A close-up look at NYC education policy, politics,and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by these actions and programs. ATR CONNECT assists individuals who suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool and are the "new" rubber roomers, people who have been re-assigned from their life and career. A "Rubber Room" is not a place, but a process.
Parents and employees of the NYC Department of Education are distressed over the cuts to school funding that Adams has said are necessary due to the many students who are not returning in September, some say 30,000 or more. Both sides have truth to their argument. The problem is, no one on either side is negotiating a compromise.
Basically, it is a no-brainer that since so many students and educators will not be back in September, funding has to be reduced or at least school budgets have to be reviewed. Maybe Principals could each get a little less in their paychecks? Maybe Mayor Adams could offer to reduce his discretionary spending, and maybe donate some of his salary to the kids?
Remember, in the last couple of months the Mayor fired 914 employees of the Department who did not get the COVID vaccine and could not justify their reason (i.e. medical issues or religious beliefs). However, looking closely at the appeals of the denials of the exemptions, anyone can see violations of Constitutional Laws and rights cited in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
It seems that Mayor Adams does not see what we see.
All funniness put aside, Mayor Adams has many years left to rule on where resources go and how they are allocated. He has lost the public trust so quickly, I just don't see a happy medium occurring anytime soon.
"See, this is the clown, this is the clown," said Adams. "And this is what we're up against — people want to spend time being disruptive, that's what people want to do. But we got to stay focused, and not get distracted."
"Because people want to spend time on what they disagree on, and not spend time what they agree on," he added.
The protesters were immediately escorted out of the Police Athletic League, where Adams was to hold a discussion on public safety with members of his administration and local residents.
"So all that noise, that's what folks don't understand," said Adams. "Because you are the loudest does not mean you are saying something."
Close to 1,200 schools are seeing cuts to the primary source of their individual budgets through the Fair Student Funding formula, according to a New York City Comptroller analysis.
"The mayor and the Chancellor and many others had been really trying to gaslight the city for weeks, really trying to justify or pretend like these are these are good budget cuts," said Matt Gonzales, one of the protesters who was escorted out. "So we really needed to come here to demand an answer in public, right in front of him."
"They basically threw me out here and they started getting in my face, trying to shame me, reprimand me for using my constitutional right to demand a response from the mayor," Gonzales said.
The slashed budgets — originally forecasted to total $215 million but now appear to be deeper as the city anticipates further enrollment drops — have already led to lost programs, and teachers and school staff.
Another protestor who was escorted out, Shoshana Brown, told The Post she was a social worker at Essex Street Academy on the Lower East Side until she was let go by her school on the first day of summer break because of fewer funds.
"I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to my students because it came after summer already started," Brown said.
"I'm sad because I have students that I've worked really, really hard for," she said. "Not only am I not going to be able to see them graduate — I'm scared that they're not going to graduate because they're not gonna have that support, and I was the only person in the school that they were really connected to."
At several city forums, including last month's Panel for Educational Policy and a City Council budget oversight hearing, parents, teachers and advocates have flooded public comment to decry the cuts. Council members, too, later pushed back against the reductions after hearing from their constituents.
Four NYC parents and teachers filed a lawsuit today in NY Supreme Court, asking for a temporary restraining order to halt the severe budget cuts to their public schools planned for next year, which will otherwise cause class sizes to increase and students to lose valuable programs and services.
As the lawsuit points out, New York State Education Law clearly specifies a mandated process by which the NYC Board of Education (also known as the Panel for Educational Policy) must vote to approve the education budget prior to the City Council vote; but in this case, the City Council voted to adopt the budget on June 13, ten days before the Board voted on June 23, 2022. The lawsuit asks for a revote of the City Council in order to ensure the legally-required process occurs, and that the Council has the opportunity to reconsider its vote based on the testimony of nearly 70 parents and teachers who spoke out at the Board of Education meeting, detailing the profoundly damaging impact of these cuts on their schools.
Instead of following the legally mandated procedure outlined in state law, the Chancellor instead issued an "Emergency Declaration" on May 31 to adopt the budget without any Board vote, though no real emergency existed, using boilerplate language. At the Board meeting on June 23, the Chancellor erroneously declared their vote meaningless because the Council had already adopted the budget. Yet in fact, in twelve out of the last thirteen years, different NYC Schools Chancellors have invoked such "emergencies" when typically none existed, in order to adopt a budget prior to a vote of the Board of Education, thereby disempowering the Board and eradicating its essential authority under state law to approve education budgets.
In addition, State law also requires that the Board vote on a budget in which the expenses of the Community School District Councils are delineated separately from the expenses of the City Board, which did not occur either.
The plaintiffs include Melanie Kottler, a parent with a rising 2nd grader at PS 169 in Sunset Park, a school with a large number of students with special needs and English Language Learners, which as of July 14, will have its Galaxy budget reduced by millions of dollars compared to this year. Melanie deplored the fact that the school will be forced to lose classroom teachers and thus increase class size as a result: "The 2021-22 school year was incredibly challenging for teachers at our school. Not only were they working tirelessly to try to catch students up from learning loss the year before, but some teachers also faced students who had never even stepped foot in a school building. COVID is not over, and nor are these challenges. I'm afraid that larger class sizes will only make things more difficult for PS 169 students and teachers."
Another plaintiff is Sarah Brooks, a special education/ICT teacher at PS 169, who reported that the school will lose paraprofessionals, afterschool programming, school trips, and possibly their school counselor as well, damaging the quality of education for all students, but particularly those with special needs: "The budget cuts will cause all the students at PS 169 to suffer. They will lose out on specialized instruction, mental and academic supports, and the vital opportunity to learn outside of the confines of their own neighborhoods. The Special Education program will be markedly and significantly impaired. Our students deserve more from their schools."
Plaintiff Tamara Tucker is a parent of two children at PS 125 in Harlem, a high-poverty school which is facing the loss of its arts programs and an increase in class sizes due to cuts of hundreds of thousands of dollars. She said, "Everyone at PS 125 has already been stretched so thin, and this will only become worse in light of the budget cuts for this upcoming year. The students are going to be the ones who will bear the brunt of this poor decision. The formula that is used to calculate school budgets is fundamentally broken and does not account for the actual needs of schools. It is not fair and is not benefiting students in any way. Every child should have art, music, and enrichment classes. These subjects are part of a well-rounded education and bring joy and diverse perspectives to children of all ages."
Plaintiff Paul Trust is a music teacher who has worked at his school since 2005, PS 39 in Brooklyn, but now has been excessed. His school is losing its entire music program because of more than a half million dollars in cuts. He said, "My students thrive and are empowered through music. Many continue to pursue their passion in middle school and beyond. I have students who have gone on to the finest conservatories and those who have formed the loudest of rock bands. All this will go away with these budget cuts. Neither the Mayor nor the Chancellor seem to be concerned with the irreparable harm these draconian cuts may cause our students. I can only hope that this will not be the last year I am able to continue to serve the school community I love."
According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, "We have interviewed parents, teachers, and principals who told us that the smaller classes in their schools this past school year have been essential in allowing them to reconnect with their students and help them begin to recover from the disrupted learning and disengagement from the school closures and remote learning that occurred during the height of the pandemic. These children will have the rug pulled from under them if these cuts are enacted, and much of the progress they have gained will be lost, in the anonymity of excessive class sizes where their teachers will be unable to give them the academic and social-emotional support they so desperately need."
Laura D. Barbieri, Special Counsel for Advocates for Justice, stated: "The explicit language of State law requires that these egregious budget cuts be halted and reconsidered by the Mayor and the Council, because the law was not followed. The State Legislature enacted an explicit budget review and voting process by the Board of Education that was eviscerated by the Chancellor's abuse of authority. No emergency justified the Chancellor's ignoring the proper procedure."
From the desk of Betsy Combier, re-posted from ADVOCATZ.com:
In this post, I will explain why excellent educators are charged with false allegations and then terminated for doing something that they did not do or not removed from their employment for harmful acts that they did do. The charging procedures and outcomes were very confusing when I first started examining them 18 years ago.
Education Law §3020 states in relevant part:
No person enjoying the benefits of tenure shall be disciplined or removed during a term of employment except for just cause and in accordance with the procedures specified in section three thousand twenty-a of this article
and,
"The tenure statutes reflect the intent and purpose of the Legislature to protect educators who have successfully completed a probationary period from being disciplined summarily without the safeguards of Education Law § 3020-a. As stated by this Court in Holt v. Board of Educ. of Webutuck Cent. School Dist., 52 N.Y.2d 625 (1981): At one time, teachers in this state had only so much job security as could be bargained for in their contract of employment. When that contract expired, the decision as to whether or not to continue the teacher's employment was completely within the discretion of the school district. The Legislature, recognizing a need for permanence and stability in the employment relationship between teachers and the school districts which employ them, enacted a comprehensive statutory tenure system, the purpose of which was to provide some measure of security for competent teachers who had rendered adequate service for a number of years. One of the bulwarks of that tenure system is section 3020-a of the Education Law which protects tenured teachers from arbitrary suspension or removal. The statute has been recognized by this court as a critical part of the system of contemporary protections that safeguard tenured teachers from official or bureaucratic caprice. Id., 52 N.Y.2d at 632"
From In the Matter of Roseann Kilduff, Respondent,v.Rochester City School District, et al., Appellants, Court of Appeals No. APL-2013-0029:
"In Matter of Boyd v. Collins, 11 N.Y.2d 228 (1962), this Court had annulled an agreement between a board of education and a teacher under which the teacher would resign after a stated period in lieu of charges. The Court plainly stated that the "statutory tenure terms can be changed by the Legislature but never by a board of education." Id. at 233. As summarized by the Court in Mannix, supra, "[i]t was made clear in [Boyd] that no act of a board of education could effect a method of bypassing the tenure statute." Mannix, 21 N.Y.2d at 459. Although Boyd was subsequently overruled in Matter of Abramovich v. Board of Educ. of Cent. School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Brookhaven & Smithtown, 46 N.Y.2d 450 (1979), it was overruled solely on the ground that the law does not absolutely forbid a tenured teacher from waiving the protections of the tenure statutes if the record establishes a truly knowing, open and voluntary waiver. Id. at 455."
In NYC, there is no voluntary waiver, and the Constitutional protection of tenure has been modified to fit the whims and fancy of a principal or superintendent who says to the legal department, "get rid of that person." Yet the NYC Department of Education pursues termination at the §3020-a arbitration under color of law, without any authority or waiver of a teacher's rights. No change has been made to Education Law §3020-a(2)(a), citing a probable cause determination by a vote of the Board of Education (PEP in NYC). The PEP BYLAWS do not give the Chancellor authority to vote on any issue, rendering any delegation of the vote to a Superintendent or principal by the Chancellor meaningless paper. Most shocking of all is the fact that the New York City Department of Education ("NYC DOE") and the Unions (UFT/NYSUT, CSA) have collaborated in this scheme that deliberately violates lawful procedures, is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and affected by an error of law. I believe that extortion might be the right word.
Educators are brought to §3020 hearings without being told any of this. This is the fraud that I write about here, and what we - all of us in the community of the world - have to change. False statements published in bad faith against a person destroy that person's life forever. No apology after the fact can change that.
Nonetheless, if you know who you are, you will get to where you want to be. Knowledge is power but you need to know what to do with it.
"If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there."
Many educators ask, "How could this happen?" "How could I be terminated/given a fine/suspended for something I did not do?"
Tenured employees of the NYC DOE at any level, unaware that their tenure rights under the §3020-a statute have been illegally implemented or omitted, rely on the same people at their Union who have created the procedures cited here as illegitimate. Suppose an accused educator demands that their Union attorney or advocate submit a Motion To Dismiss the arbitration hearing based on this argument. In that case, the lawyer or representative will immediately quit or threaten to drop your case.
