed in a Rubber Room 
by Betsy Combier
LINK 

and Los Angeles has a similar situation:

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/8/1/inside-l-a-a-s-teacherjaileducatorsarebrokendepressedsuicidal.html

WHO's Who at the NYC Department of Education: Mecca Sykes-Santana, Esq., Chief Diversity Officer for the State of New York

Mecca used to be the Director of the NYC DOE Office of Equal Opportunity, and in my opinion, she never received a complaint from anyone that did not end up putting the Complainant into a termination hearing.

Betsy Combier
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
President, ADVOCATZ

Mecca Sykes-Santana, Esq.

Chief Diversity Officer for the State of New York
Edit experience Current
  1. New York State - Executive Chamber
Edit experience Previous
  1. NYC Department of Education,
  2. NYS Commission of Investigation,
  3. New York County ( Manhattan) District Attorney's Office
Edit experience
Edit education Education
  1. Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Edit education

  • Public Profile
    www.linkedin.com/pub/mecca-sykes-santana-esq/3b/853/827


Background

Experience

Chief Diversity Officer for the State of New York

New York State - Executive Chamber
– Present (1 year)Manhattan
Responsible for creating new initiatives to enhance diversity, inclusion and minority and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) participation, while also reforming and strengthening the state’s existing programs that currently support these endeavors. Perform many important tasks related to diversity and inclusion, including advising the Governor on policies relating to workforce diversity and the growth of MWBEs; monitoring diversity compliance in the various state agencies and authorities; serving on the state procurement council; and serving as the Governor’s liaison to organizations representing MWBEs, organizations related to diversity in the state workforce and state contracting, and the small business advisory council. The Chief Diversity Officer is one of three Executive Chamber positions, along with the positions of Secretary and Counsel to the Governor, required by New York State statute.

https://twitter.com/MeccaSantanaCDO

http://www.governor.ny.gov/diversity/home

Executive Director EEO & Diversity Management

NYC Department of Education
(5 years 9 months)
Supervise investigations of Civil Rights violations and employment discrimination throughout the agency for approximately 144,000 employees and 1.1 million students. Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local Equal Employment Opportunity laws and reporting requirements. Established the agency’s Diversity and Inclusion program. Created and implemented the agency’s Strategic Diversity Plan designed to promote workforce diversity and supplier (Minority & Women-Owned Business Enterprises) diversity. Promulgate regulations, create policies, and implement initiatives that promote diversity, inclusion, and equal employment opportunities. Liaison to federal, state, and local civil rights agencies. Represent the agency in federal, state, local, and internal administrative proceedings. Create and conduct EEO/Diversity & Inclusion training and professional development programs. Engage in assorted diversity outreach initiatives. Supervise investigators and attorneys in the EEO Complaint Unit, Diversity Management Unit, Disability Rights Compliance Unit, EEO Training Unit, and EEO Contract Compliance Unit. Conduct agency-wide analyses of various workforce initiatives designed to ensure that EEO/Diversity & Inclusion considerations are reflected.
*Presenter - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Annual Excel Conference – August 2008
*Presenter - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Annual Excel Conference – July 2009
*Member - NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services EEO & Diversity Working Group

Senior Assistant Counsel

NYS Commission of Investigation
(2 years 11 months)
Duties included the investigation of matters concerning public peace, public safety, and public justice within the State of New York, including fraud, municipal corruption, mismanagement in State and local government, organized crime, and assorted criminal matters. Responsible for conducting public/private hearings and issuing reports with recommendations to the Office of the Governor and NYS Legislature.

Assistant District Attorney

New York County ( Manhattan) District Attorney's Office
(4 years 7 months)
Trial Bureau
Duties included drafting felony and misdemeanor criminal complaints. Conducted criminal investigations, motion practice, witness interviews, crime scene investigations, and plea negotiations with defense attorneys and courts. Conducted Grand Jury presentations, hearings, and trials in vertical prosecutions of misdemeanor and felony cases. Supervised attorneys and law enforcement officers in the Early Case Assessment Bureau.

