In a perfect world people do only what is right and treat everyone with respect. The Department of Education in NYC is not that.
Almost everything they do opens the door to liability for damages against someone.
Before any cases are presented to a judge/Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), you should have on hand:
1. Up-to-date employee personnel files for all employees with all contractual rules of the Union (timeliness of evaluations, the correct procedures used to evaluate the employee are clearly present including signatures of the employee and date, etc); the employee must be able to see the file and copy it.
2. School staff handbook available to all with all current rules covering infractions, how to discipline children, protocols for professional attitude and behavior
3. Definitions of Just Cause/Probable Cause
Also see my blog post :
Arbitration decisions: Are They in Compliance With The JUST CAUSE STANDARD - or is the Penalty Determined Under the JUST 'CAUSE Someone Dislikes You Standard?
4. Procedure for investigation into any grievance or incident are clearly spelled out, step-by-step, identifying how to establish measurable and tangible data to show either improvement/non-improvement of the employee, as well as real goals that can be reached in the short-term as well as long-term.
5. Training and special instructions must be stated, for each content area or infraction; a copy of the school Safety Plan must be available to all staff, including the person in charge of and trained to use, the defibrillator
6. Procedures and best practice for writing what happened, when, how, where, by whom.
7. All alternatives to formal or legal corrective action should be stated, including all rights of the employee to object, rebut and/or deny any allegations, with a timeline detailing when such a rebuttal must be filed and with whom.
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials