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| Lisa Brogan |
Arbitrator Lisa Brogan terminated Terrell Williams at his 3020-a. The New York State Supreme Court Judge affirmed this decision. The First Department disagreed.
Ms. Brogan, without question, did not look at all the circumstances surrounding Mr. Williams' charges. His lawyer at the 3020-a was NYSUT Attorney Antonio Cavallaro. But in the end, Terrell got a new decision, and will have a new arbitrator look at his evidence. Congratulations Terrell!!!
But why do people have to be put through years of extreme distress and thousands of dollars in legal fees to get the right answer?
Betsy Combier
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials
Teacher on the prowl for hot moms did nothing wrong: court
LINK
A married Brooklyn teacher skipped Tinder and instead pestered his students to help him land dates with their sisters and moms — but that’s hardly anything to get hot and bothered about, a court ruled Tuesday.
Terrell Williams, an eighth-grade gym instructor with two kids, did “not violate any specific rule or regulation,” the appellate panel said in overturning his firing.
Williams was booted from PS/MS 282 in Park Slope in 2013 after five female students testified that he repeatedly approached them before volleyball practice and asked “whether they had older sisters, how old they were, what they looked like, and whether he could have their phone number,” according to court papers.
Williams also inquired about aunts and mothers and whether the female relatives had boyfriends, according to evidence presented at a city Department of Education hearing.
The questioning made the students feel “uncomfortable,’’ and one mother filed a complaint when Williams texted her daughter, according to court papers.
After he was canned from his $80,000-a-year job, Williams sued. He claimed that the preteen students were the ones who tried to set him up on dates.
He also claimed moms routinely asked him out for drinks.
He lost the case in 2014 before a judge in a lower court.
But in a split appellate decision, the majority found that Williams had an unblemished 13-year teaching record and his behavior did not warrant firing.
They recommended a lesser penalty.
Dissenting Judge Peter Tom disagreed, saying Williams “irreversibly abused his position as a teacher by transforming the high school where he teaches into a dating forum using his young female students to search out candidates for his illicit romantic escapades.”
Parents at PS/MS 282 were shocked Tuesday to hear of the court ruling. “I don’t feel like he should be allowed to teach again,” said Corey Settles.
Another mom, Natalie, who did not reveal her last name, agreed.
“He shouldn’t be allowed back. You shouldn’t ask students if they have attractive moms. It’s inappropriate,” said the mother of three.
But at least two of Williams’ former colleagues welcomed his return, saying on the condition of anonymity that the incidents were “blown out of proportion.”
A city Law Department spokesman said, “We obviously agree with the dissenting opinion that this termination was justified .”
Additional reporting by Gabrielle Bass
Matter of Williams v City of New
York
|
2016 NY Slip Op 06184
|
Decided on September 27, 2016
|
Appellate Division, First
Department
|
Published by New
York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law §
431.
|
This opinion is
uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official
Reports.
|
Decided on September 27, 2016
Tom, J.P., Acosta, Richter, Manzanet-Daniels, Gesmer, JJ.
899 653954/13
[*1]In re Terrell Williams, Petitioner-Appellant,
v
City of New York, et al., Respondents-Respondents.
v
City of New York, et al., Respondents-Respondents.
Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County
(Frank P. Nervo, J.), entered August 12, 2014, denying the petition to vacate
the part of the arbitration award that terminated petitioner's employment as a
tenured school teacher, and dismissing the proceeding, reversed, on the law,
without costs, the petition granted, and the matter remanded to respondents for
imposition of a lesser penalty.
The evidence presented at the arbitration hearing establishes that
petitioner, while an eighth-grade physical education teacher, initiated
conversations with at least two of his female students asking them if they had
older sisters, and, if so, how old they were, whether they had boyfriends, and
whether they had photographs of them,[FN1] and accepted the phone
number of one student's 23 year old sister. Petitioner also told a student that
her mother had called him "handsome" while passing him on the street.