Domestic Violence Unit
Duties included the investigation and prosecution of felony cases involving domestic violence, provided counseling and referral services to victims, negotiated alternative dispute resolutions with defense attorneys and courts.

Welfare Fraud Unit
Duties included the investigation and prosecution of felony cases involving welfare fraud, theft of government benefits, health insurance fraud and prescription medication fraud. Collaborated with State and Federal agencies and negotiated restitution based dispositions.

Sex Crimes Unit
Duties included the investigation and prosecution of felony sex crimes. Conducted crime scene analysis, videotaped interrogations, hearings and trials of sex crimes cases.

Legal Hiring Committee
Duties included conducting in-house and on-campus interviews, evaluations and overall assessment of potential candidates for employment with the Office.

Education

The UFT and NYC Department of Education Deny Due Process Rights To ATRs

In my opinion (I can have one, this is my blog), both the United Federation of Teachers and the New York City Department of Education are liable for damages for the tortious interference with business and contract of tenured teachers.

This is especially true for teachers pushed into ATR status. ATR means "absent teacher reserve", where licensed, certified employees suddenly become substitute teachers who go from school to school weekly, do not know who the students are, or the curriculum in the classes they are put into, teach out of license, never see any Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) or SOHO (suspension/discipline histories) reports, and can provide no witness testimony except their own when charged with misconduct. I have been hired to defend teachers who have fired their NYSUT attorneys after they hear that they cannot have any witnesses testify at 3020-a.:

See an email from NYSUT Attorney Paul Brown, to a client who fired him when she received this:

"From: Paul Brown <pbrown@nysutmail.org>
To:
Sent: Wed,  2013
Subject: Re: - WITNESSES

I have an ethical obligation not to put on witnesses that I believe will be damaging to your case.  I have confirmed with one of my supervisors and with several colleagues at my office that the witnesses you suggested will offer little, if any, substantive value and will open the door to many more potential problems. .....
 
Please call me should you have any further questions.

Paul K. Brown
New York State United Teachers
 
NO WITNESSES????? That will get you fired and forever guilty of the charges filed against you. 

Also, when I asked UFT Rep. Barbara Mylite ( 718-275-4400) to appear at the 3020-a arbitration of a member who had worked with her on a U-rating appeal, Barbara told me to have the attorney on the case call Adam Ross at the UFT main office and speak with him. Adam said that he would not permit any Rep. to appear at a 3020-a, even if subpoenaed, because this was a conflict of interest.

This is what ATRs are told by their NYSUT attorneys when they - the UFT member turned into an ATR -  are brought to 3020-a. The NYSUT Attorney says, "who are you going to bring in? WHO are the parents? What are the names of the students in your class? How do you expect me to contact them? Did they know your name?"

You, an ATR, don't know the answers to these questions, because you were charged after you were with the children 1-5 days!!!! You are a sitting duck for some kind of penalty from an arbitrator who hears from the children under your supervision for a couple of hours.

The DOE "convinces" these children that they "should" complain, and the parents get upset, and boom. You are re-assigned, charged, and the children are given a pizza for lunch or their parents are promised a higher grade if they testify.

You get a quickie "trial" of 2-3 days, where the DOE Attorney brings in the students who supposedly saw you allegedly rape, maim, throw a fellow student, etc.  The arbitrator has no witnesses from your defense who could verify your testimony, does not believe you, and you are fined and/or terminated. What a farce. Everyone benefits financially except you. The lawyers get paid, the arbitrator gets paid, and you pay a fine. Where does the fine go? I filed a freedom of information request to find out both at the state and city levels. No one "knows", or no one is telling. This is outrageous.