I always suggest that accused educators rely on their own beliefs and common sense. Just rely on yourself. Find out and believe in who you are and what you want, and if your intent is strong and your goals are "right" - as opposed to unlawful or harmful to another person or animal - you will reach your goals. This process must be constantly renewed, so do not rest on what you have done. Keep planting new ideas on your path. Who you are now will change tomorrow, just as you were a different person yesterday.
The Backstory of Education Law §3020-a in New York City
"New York public employees enjoyed disciplinary due-process protections long before they won collective bargaining rights with the 1967 passage of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, also known as the Taylor Law. But in requiring public employers to negotiate “terms and conditions” of employment, the state Legislature set the stage for union contracts to become obstacles to disciplining public employees."
Tenure is public policy in New York City. New York State unions are supposed to be the warriors who protect Constitutional rights to a full and fair hearing. But employers want "at-will" employment for everyone, and therein lies the problem.
Questions union members should be asking are, "Why doesn't my Union fight for my rights?" "Why do my Union Reps. seem to play along with the Department of Education?"
You can see this struggle between employer-unions here:
What happens then is that policymakers write "manuals" on what to do, devoid of circumstances, which people are supposed to use as a Guide. General statements of rules of law or Agency Agreements are only as good as their implementation.
"Chapter 3: Due Process of Law Introduction Both the United States and New York Constitutions guarantee that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty or property, without due process of law." The concept of due process imposes a fundamental obligation upon all organs of government, including state agencies. At its base, due process means that no person can be subject to an individualized proceeding in which they stand to lose one of the protected interests – in the context of administrative law, either property or liberty – without sufficient procedures to ensure that the governmental action is fundamentally fair."
The New York City Department of Education ("NYC DOE"), with the support of the Unions, has instituted a deceitful practice of skipping over the proper determination of probable cause codified in Education Law §3020-a(2)(a). The Statute has been ignored in favor of a false and misleading process that does not give an arbitrator subject matter jurisdiction to hear and decide any case or find “just cause” for the charges.
"2. Disposition of charges. a. Upon receipt of the charges, the clerk or secretary of the school district or employing board shall immediately notify said board thereof. Within five days after receipt of charges, the employing board, in executive session, shall determine, by a vote of a majority of all the members of such board, whether probable cause exists to bring a disciplinary proceeding against an employee pursuant to this section. If such determination is affirmative, a written statement specifying (i) the charges in detail, (ii) the maximum penalty which will be imposed by the board if the employee does not request a hearing or that will be sought by the board if the employee is found guilty of the charges after a hearing and (iii) the employee's rights under this section, shall be immediately forwarded to the accused employee by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested or by personal delivery to the employee."
Yet all NYC DOE employees receive a page with the title "Notice of Determination of Probable Cause" that does not have a date for an Executive Session in the box on the right. I started asking about this in 2004, and I remember Former NYSUT Counsel Claude Hersh telling me, "that's the way it is." I stayed with the thought that "that's the way it shouldn't be" and kept researching what happened.
In 2016 I was lucky to have received a lot of information about 3020-a procedures after filing a Freedom of Information request (FOIL) for all attendees and the content of an unpublished meeting of all the arbitrators, NYC DOE, and NYSUT Attorneys held on February 24, 2015. See documents posted on the blog NYC Rubber Room Reporter (2016) and Parentadvocates.org.
In the charging packet is a form with two boxes on it, one for requesting a hearing and one saying that a hearing is not requested. (See above document, with accused educator's name deleted). One box must be checked and delivered to the UFT/CSA within 10 days of receipt. If the 10 days' deadline is not met, the accused will be terminated by members of the PEP meeting in an Executive Session. Welcome to a Catch-22: either participate in an unlawful arbitration or lose your job without going to a hearing. I always suggest that you hire a private attorney or legal team and testify to your side of the story, then Appeal the decision if you think it is incorrect.
See Chancellor's Regulations C-205 (24):
"24. Dismissal for Cause, Resignation, or Retirement While Charges Are Pending -
This subdivision applies to persons who were dismissed pursuant to Section 3020a of the New York State Education Law or who resigned or retired while such charges were pending. All licenses and/or certificates held by such a person at the time of separation from service shall terminate permanently. No such person shall be eligible to apply for any new license or certificate, nor for reemployment by any unit of the City District or of any community school district without the recommendation of the Executive Director of the Division of Human Resources and the express written authorization of the Chancellor."
Instead of complying with the Education Law §3020-a(2)(a), the NYC DOE, CSA (Union for administrators, principals), and NYSUT (gives free representation to UFT Members for §3020-a hearings, lawsuits) have collaboratively relied on so-called "Delegation Memos" (I have collected them, see my collection: Delegation Memos 2011-2018) which DOE attorneys INSIST (I put this in caps because the perseverance to these memos is so fierce) removes the vote of the Panel For Educational Policy (PEP) in an Executive Session from the charging procedure in Education Law §3020-a(2)(a) in NYC. Oh, really? The truth is that nowhere in the memos is "probable cause" mentioned because the Chancellor cannot delegate a vote on probable cause to anyone. Also, there is no law, rule, or regulation that permits the NYC DOE to deny a Constitutional right, as the vote in Executive Session is, without the signed waiver of the person who is being denied that right. No educator brought up on charges has ever signed such a waiver, as far as I know.
Also, the insistence by the unions and NYC DOE that the Executive Session and vote on probable cause are unnecessary and that they were given the right to change the procedures for charging tenured teachers in NYC by the State legislature is a false statement. In the Commissioner's decision #15,482 (Appeal of the New York City Department of Education, on behalf of Community School District 13, concerning a disciplinary proceeding brought against Alfonzo Forrest, a/k/a Alphonzo Forrest, Principal of P.S. 256, under Education Law §3020(3), October 1, 2006), the Commissioner was very clear that Education Law Section §3020-a could be modified or replaced by agreements negotiated between the city school district and the CSA after December 1, 1999, except the provisions of subdivisions one and two shall not apply to any agreements negotiated pursuant to this subdivision" (emphasis added - Ed.).