One student testified that petitioner's conduct made her feel "uncomfortable,"
and another said that his conduct "aggravated" her. Of the 12
specifications with which he was charged, the Hearing Officer dismissed five,
including charges that he had engaged in similar behaviors in the 2010-2011
school year, that he actually contacted the sister whose telephone number he
received, and that he told the students, "[M]y wife said I can look but I
can't touch."[FN2]
The Hearing Officer found petitioner to be insufficiently
remorseful, that his actions revealed "moral failings," and that,
although termination might be "too severe," it was the only penalty
that could "jolt" petitioner into an understanding of the seriousness
of his misconduct.
Based on all the circumstances of the case, including the lack of
any prior allegations of misconduct against petitioner during 13 years of
service and the fact that the misconduct does not violate any specific rule or
regulation, we find the penalty of termination sufficiently disproportionate to
the offenses to shock the conscience (see
Lackow v Department of Educ. [or "Board"] of City of N.Y., 51 AD3d 563, 569 [1st
Dept 2008]).
Moreover, petitioner had never been warned or reprimanded
regarding the conduct at issue, and, contrary to the conclusion of the Hearing
Officer, there is no evidence that a warning or reprimand or other penalty
short of termination would not have caused petitioner to cease the
objectionable conduct immediately (see
Matter of Polayes v City of New York, 118 AD3d 425 [*2][1st Dept 2014]).
While we share some of our dissenting colleague's concern
regarding petitioner's behavior and his failure to express any deeper
understanding of the inappropriate nature of his actions, we do not agree that
the law supports petitioner's termination at this time. This is in part because
we do not agree that petitioner's communication with his students, while
inappropriate, can be fairly characterized as "romantic/sexual in
nature," or as being for the purpose of "solicit[ing] female
companions for his sexual gratification," as the dissent puts it. The
Hearing Officer herself found only that petitioner made "inappropriate
inquiries of his 8th grade female students regarding their female relatives, in
furtherance of a personal agenda having nothing to do with school or his
responsibilities as a teacher." She did not find that petitioner actually
intended to, or did, have any "romantic/sexual" interactions with
anyone. Rather, she concluded that petitioner's questions about the students'
sisters "in sum and substance... amount[] to expressing an interest in
meeting" their sisters, and she made clear that no one testified to his
using "those precise words." There is no evidence that he made any
sexual comments to his students.
In contrast, the teachers in each of the cases cited by the
dissent engaged in conduct that constituted a violation of a specific law, rule
or regulation, and that was far more outrageous than petitioner's in this case.
In Matter of Villada v City of New York (126 AD3d 598 [1st Dept 2015]), Mr. Villada
repeatedly sexually harassed a colleague, including by forcibly tongue kissing
her. In Matter of
Ajeleye v New York City Dept. Of Educ. (112 AD3d 425 [1st Dept 2013]), Mr. Ajeleye was found guilty
of verbal abuse of students, insubordination, neglect of duty, and unbecoming
conduct (id.). The teacher in Matter of Binghamton City School Dist. (Peacock) was found to have committed insubordination,
neglect of duty and conduct unbecoming a teacher because he had "engaged
in an improper, intimate and clandestine relationship with a minor female
student... [for which he] showed no remorse..., disobeyed administrative
direction to cease his relationship with the student and not transport her in his
car, and continued to contact her even after disciplinary charges were brought
against him" (33 AD3d 1074, 1077 [3d Dept 2006], appeal dismissed 8 NY3d 840 [2007]). The teacher in Lackow (51 AD3d 563) discussed bestiality, necrophelia and his own
ejaculations with students, and, while teaching class with a model of
reproductive organs, told a student he should "enjoy" looking at a
vagina (51 AD3d at 565). Moreover, Mr. Lackow had received at least three
written warnings to stop such conduct. His termination was the result of his
failure to do so (51 AD3d at 568-569). Similarly, the teacher in Matter of
Rogers v Sherburne-Earlville Cent. School Dist. (17 AD3d 823,
824-825 [3d Dept 2005]) had received warnings before being terminated for
falsifying time records, abusing leave time by, for example, using sick leave
to go hunting, and taking excessive leave time. The dissent also cites Matter
of Chaplin v New York City Dept. Of Educ. (48 AD3d 226 [1st Dept 2008]) for the proposition that even
employees with good work histories are appropriately terminated for
"[a]cts of moral turpitude" (id. at 227). That case does not discuss the specific
behavior which triggered the employee's termination. However, in both Chaplin and the Court of Appeals case to which it cites, Matter of Kelly v Safir (96 NY2d 32 at 37, 39 [2001]), the petitioners'
acts constituted crimes, which is certainly not the case here.