By the way, if you are not terminated at 3020-a - and my clients are usually not terminated - you automatically become an ATR and on the no hire list of the Office of Personnel Investigations (OPI). Your file is tagged with a problem code. Gina Martinez is the Deputy  Director (from LinkedIn).:

Deputy Director at NYC Department of Education
  1. NYC Department of Education
  1. NYC Department of Education,
  2. Bronx County District Attorney Office,
  3. Weitz & Luxenberg
 
When a UFT member is charged with 3020-a, NYSUT does not defend, but simply goes to the least amount of effort to look like they are. In 1958 Willard Wirtz wrote a paper titled "Due Process of Arbitration" for the National Academy of Arbitrators and in it he argued that arbitrators had an obligation to exercise their authority "with a 'due' regard to the balancing of the two kinds of interests, individual and group interests. In NYC, the UFT and NYSUT control access to arbitration at the grievance level and leave members without an effective remedy for an employer's contract breach. (ADR in the Workplace, Cooper, Nolan and Bales, p. 218).

NYSUT defends the UFT, not individuals or individual rights.

When U-ratings and misconduct reach the 3020-a level, the same applies, customarily, and the contractual violations are ignored so that the member is left without a defense. What contractual rights are we talking about? The right to have gainful employment, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I'll give you an example.

Currently, ATRs have no right to representation. They do not have a chapter or a chapter leader. If a UFT member wins his/her 3020-a and is not terminated (termination after 3020-a  is only common if you have a NYSUT Attorney and you are African-American), then this person never goes back to their licensed position, but "automatically" becomes an ATR. Who dreamed this up???? Why does the UFT allow this????.

This is what the current status of teachers pushed into being ATRs is all about, and should not be happening, but, as a respected Attorney/Arbitrator told me, "the UFT and DOE have not been challenged ".

Well, now they are. My organization is gathering names for a lawsuit to be filed in the fall to help ATRs regain their rights. So, all people charged should, within 90 days, file a Notice of Claim.

A notice of claim is required as a condition precedent to commencing an action against an employee of the New York City Department of Education (Education Law § 3813[2]; General Municipal Law § 50–i), when the conduct complained of was engaged in as part of defendant's employment or in the scope of his/her employment (Radvany v. Jones, 184 A.D.2d 349 [1992]; see also Hale v. Scopac, 74 AD3d 1906 [2010]; DeRise v. Kreinik, 10 AD3d 381, 382 [2004] ).

I'm not an attorney, so this is not "legal" advice, but I have read hundreds of law books, I go to a law library often, and I read cases filed in State and Federal Courts. Constantly. And, I speak about all that is going on to anyone who contacts me. There should be no secrecy.

The UFT representatives are not supporting the members. I provide assistance to UFT members who are charged with 3020-a, and I am part of the wheeling and dealing that goes on behind the scene. When trying to settle a case, I always throw in that my client does not want to be an ATR. The DOE response: "sorry, all Respondents who are not terminated automatically become ATRs".

Really? Who says?

The UFT and the DOE, that's who.