Yet NYC DOE, CSA, and NYSUT attorneys go along with the premise that the so-called "Delegation" memos have replaced the Executive Session with a constructive, but silent, waiver, to give the power and authority to find probable cause for the charges to the exact same person who created these charges in the first place, namely the Principal (or, in some cases, the Superintendent).
It is patently absurd to think that the Legislature intended for the Chancellor, a singular individual, to have the authority to "find" probable cause, create the charges, and testify to the veracity of these exact charges. There is nothing ambiguous in the statutory text of Education Law §3020a or Education Law §2590h. The statutes say: (1) there must be a determination of probable cause by a vote in an executive session; and (2) the Chancellor, a nonvoting member of the PEP, cannot delegate a vote to anyone at any time. (PEP BYLAWS, Article 3.2).
In the first paragraph of §2590-h, you can read the following:
"He or she shall exercise all his or her powers and duties in a manner not inconsistent with the city-wide educational policies of the city board."
There you are. End of the subject, proof that only the process described in detail in Education Law §3020-a(2)(a) to comply with the State-mandated due process for educators in NY State and City.
Even if the law said that a vote on probable cause is not needed (the law never suggests this, but the NYC DOE makes this one of their main arguments supporting the fraudulent charging papers), an Executive Session must be held. A determination of probable cause must be made by two or more people, never a single person.
When an arbitrator makes a decision in a case, they act outside of any lawful authority and choose to put the $1400/day salary above the facts or law of the case they are about to hear. Instead, the arbitrator should withdraw all charges, recuse themselves from the matter, or adjourn the case until a proper determination of probable cause is made by the PEP vote in an Executive Session.
But this is never done. All arbitrators agree with their employer, the NYC DOE, and deny the Motion To Dismiss For Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction to keep their position on the hearing panel. They also agree that the finding of probable cause can be delegated to a single person as per Education Law §2590-h(19),(38). Sorry, but no.
Sadly, no arbitrator will jeopardize their $1400/day hearing cases brought to them by the NYC DOE at least 5 days/month, making their decisions appealable.
It gets worse. To speed up the removal of teachers from the rubber rooms during the early period of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's reign as chief of the Department under Mayoral control, the UFT took away the right of any tenured, accused teacher to choose the arbitrator for their §3020-a hearing. (NYCRR, Title 8, Section 82-3.5). See (h): "The provisions of this subdivision shall not apply in city school districts in cities with a population of one million or more with alternative procedures adopted pursuant to section 3020 of the Education Law."
This is true only for UFT members. CSA members in NYC (Assistant Principals and Principals) charged under §3020-a pick their arbitrator for their §3020-a hearing. How did this law become so narrowly defined, and why are teachers treated differently from administrators? No one complains, or the accused are not told they have this right.
The NYC DOE, CSA, and UFT/NYSUT adherence to this fraud is shocking.
But the denial of the Motion can be used to show bias by the arbitrator in an Appeal. See "Appealing 3020-a Decisions."
So what? You say.
The reasons why the points made above are essential for purposes of understanding the denial of rights at a §3020-a: first, the person accused is automatically assigned a problem code with a permanent flag on their fingerprints; second, the arbitrator can give any penalty they want to provide, despite the facts and circumstances, which becomes a permanent part of the accused person's personnel file.
The Department supports arbitrators who terminate for minor acts of no consequence. The Department also supports the arbitrators if they ignore the evidence and terminate the accused because the educator was "not credible." Rules of law for evidence and witness tampering are not considered. The Department has the right of way, and most arbitrators abide by the terms of the agreement with New York State and New York City to serve on the panels in NYC if, and only if, they give termination as the choice of penalty. Any arbitrator who gives decisions that are "too lenient" is taken off the panels and misses out on the $1400/day salary. Thus, I believe a bias is embedded in the hearing officer before, during, and after the arbitration concludes.
Thus the omission of probable cause in the charging procedures for §3020-a arbitration in New York City allows the Department to bring charges against a tenured educator that are serious and valid, or silly, untrue, the product of retaliation, discrimination, or just plain hate because no comprehensive, factual investigations are done to validate any charges before the hearing begins. There are no investigators who look into most of the charges at any of the "investigating" agencies: the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), and the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI). Please note the OSI official name on all Investigative Reports: "Chancellor's Office of Special Investigations" at the bottom of every page.
OSI, SCI, and OEO "investigators" are anything but that. See some of the cases I have written about on this website and my blog NYC Rubber Room Reporter: Glen Storman; David Suker;David Pakter (pictured below waiting to go into his 3020-a hearing at 51-49 Chambers Street with Arbitrator Martin Scheinman); Teddy Smith;Eileen Ghastin. I have worked on more than 120 cases and have won decisions that saved the tenured employment or exonerated most of the accused.
In all misconduct cases where there is an "Investigative Report" submitted into the record, an in-depth review always shows some error of the investigator or false statements and documents used to support the conclusion. Why? Because the NYC DOE can and do present whatever they find/create to terminate the accused, which is the goal 100% of the time. Arbitrators have asked me why the NYC DOE always goes for termination, even for the most ridiculous charge. I tell them that it seems to be a situation where the top of the ladder needs to stand on a firm ground no matter how weak it is because they are already on the roof and/or if the charging party throws enough mud at the wall, something may stick.
Most of the so-called "investigators" at OSI, SCI, and OEO are retired detectives getting their second pension by setting up employees at a school whom someone has complained about and the principal wants to get rid of. There is a set procedure where a parent, child, staff member, AP, or principal can make up that they saw someone do something to somebody, then (1) the principal must report it (no students are reported to OSI); (2) OSI sends someone to the school to find out from the principal what they want to prove; (3) the principal gives permission for students to leave class who will agree to write statements making the targeted person guilty; (4) the principal writes a disciplinary letter which is handed to the accused at a meeting with a representative from the accused person's Union - or not, this is up to the accused to decide; and (5) the technical assistance conference (TAC) memos are created which end up as §3020-a charges.