Here, petitioner showed very poor judgment, but he has not been
shown to have violated any law, or even any rule or regulation of the
Department of Education. Our decision today does not excuse petitioner's
behavior, but directs a less serious punishment. Should it continue,
termination may well be in order in the future.
All concur except Tom, J. who dissents
in a memorandum as follows:
TOM, J.P. (dissenting)
In
this article 75 proceeding, petitioner seeks to vacate the arbitration award of
a Hearing Officer, dated October 29, 2013, which terminated his employment as a
tenured physical education and health teacher. Due to the egregious nature of
the misconduct at issue, and the Hearing Officer's conclusion that petitioner
did not display any remorse or an appreciation for the seriousness of his
actions or the effect his actions had on the young female students, I would
find that the penalty of termination was appropriate (see Matter of Villada
v City of New York, 126 AD3d 598 [1st Dept 2015]; Lackow v Department of Educ. (or
"Board") of City of N.Y, 51 AD3d
563 [1st Dept 2008]).
The
evidence presented at the arbitration hearing establishes that petitioner,
while an eighth-grade physical education teacher, repeatedly engaged in
inappropriate conversations with his female students. Specifically, these
conversations were romantic/sexual in nature and involved petitioner asking
multiple female students in 7th and 8th grade about their older sisters and
female relatives, including what their sisters, mothers and aunts looked like,
whether they had boyfriends, and soliciting contact information and photographs
for his own personal gratification and use. Five former female students
testified at the hearing that during the downtime before physical education
class started or during girls' volleyball practice in the mornings, petitioner
asked on multiple occasions whether they had older sisters, how old they were,
what they looked like, and whether he could have their phone number. Some of
these conversations took place when the girls' volleyball team was formed for
practice in the morning before school began. Although respondent was not one of
the coaches for the volleyball team, he would arrive early to school to join
the girls' practice. It was in these various settings that conversations which
formed the basis of the charges against respondent took place. In one instance
petitioner learned that the student had a 23-year-old sister, he asked more
than once, and finally obtained the number. The students testified that
petitioner's conduct made them feel "uncomfortable" and
"aggravated." In addition, one of the student's mothers had come to
the school upset and filed a complaint after learning petitioner had asked her
daughter if she had any cute sisters and later was told by the student's older
sister that petitioner had "texted" her phone. This was the testimony
of one of the students.
These
inappropriate conversations with different female students spanned the
2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years, and, by petitioners's own admission, he
had at least 20 such conversations in the 2011-2012 school year [FN3].
Petitioner also testified that he had engaged in these types of conversations
several times before, including at another school.
According
to petitioner, all of the inappropriate conversations were initiated by the
students who would frequently talk about their female relatives and try to
interest him by showing him pictures or offering phone numbers. He similarly
claimed that parents would approach him directly and ask him to go out for a
drink or "hang out." He claimed that his questions about student's
sisters were made "jokingly," and that he would brush off students'
entreaties about their female relatives by smiling and sometimes saying,
"I love my wife." Petitioner also explained that he did not tell his
students to stop these conversations - even though he thought the students were
serious when they made the comments - because at his prior school, where the
same situation had occurred, he told a student to stop and got a bad reaction
from the student, who became angry at the suggestion that petitioner thought he
was too good for her mother.
The
Hearing Officer sustained the majority of the charges against petitioner and
made clear that the case turned on the credibility of the witnesses. In
particular, the Hearing Officer found petitioner's claims incredible and
rejected his version of events while crediting the testimony of the students.
The Hearing Officer did not believe that five eighth-grade students [*3]would conspire to lie under oath about their
former teacher, and found no evidence to support such a conspiracy. In this
regard, the Hearing Officer could not accept petitioner's claims that the
students instigated these conversations or actively solicited their own family
members into a relationship with a married man. Nor did she credit petitioner's
testimony that during different years and at different schools eighth-grade
students could not contain themselves in trying to bring petitioner into their
families in a romantic way or that parents were throwing themselves at
petitioner. The Hearing Officer also rejected any contention that these
conversations were made entirely in jest.
