George Washington High School, 549 Audobon Avenue at West 192nd StreetNew York, N.Y. 10040
It's not that we didnt know what the NYC BOE thought of teachers who are over forty and have had a run-in with the Principal...but to place teachers awaiting a hearing on unproven charges that could be completely false - in trailers??????? With bars on the windows????????????
C'MON, Joel and Mike!
'Rubber-room' teachers feel like they're in prison
By AMANDA MELILLO and YOAV GONEN, NY POST, September 9, 2009
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They've gone from "rubber rooms" to metal ones.
More than a dozen teachers awaiting disciplinary hearings have been moved from a Manhattan office building to prefabricated trailers with steel sinks and child-height toilets outside a Washington Heights school.
Because the space on the grounds of George Washington HS is surrounded by fencing and, like other teacher reassignment centers, guarded by security, some compared their new home to prison barracks.
"As a human being, this hurts me that one human being can do this to another," said Thomasina Robinson, a former teacher at the HS of Fashion Industries who has been in disciplinary purgatory for three years.
She says the charges against her, including insubordination, were trumped up because she blew the whistle on a grade-inflation scheme at her school.
Nearly 700 school employees -- including 556 teachers -- are assigned to teacher-reassignment centers, which are commonly known as "rubber rooms" because their denizens feel as though they could bounce off the walls from boredom.
The educators -- whose charges range from relatively minor infractions to more serious, criminal allegations -- are given nothing to do, but are paid full salary as they wait for months, and sometime years, to complete their hearings.