The title "investigator" does not define what the hired guns at OSI, SCI, and OEO do. I have many stories of unfair, incomplete, and corrupt investigations. See the Wei Liu case. I also wrote about what happened to Glenn Storman after Investigator Dennis Boyles got involved. Here is a big problem. Without a complete and accurate investigation, an arbitrator must decide on the truth of the charges and the credibility of the testifying witnesses. I have found that this does not work, particularly if the Respondent does not speak English very well. The arbitrator has an implicit bias against the Respondent, the accused educator because the Department has put a lot of money and time into creating a case that superficially makes sense. (Thanks to R.W. for giving me the information on this crucial issue). Truth and facts are not relevant to an arbitrator whose goal is to seem fair while doing what the NYC DOE wants.
Most importantly, accused educators must do their own investigation or have their legal team do it and then present the report at the hearing. Bottom line, anyone charged with anything MUST write a rebuttal if there are false statements made against him/her. If the UFT representative or administrator suggests that an accused should not write a rebuttal, ignore this advice.
Additionally, §3020-a is codified in Education Law Article 61, whereas §2590 is placed in Article 52(a). This placement dichotomy is not a trivial distinction but instead reflects a legislative determination (and intent) to separate the powers of the Chancellor from the statutory due process template applicable to the termination of tenured teachers. (Attorney Roger Adler's Statement). The New York State Legislature never intended on giving any arbitrator the right to ignore the omission of a proper finding of probable cause to pursue a penalty for an educator. Yet, the Department, CSA, and NYSUT lawyer representatives always ignore this defect in the charging procedure, to the detriment of the accused employee.
Having been involved in these hearings for 18 years, I have seen everything from false statements, lies under oath to actual harm. In the cases where the accused has committed some allegedly "abusive" act, I will help them fight for a just and fair penalty, considering all circumstances. If the accused has done something extremely harmful without any justification, I choose to decline to take the case at all. These people should leave the profession of education with the NYC DOE.
The §3020-a arbitration described above has a foundation in fraud. An accused educator is found guilty before entering the door or starting the first Zoom meeting. From that point on, the educator must convince the arbitrator of their innocence. Huh? This is backward. The accused educator is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
In sum, do not let the NYC DOE step on your parade. Despite all the shoddy acts cited in this post, the solution is not to resign, retire, not tell your side of the story, or not show up at the hearing. All employees accused of whatever bad acts someone charged them with should stay focused on winning the §3020-a arbitration, clearing their name in the record, and going forward with their life and career as they, no one else, planned.
NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza has been quoted as saying that he never "wastes a good crisis" to get his agenda put into place.
He and his partner-in-crime NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio love this time of turmoil and are gleefully ignoring public opinions criticizing their education overhaul as they scrap grades in K-8, leaving parents and students upset about how graduation to new schools will work, and slashing fellowships. And this is just for starters. What happens next is unknown, but what we and they know for sure is, they - Carranza and de Blasio - are above the law and not beholden to anyone because the behemoth known as the New York City Department of Education is under Mayoral control. The DOE gets more than $34 billion in taxpayer money (fiscal year 2019-2020).
What does "mayoral control" mean? This means we, the general public, have no input. Nothing we say is listened to or matters to the Big Chiefs of the NYC DOE. I testified in front of the NY State Assembly Education Committee when they held a meeting downtown on Mayoral control a few months ago. The Chair of the Committee, Michael Benedetto, pictured above, actually told every public speaker that no criticism of Mayor de Blasio or Richard Carranza would be allowed or heard. He put it out to everyone as a warning.
Jo Anne Simon
I was shocked. I was also greatly saddened by the silence of Jo Anne Simon who was also on the panel with Mr. Benedetto. I have followed her work as an attorney for children with disabilities for many years, but she agreed with Benedetto's threats to the speakers.
I think it is abominable that New York City is under Mayoral control, which means that all the members of our school board - the Panel For Educational Policy ("PEP") - are in place to agree to whatever the Mayor wants. Since 2004, when I started attending the monthly meetings, PEP members openly violate Education Law by closing schools for no reason, voting on spending millions of dollars for programs or products which do not support our kids, etc. I could go on and on, as I have done on this blog and my website Parentadvocates.org.
We have been protesting Mayoral control and the PEP puppets since 2003. Indeed, I wrote the Department of Justice complaining about the proposal sent to the DOJ's Steven Rich clearly removing the right to vote by minorities in NYC who, General Counsel Michael Cardozo wrote, don't vote anyway. You can read my article on the denial of rights and the statement sent to Washington D.C., below:
We parents, educators and concerned citizens need a voice now more than ever in making sure our kids are learning the academic subjects as well as how to deal with life in general. The overhaul of the public school system in New York City that will be put in place in September will sadly not have the input of any of us.
Citing the coronavirus, the Department of Education has gutted a fellowship program that would have placed hundreds of teachers into city schools next year, The Post has learned.
A total of 475 accepted applicants were slated to begin training this summer for eventual placement in the fall.
But the program was hacked down to just 75 — and even those surviving participants aren’t guaranteed employment.
“Due to the economic impact of COVID-19, we are actively assessing our hiring needs for next year, and this summer we will have training for a small cohort of fellows in order to fill critical positions in District 75,” said DOE spokeswoman Danielle Filson.
There are roughly 10,000 current city teachers who launched their careers through the program, Filson said.
“It’s shocking,” said a Brooklyn woman who was supposed to start training this summer and is now without any job prospects for next year. “It’s really hard to look forward to a new career and to have this happen. It’s like, now what?”
City Hall plans to cleave the education budget by $827 million to combat pandemic related shortfalls next year.
Critics have blasted the slashing, arguing that too many essential programs are being gashed while other areas — including central administrative costs — are avoiding the blade.
“Cutting a program like this is going to have a direct impact on children,” the spurned applicant said. “These are people who really sought out being teachers in New York City.”
Filson said the DOE is working to plug staffing shortfalls and noted that the number of traditional applications for city teaching posts is still strong.
“This administration has made unprecedented investments in teacher training and leadership programs and we will be prioritizing this cohort’s applications in future programs and offering them early opportunities to enroll,” she added.