In
sustaining the various charges, the Hearing Officer stressed that the behavior
at issue was not isolated and included numerous conversations with multiple
female students at this school (and at a prior school) during which he
discussed their relatives' phone numbers and viewed their photographs. She also
remarked that petitioner had attempted to paint himself as a victim who could
not "contain a constant onslaught of female attention, even when it
involves his students."
The
Hearing Officer ultimately found that termination was the appropriate penalty
because petitioner did not understand the seriousness of his conduct, continued
to deny wrongdoing and place blame on his young students, and "did not
consider the
possibility,
even in his version of this story, that the appropriate response is to address
his students with discipline and/or moral teaching." The Hearing Officer
went on to note that "[c]ontrary to his own misguided understanding,
[petitioner]is a role model for his students, and he is expected to
model appropriate behavior." Further, she did not believe a fine or
suspension would make him understand the seriousness of his behavior or
"right the moral judgment which is so horribly askew." Nor did she
think a lesser penalty would be appropriate because she did not "believe
such a penalty would be effective, . . . nor adequately address[] the harm done
here."
Petitioner
continues to minimize his conduct in this proceeding, referring to it as
"harmless banter" and claiming it to be a "minor lapse in
judgment" unlikely to recur despite his own admissions that he spoke to
numerous students this way at two different schools over different years. In
sum, he insists that his behavior had no "ill effects" on the
students at issue.
Petitioner's
continued failure to comprehend the nature and seriousness of his actions,
blaming the young students for his misconduct and showing no remorse for his
actions, supports the Hearing Officer's point and her conclusion that the
penalty of termination was appropriate. Initially, petitioner's lack of prior
disciplinary history was considered by the Hearing Officer and is no basis to
reduce the penalty (see Matter of Ajeleye v New York
City Dept. of Educ., 112 AD3d 425,
426 [1st Dept 2013]). In any event, the record shows petitioner received an
unsatisfactory rating for the school year previous to those at issue, and the
absence of prior charges does not necessarily prove his behavior was beyond
reproach.
Nor
is even worse behavior such as physical assault a prerequisite to termination (see
e.g. Lackow, 51 AD3d at 569 [continuing in a pattern of conduct that was
clearly irresponsible and inappropriate within the classroom setting]; Ajeleye,
112 AD3d at 425 [insubordination, neglect of duty, conduct unbecoming his
position, and using language that constituted verbal abuse of his students]).
Termination for offenses has been found appropriate where, as here, a teacher
has displayed no remorse or an appreciation for the seriousness of his actions
(see Villada, 126 AD3d at 599). Termination of a teacher who merely
engaged in a pattern of excessive leave time usage has been upheld as not
shocking to the conscience (Matter ofRogers v Sherburne-Earlville Cent.
School Dist., 17 AD3d 823 [3d
Dept 2005]). Moreover, we have held that "[a]cts of moral turpitude
committed in the course of public employment are an appropriate ground for
termination of even long-standing employees with good work histories" (Matter of Chaplin v New York City
Dept. of Educ., 48 AD3d 226, 227
[1st Dept 2016 2008]).
The
majority's efforts to distinguish the foregoing cases do not support a finding
that the penalty in this case shocks the conscience. While the actions in those
cases were egregious, they do not make petitioner's behavior appropriate or
acceptable or somehow make him fit to remain a teacher. Further, the purpose of
citing a case such as Lackow was not because the facts are
identical but rather to demonstrate that neither physical abuse nor sexual
assault are the standard required for a teacher to be terminated, and because
the teacher in Lackow similarly "continued [*4]in a pattern of conduct that was clearly
irresponsible and inappropriate within the classroom setting" which
"reflect[ed] an inability to understand the necessary separation between a
teacher and his students" (51 AD3d at 569).
The
majority also notes that petitioner's misconduct does not violate any specific
rule or regulation. However, the Education Law has a general prohibition on
"conduct unbecoming a teacher" (see Denhoff v Mamaroneck Union Free
School Dist, 29 Misc 3d 1207[A],
2010 NY Slip Op 51742[u] [Sup Ct, Westchester County 2010], affd 101
AD3d 997 [2d Dept 2012]; see also Matter of Douglas v New
York City Bd./Dept. of Educ., 87 AD3d 856 [1st
Dept 2011] [upholding penalty of termination where the petitioner was charged
with conduct unbecoming a teacher]; Matter of Mazur [Genesee Val.