Betsy Combier
President, ADVOCATZ
212-794-8902

August 3, 2014

City tries to cut down teachers without permanent jobs




The city is trying to reduce a stockpile of 1,131 outcast teachers on the payroll without permanent jobs — first by offering buyouts, then assigning them to school vacancies.
But the efforts will barely make a dent in the Absent Teacher Reserve, which costs taxpayers $100 million a year, critics say.
Educators in the reserve pool, known as ATRs, mainly rotate from school to school as substitutes. They have until Monday to accept severance offers, with the maximum buyout — for a teacher with at least 20 years experience and the current top salary of $100,049 — of 10 weeks pay, or $19,240.
Many ATRs call the offer “insulting,” and experts predict few will bite.
Starting Oct. 15, ATRs also “will be given a temporary provisional assignment” in schools with vacancies in their license ­areas, the Department of Education agreed in the new teachers contract.
But despite the contract’s strong wording, DOE officials say principals have “no obligation to use them in a vacancy,” and can always toss them back into the ATR pool.
“There is no forced placement of these teachers,” said DOE spokesman Harry Hartfield.
ATRs and critics doubt the city’s plans will break the costly logjam.
“There’s nothing in there that’s going to get rid of the ATR pool. The only way to do that is simple — place us,” said James Eterno, a 28-year social-studies teacher who became an ATR in June when Jamaica HS closed.
“It’s frustrating looking for work like I just got out of college,” he said.
Before 2005, principals had to hire excess teachers before recruiting new ones. Under then-Mayor Bloomberg, principals gained sole discretion in hiring, thus causing the ­excess pool to balloon.
Higher-paid ATRs say principals have snubbed them in favor of rookies at starting pay because teacher salaries come out of a school’s budget.
While many ATRs lost their jobs in school downsizings or closures, a growing number are branded with a “problem code” after the DOE tried unsuccessfully to fire them. In the past two years, hearing officers have slapped at least 221 teachers with fines and suspensions for misconduct or incompetence — and most were sent into the ATR pool.

The Death of Mary Eve Thorson Highlights Teacher Abuse in America


TEACHERS FOR MARY
 

On Thanksgiving Day, 2011, a thirty-two year old school teacher by the name of Mary Eve Thorson, stood in front of a moving-semi truck and ended her life. She left behind a 6 page suicide letter stating that she wanted to be the first to sign the petition, which would call attention to the teachers within her district whom were being bullied and ostracized by administrators and other educators.

Mary sacrificed her life to expose the extreme levels of abuse which teachers were being subjected to on a daily basis, its adverse affect on the children as a result, and the poor condition of the school. She wanted the abuse to stop! TEACHERS FOR MARY will do all in its power to ensure that no other teacher will suffer or die due to abuse at the hands of an administrator/educator.
 
” My goal is to have a TEACHERS FOR MARY chapter in every city within the state of Illinois, and ultimately throughout the country. It will be based upon the premise that bullying can be prevented if and when teachers stand together as a united front, with the primary objective being the acquisition of protection, support, and legal representation for that targeted individual.” 


Myra Richardson
 
The organization would be the next best thing to having the MARY EVE THORSON ANTI-BULLYING BILL in place (an idea I proposed to Illinois Governor, Pat Quinn). It would protect teachers against all forms of degradation within the work environment. Victims would even receive assistance on the premises of the institution if circumstances were dire. Bullying is right in the victim’s face…and TEACHERS FOR MARY will be right in the face of the bully!
 
Literally hundreds, if not thousands of teachers are in hiding. They share horror stories anonymously which speak to the fear of not only losing their positions, but having to leave the students behind whom have come to depend upon them for academic and emotional nurturing. Teachers are afraid; and now, teachers are dying. The death of one teacher is a travesty. The death of more than one is a shameful display of apathy. Teachers must speak out publically against their abusers! Silence can no longer be tolerated!
TEACHERS FOR MARY is aware that bullying of teachers has been allowed to reach epidemic proportions. Suffering in silence is no longer an option.
 
Teachers must fight back and refuse to be inhumanely treated and stripped of their dignity! They must confront the abuse and the attacker head on, with our organization acting as an impenetrable shield in their defense.
 
Initially, all grievances will be filed with one of our chapters, and detailed records maintained on individual cases involving incidents of bullying against teachers at the hands of administrators or educators. This is necessary in order to provide a chronological history of events showing the abuse from its inception…a crucial component in the fight to end what has now become a nationwide concern warranting high priority.
 
TEACHERS FOR MARY is an organization committed to the prevention of Bullying and Abuse at the hands of administrators or educators…but we can’t act alone! Teachers must be willing to fight back against the injustices placed upon them.

SILENCE AND APATHY WILL NO LONGER BE TOLERATED, AS THEY ARE DETRIMENTAL TO THE WELL-BEING OF ALL TEACHERS AND THEIR STUDENTS!