, NY POST May 7, 2020
Mayor de Blasio affirmed Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic has provided he and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza an opportunity to radically change the city’s public high school admissions policy next year.
Last month, de Blasio announced that the city was scrapping the traditional grading policy for kindergarten through eighth-grade students this year because of the coronavirus crisis. The normal grading, however, remains for high school students.
The pandemic has also resulted in the cancellation of state exams and the removal of attendance as an admissions metric.
Asked about The Post front page Thursday on a survey that found 92 percent of parents are “extremely or very concerned” that the scrapping of the grades this year will provide an opening to push through radical changes on admissions processes, the mayor said, “Many things are going to be re-evaluated as a result of this crisis.”
“We are just not going to bring New York City back to the status quo that was there before,” Hizzoner said.
The mayor continued, “We’re going to try to create a series of changes that bring equity … certainly the screened schools are being re-evaluated.”
De Blasio said only that the school admissions policy “will be addressed soon.”
The mayor was at first evasive when asked by a Post reporter about Carranza telling fellow administrators not to “waste a good crisis” in the pursuit of systemic change in a panel discussion last month.
“I don’t know the specific panel discussion you’re talking about, so I can’t respond to comments I haven’t seen the context of,” the mayor said.
But later, provided with details of the national Association of Latino Supervisors and Superintendents video conference held in mid-April, the mayor added, “The Chancellor was clearly speaking to our ability to address underlying issues as we move forward from this crisis.”
Asked how city seventh-graders will apply for high school next year, the mayor acknowledged changes are afoot behind the scenes.
“We’ve been clear in this administration that we are re-evaluating the admissions process across the board and we’re asking important questions about what is fair and equitable going forward,” he said.
Asked why grading was maintained for high school students and not middle schoolers, whose seventh-grade scores are used to weigh admissions to the city’s high schools when they apply in eighth grade, City Hall spokeswoman Jane Meyer said, “High school grades are on students’ transcripts which are used for college applications, internships and other external uses. There is also a greater independence of learners for high school students, versus lower grades.”
She tellingly added, “We have the ability to adjust the high school admissions process in a way that we can’t for colleges and universities. We will have more to share on admissions processes soon.”
Meanwhile, big-name backers of specialized high school admissions testing — which is based solely on a single citywide standardized test that determines exceptance to an elite eight schools in the city — also blasted potential overhauls of the city’s grading and screening systems.
In a letter to de Blasio and Carranza, members of the Education Equity Campaign — led by cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, and activist Kirsten John Foy — pressed for more resources rather than a systemic reboot.
The group called for city leaders to leverage new technology to increase test prep access among other services.
“We cannot waste time and resources on plans that will cause more chaos and turmoil in our school admissions system,” the letter read.
The coronavirus may kill the controversial practice of “screening” students for admittance to NYC’s most coveted middle and high schools, at least temporarily.
With this year’s state math and English exams canceled, a watered-down grading policy enacted, and the tossing of attendance, the key factors for admission to selective schools have been dropped or diminished.
David C. Bloomfield
“This may be the beginning of the end of screening as we know it,” said David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor.
The city Department of Education has so far left anxious parents of current 4th and 7th graders — who would normally apply to middle and high schools by early December for the 2021-22 academic year — in the dark about how admissions will be determined.
But schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, who recently told principals to “never waste a good crisis,” is likely to embrace the coronavirus-caused elimination of screens as a way to achieve his diversity agenda.
Carranza has campaigned against the use of a single exam, the SHSAT, to determine admission to eight elite high schools, including Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech, and has declared his disdain for other public schools that select students based on high grades and test scores, along with attendance records.
“We are screening children?” Carranza said at a press conference with Mayor de Blasio in May 2018. “I don’t get that. We’re a public school system in one of the most diverse cities — not in America — but the world.”
Carranza has said he believes screening was started to keep white, middle-class families in the system — to the detriment of many black and brown kids who can’t get into top schools.
“Clearly, the screened schools are an area where some real change is needed,” de Blasio told a parent in 2018. The mayor’s own two kids attended highly selective high schools — Brooklyn Tech and Beacon School in Manhattan.
About a third of 400-plus city high schools have screened students for years, ranking kids by state test scores, grades and attendance as the main factors.
The School Diversity Advisory Group, a panel appointed by de Blasio, recommended in August 2018 that the DOE eliminate gifted programs as well as selective admissions at most schools. Such practices “create segregation by race, class, disability, home language, and academic ability,” it said.
The gifted programs remain intact so far, but the pandemic has virtually wiped out the traditional screens.
After this year’s state ELA and math exams for grades 3-8 were canceled, the DOE announced it would waive attendance as an admission factor due to the COVID-19 shutdown, and switch to remote learning.
On April 28, the DOE unveiled a soft new grading policy, in which elementary and middle school students will be rated as “meeting standards” or “needs improvement.”
Many high-achieving students and their parents oppose the new system.
Seventh-grader Jude Listanowsky, 13, (pictured at left) started a Change.org petition last week asking the mayor to count grades given during the first and second marking periods — before the COVID-19 shutdown — for high school admissions.
The DOE’s relaxed grading policy, he said, “will make not me but all of my classmates feel that the effort we put in our first 7 months of school was for nothing. We will have no motivation to perform our best during this time of COVID, which was something that was keeping us distracted from the emotional pain of missing friends,” Jude wrote.
“With the new change, students with a grade of 98 will have the same grade as ones with a 70 — clearly erasing all need for effort.”
As of Saturday, his petition had gathered 755 signatures.
“What will high schools look at to see whether students should go into their schools? What’s the new criteria for high school acceptance?” asked Christina Muniz, whose son Miguel Mendez, 13, earned a 100 percent-plus average in the first and second marking periods at JHS 104 in Gramercy.
“I worked extremely hard for these grades and high schools should recognize what I have done,” said Miguel, who hopes to attend Bronx HS of Science or Eleanore Roosevelt HS in Manhattan.