BOCES], 34 AD3d 1240 [4th
Dept 2006] [upholding penalty of termination where evidence, inter alia,
supported the Hearing Officer's determination that the petitioner engaged in
conduct that was unbecoming an administrator]). There is no question that the
evidence in this case established that petitioner engaged in conduct that was
unbecoming a teacher.
Matter of Polayes v City of New
York (118 AD3d 425 [1st
Dept 2014]) bears no relation to this case. In Polayes, the teacher
engaged in one objectively innocuous conversation with a group of high school
senior students during which he suggested one student was "the type to
party with" or "you want to go to school to party" after that
student expressed interest in attending a college that was widely reported to
be a "party school." The students who testified were not offended by
these comments. In contrast, petitioner, during the course of different school
years and at different schools, engaged in numerous inappropriate
romantic/sexual in nature conversations with multiple young female students
during which he discussed his potential romantic interest and possibly to form
an intimate relationship with his students' female relatives who he
objectified.
The
evidence in this case clearly showed that petitioner fails to understand the
seriousness of his actions, that he was a role model for his students, and that
his conduct undoubtedly had ill effects on his students and made him unworthy
of a position of trust and authority over impressionable students. Rather than
providing his students moral guidance about boundaries and appropriate
conversations to have with teachers or modeling correct behavior for them,
petitioner illustrated for them repeatedly that he finds it acceptable to
discuss his potential romantic or sexual interest in any and all of their
female relatives, to ogle over photographs of those relatives, and to view them
as appropriate targets for conquest [FN4].
What, indeed, does this teach adolescent girls about their worth in the world?
Petitioner's conduct is demeaning to women. It can only serve to reinforce a
wrongheaded sense that their value is solely in their physical appearance and
as objects of desire, that their older female relatives, and soon they, will be
objects pursued even by those who are in positions of authority over them, who
are tasked with molding them from children into adults. Moreover, the fact that
petitioner, an authoritative figure and supposed role model, is openly a
married man with children seeking out young female companions can give the
wrong impression to the female students that spousal cheating is proper and
acceptable.
Although
he refuses to acknowledge his responsibility to his students, his duties
included [*5]supplying a safe learning
environment and fostering trust and respect in authority figures. Instead, by
repeatedly engaging in inappropriate romantic/sexual conversations, petitioner
horribly miseducated his young students about student-teacher boundaries,
proper and decent behavior, good moral conduct and about how they should view
themselves and their female relatives. Petitioner has irreversibly abused his
position as a teacher by transforming the high school where he teaches into a
dating forum using his young female students to search out candidates for his
illicit romantic escapades. This behavior harmed his students, even if they did
not fully realize it.
Accordingly,
petitioner's conduct over years involving multiple students and schools, and
his continued failure to show remorse or understanding of either his actions or
responsibility as a teacher, demonstrates that he is not fit to be a teacher,
and thus the penalty of termination does not shock the conscience.
Notably,
in City School Dist. of the City of
N.Y. v McGraham (17 NY3d 917 [2011]),
the Court of Appeals cautioned that "[c]ourts will only intervene in the
arbitration process in those cases in which public policy considerations,
embodied in statute or decisional law, prohibit, in an absolute sense,
particular matters being decided or certain relief being granted by an
arbitrator" (17 NY3d at 919 [internal quotation marks omitted]). Thus, as
the Court emphasized, "That reasonable minds might disagree over what the
proper penalty should have been does not provide a basis for vacating the
arbitral award or refashioning the penalty" (id. at 920).
Here, too, that the majority might have issued a lesser penalty had they been
in the position of the Hearing Officer, does not provide a basis for vacating
the arbitral award.
Oddly,
the majority does not agree with my characterization of petitioner's
communications as "romantic/sexual in nature" or for being for the
purpose of "soliciting female companions for his sexual
gratification." Yet, the Hearing Officer specifically stated that the
"conversations generally involved whether [petitioner] might have a
romantic interest in some of the students' older female relatives." The
testimony of multiple students included examples of petitioner asking them
about what their relatives looked like, whether they were cute, whether those
relatives were in a relationship, and whether he could see photographs of them
and be given their phone numbers. Surely, petitioner was not seeking
intellectual stimuli from these potentially young, "cute" companions.