Frances Kweller, director of Kweller Prep, a tutoring service to prepare kids for competitive middle and high school entrance exams, said the writing is on the wall: “This pandemic is being used by the mayor as a golden opportunity to eradicate the screening process at top NYC schools.”
A DOE spokeswoman did not respond to questions about screening or admissions.
In Manhattan’s District 2, where getting into a coveted middle or high school is like a competitive sport, hundreds of parents streamed into an emergency virtual meeting last week.
It was the eve before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced schools would toss out traditional grades for students as part of the city’s response to school buildings being shuttered during the coronavirus crisis.
Parent after parent lobbied, ultimately unsuccessfully, for keeping traditional grades intact for elementary and middle schoolers. Without those marks, many wondered, how would their children get accepted into the most selective schools next year?
City and education leaders have yet to answer that question. But it’s clear that applying to “screened” middle and high schools next year promises to be unlike any other. That’s because the city’s response to the coronavirus crisis means the main data points that competitive schools use to admit — and stress out — the city’s 10- and 13-year olds are gone: attendance, state tests, and grades.
What happens next could make the process even more confusing to navigate. Or it could have the surprising consequence of making schools more diverse — if de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza decide to act.
Integration advocates have long lobbied the mayor to tear down or pare back screens, which contribute to the city’s surprising status as home to one of the most segregated school systems in the county. Now, as buildings are closed for about a third of the academic year and more than 1 million city students are forced to learn from their homes, the coronavirus has exacerbated deep inequities across the system.
Pushback to any possible changes is already beginning to emerge, as families who have managed to navigate the city’s admissions maze deftly are upset about the rules changing in the middle of the game.
City leaders have said that new policy regarding admissions is in the works. Sean Corcoran, who has researched screening and segregation in New York City schools, said parents and schools need clear guidance to follow, but that the education department’s next steps should be taken carefully.
“We should be cautious moving forward, and major changes in the way admissions are done could have an impact on the way schools operate,” said Corcoran, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University. “Hopefully, they’ll do it sooner rather than later so parents know what to expect. There’s nothing that makes parents in New York City more anxious than knowing where their kid is going to go to school.”
In a typical year, each school sets its own admissions criteria, creating a patchwork of standards and requirements that families and students often struggle to understand. Some may require a minimum grade point average, others can count a single absence against a student’s chance for admissions. Often, schools do not disclose how they weigh applications, making the odds of getting an offer a mystery. Families have a leg up if they have the time to visit open houses, the savvy to guide their children with their applications, and money to pay private consultants to help them decode the process.
Sorting through students can require an immense investment of school leaders’ time — especially now, without data points like test scores that allow for quick distinctions among students. Next year, some schools might decide it’s too much work to figure out new ways to select students, and drop screens all together.
There is precedent for such sweeping admissions changes: Brooklyn’s District 15 recently eliminated competitive admissions standards in favor of a lottery system. Other screened schools across the city have dropped some of their admissions screens as the crush of applications became overwhelming.
On the other hand, schools that are committed to separating students by their academic records could simply double down, creating new entrance criteria. Many of the most coveted schools already use measures beyond attendance, grades, and test scores. Bard High School Early College administers its own entrance tests. Beacon High School requires a portfolio of work.
It’s also possible schools could pivot to use grades accumulated before the shutdown, if those are made available, or test scores from prior school years.
Without a citywide policy in place, the admissions process could become even more confusing and less fair to students, said Corcoran, the Vanderbilt professor.
“If you don’t provide enough structure for screened programs then they will engage in activities that are unequal or perhaps less transparent than what they’ve done in the past — and people have already complained that screens are not transparent,” he said.
One simple solution the city could consider, he said, is requiring schools to share their rubrics publicly. Chalkbeat submitted a public records request in November for school rubrics, and the education department says it needs until June 30th to respond.
What it means for integration
Student activists have been organizing school-wide walkouts, occupied City Hall during council hearings, and have hounded the mayor during public appearances to push for change within the admissions system — to little avail. Now, in the span of a few weeks, the pandemic has forced the potential to usher in reforms.
“It is incredibly frustrating that it took a pandemic,” said Emma Rehac, a high school senior with the youth advocacy group IntegrateNYC. “Now people are looking at all these solutions that we’ve been organizing around. They are always urgent, not just now.”
Diverse schools can boost outcomes for low-income students and those of color — and their white and more affluent peers. Integration efforts have led to lower drop out rates, higher college enrollment, and reduced racial prejudice.
The coronavirus has made it more clear than ever what some students are up against: Hundreds of thousands began remote learning without computers or WiFi that would allow them to tune into online classes. Schools had been closed for about seven weeks by the time the city was able to deliver a device to the more than 300,000 students who needed one.
“If they decide to use screens, then they’re not being fair to anyone,” said Lennox Thomas, a high school senior in Brooklyn and member of Teens Take Charge, a youth advocacy group that has pressured the mayor to change admissions standards. “They’re just going to be assessing a students’ access to internet, and that’s obviously not fair because some students can’t afford a computer. Some students don’t have access to WiFi.”
Pushback mounting
Even during a pandemic, the mayor is likely to face pushback if the city radically changes screening practices — especially from middle-class and white parents who often manage to navigate the system well.
Opposition has already bubbled up. A seventh-grader at a competitive school recently launched a petition with more than 1,400 people supporting his call for the city to preserve students’ grades from before schools shut down so they can be used in high school admissions.
“I sacrificed participating in sports at my school in order to do my best in an important year,” he wrote. “This grading policy change will make not [only] me but all of my classmates feel that the effort we put in our first 7 months of school was for nothing.”
Jodie Loverro, a mother of three children in District 2, has one child in fourth-grade and another is in seventh — critical years for admissions. Since applications are due early in fifth- and eighth-grade, schools typically consider the academic records of students from their previous full year in school.
Loverro, who works as a substitute teacher in the district, decided to work part-time this year so she could ensure her fourth-grader made it to school on time everyday — knowing that attendance would play a big role in where she would get accepted to middle school. Her seventh-grade son, meanwhile, put in extra effort this semester to boost his grades above 90%, hoping it would improve his chances for a top high school.