As succinctly stated by the Hearing Officer, a "test of common sense"
can only lead to a conclusion that petitioner intended to form a romantic and
possibly an intimate relationship with his young students' older siblings. As
further stated by the Hearing Officer, "I am urged not to throw common sense
out the window."
Petitioner's
testimony also made clear that these were romantic conversations. His own
testimony was that his students solicited his romantic interest in their
relatives to, as the Hearing Officer put it, bring him "into their families
in a romantic way" and that parents "threw themselves at him."
The
Hearing Officer, whose credibility and factual findings are entitled to
deference (see Matter of Berenhaus v Ward, 70 NY2d 436, 443 [1987]),
ultimately determined that petitioner initiated conversations with students
about their female relatives for "inappropriate, personal purposes."
Given the foregoing testimony and findings it is astounding that the majority
would conclude that petitioner's communications with his students were not found
to be romantic/sexual in nature. What other purpose petitioner could have had
in seeking photographs and phone numbers of students' young female relatives,
while also querying if they were in a relationship, is truly a mystery.
The
majority urges that "petitioner had never been warned or reprimanded
regarding the conduct at issue" and that "a warning" could cause
petitioner to cease the conduct. The majority's position is irrational in that
a high school teacher should not even have to be warned not to use his students
to solicit female companions for his sexual gratification. It is also wishful
thinking that petitioner can right his moral shortcomings with a warning. The
majority should recognize that petitioner has solicited female companions at
work on multiple occasions at different school years and at different schools,
and this is not an isolated incident. In any event, the disciplinary process
does not require waiting until worse harm befalls a student at the hands of a
teacher.
Further,
the fact that petitioner had not received prior warnings about his behavior is
no basis for vacating the penalty. Indeed, "no reasonable person concerned
about education — could plausibly believe that the conduct in which
[petitioner] was found to have engaged was not unbecoming of a teacher and
subversive of the educational process" (Denhoff, 29 Misc 3d
1207[A], * 10). Stated another way, "It is incredible that any adult — let
alone a teacher — would not know that the conduct is and was improper" (Nreu v New York City Dept. of Educ., 25 Misc 3d 1209[A] *5, 2009 NY Slip Op 2007[u]
[Sup Ct, New York County 2009]).
Given
New York's "explicit and compelling public policy to protect children from
the harmful conduct of adults" (Matter of Binghamton City School
Dist. (Peacock), 33 AD3d 1074,
1076 [3d Dept 2006], appeal dismissed 8 NY3d 840 [2007]), the
Hearing Officer rationally concluded that petitioner, who was placed in a
position of authority over children, betrayed that trust and his responsibility
and posed a continued danger to those students because he failed to understand
appropriate boundaries or his role in educating his students, that the evidence
supported a finding that he would engage in similar behavior again and that
termination was appropriate.
For
these reasons, I would affirm Supreme Court's order denying the petition to
vacate the arbitration award and dismissing the proceeding.
THIS
CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER
OF
THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.
ENTERED:
SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
CLERK
Footnotes
Footnote 1:The dissent claims that petitioner "ogle[d]" photographs of his student's sisters. However, there is no support in the record for this claim, and the Hearing Officer did not so find.
Footnote 2:The dissent claims that petitioner sent a text to the student's sister. However, there was no proof that he did so, as the hearing officer specifically found, and that specification was dismissed.
Footnote 3:Although the Hearing Officer dismissed the charges relating to the 2010-11 school year, she did not find the testimony relating to those charges to be unreliable and, in fact, took into account that the record supported that petitioner made certain comments in that school year.
Footnote 4:The majority notes that the Hearing Officer did not specifically determine whether petitioner "ogled" photographs of his students' female relatives. On the other hand, she did not determine he had not done so. In any event, one would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate word for petitioner repeatedly asking his students what their sisters, mothers and aunts looked like, and then soliciting and viewing their photographs for his own personal gratification. Indeed, when asked how many students had presented him with photographs, petitioner responded he would have to "sift through" the photographs he received.