Without knowing what will happen for next year’s admissions, Loverro is thinking about private schools and considering homeschooling. Most of all, she just wants clarity from the education department about what admissions will look like next year.
“It’s confusing. I honestly just feel like this was a lot to throw at people, and they’re already dealing with a lot,” she told Chalkbeat. “You’re putting this in place in an attempt to even the playing field, but you are also hurting the kids that are trying to excel.”
Parents who want to preserve screening often wonder whether schools can serve a broad range of students well and argue that students with top grades should be rewarded with a placement in a coveted school.
“The kids who are high achievers should have a chance to be high achievers. It’s not the most politically correct thing to say, but it’s also true,” said Elissa Stein, a consultant who helps families navigate the application process. “If next year is a lottery and kids end up in schools where they’re not academically prepared, it could make for a very challenging experience.”
It’s up to de Blasio
Whatever happens next year may ultimately be an anomaly rather than result in any structural change, integration advocates believe.
Though the schools chancellor has forcefully questioned the widespread use of screens and heralded the importance of diverse schools, the mayor is ultimately in charge of education department policy. Throughout his tenure, de Blasio has preferred to let individual schools or districts take on their own diversity efforts, avoiding any citywide policy.
The mayor appointed an advisory group that recommended ways to better integrate schools, but he has not acted for eight months on the most controversial proposals — to overhaul gifted programs and eliminate some specific screens.
That was before the coronavirus brought New York City to its knees. Today, schools are meal hubs serving hundreds of thousands of meals to hungry students and their families, as unemployment reaches historic levels. Teachers, while pivoting to online instruction on a dime, have also taken on the roles of social workers and counselors — raising money for their students’ families to help keep roofs over their heads, and attending virtual funerals for those who have lost family members.
All of that could make it hard to argue that now is the time to focus on diversity in schools.
“If there’s any sense that any issue is going to be politically different, I don’t see the desire or the courage from City Hall to really take on those issues,” said Matt Gonzales, who advocates for integration policies at the New York University Metro Center. “I feel pessimistic about what could happen under this administration, but I also know this moment itself calls for decisive and real action.”
Community Education Council District 2 meeting held at PS 340 in 2019.Stefan Jeremiah
One faction argues that the Department of Education has given a partisan advocacy group a pivotal role — a claim the agency denies.
The DOE tapped the Education Council Consortium — whose co-chairs oppose screened schools — to conduct a video meeting on the issue Saturday to collect parental opinion.
Helmed by Shino Tanikawa and NeQuan McLean, the ECC is an independent advocacy group comprised of elected Community Education Council members who choose to opt into the organization. CECs are parental advisory boards present in every city district.
The DOE asserted that Saturday’s meeting is only the beginning of their parent engagement process and that critics were overstating its impact on a final decision.
Some parents — particularly those in favor of preserving schools with academics-based admissions — note that the ECC successfully sought an exemption from open meeting laws in January.
Len Silverman, a member of the DOE-recognized Chancellors Parent Advisory Committee of parent association presidents, questioned the arrangement this week.
“We’re the elected parent leaders, we represent parents from each district,” Silverman said during a CPAC meeting with DOE officials Thursday. “The ECC is a private advocacy group and they have no formal role in the DOE.”
Silverman said Saturday’s meeting could confuse city parents as to the basis of their representation.
“It seems like we’re conflating the ECC with CPAC,” he said. “Although the ECC does some great work and I’d like to acknowledge their efforts, there are other groups such as Class Size Matters, PLACE, that also do great work. My question is, what role are private advocacy groups going to have in terms of these decisions that are being made?”
Arguing that it draws members from across the ideological spectrum, McClean staunchly defended the ECC’s role in Saturday’s meeting and its work on matters of equity and school desegregation overall.
“The Education Council Consortium, a collective of elected parent leaders representing all intersections of race, age, nationality, religion, and ability in NYC, will continue to advocate for every child, not merely a select few,” McLean told The Post.
The group, which meets regularly with schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, has more than 200 members from across the city, according to its website.
Tanikawa and McLean, both members of Mayor de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group, have called for the elimination of screened schools, calling them unfair instruments of racial segregation.
They also oppose the specialized high school admissions test and the structure of Gifted and Talented programs.
The ECC’s Twitter account argues in favor of screened school elimination, arguing that they unfairly favor those with resources at the expense of low-income kids black and Hispanic students.
CEC 26 president Adriana Aviles noted this week that the ECC remains a largely unknown entity among parents in her Queens district.
“That’s where some of the frustration is right now,” she said. “The average parent has no idea what the ECC is. Even a lot of CEC members don’t know what it is or what it does. Communities feel that they have not been represented properly in these conversations.”
The presidents of three CECs, Philip Wong, Deborah Alexander and Maud Maron, sent a letter to schools Carranza this week objecting to the DOE’s handling of parent engagement.
All three are members of the ECC but contend that the group is tightly managed and insufficiently transparent.
“We cannot adequately express our deep disappointment in the dishonest and faithless way in which the DOE has decided to pretend to listen to parent communities,” it states. “Many communities were ignored in the formulating of the Grading Policy and now those same communities are being promised engagement in public when the reality is a fake, pre-ordained process, behind closed doors.”
The letter argued that the DOE should hold formal public meetings with individual CECs.
McLean fired back, arguing that their opposition was misplaced given inequities in the school system.
“It is unfortunate that, in a world where reporting has highlighted our city as one of the most segregated school systems in the country, certain people are resorting to aggressive, hostile, cruel personal attacks against those fighting for equity,” McLean said.
A DOE spokeswoman stressed that the ECC will be one of many groups they will engage on the screening issue in the coming weeks and months.
“We are coordinating citywide engagements with parent leaders and the public—there are no secretive policy decisions made with any one group,” said Katie O’Hanlon. “We’re going to hear all parent voices on equal footing, not just the loudest ones, and won’t decide on a policy until we do.”
