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Sunday, August 3, 2014

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

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

Betsy Combier
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
President, ADVOCATZ

Mecca Sykes-Santana, Esq.

Chief Diversity Officer for the State of New York
Edit experience Current
  1. New York State - Executive Chamber
Edit experience Previous
  1. NYC Department of Education,
  2. NYS Commission of Investigation,
  3. New York County ( Manhattan) District Attorney's Office
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Edit education Education
  1. Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations
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  • Public Profile
    www.linkedin.com/pub/mecca-sykes-santana-esq/3b/853/827


Background

Experience

Chief Diversity Officer for the State of New York

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

https://twitter.com/MeccaSantanaCDO

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

Executive Director EEO & Diversity Management

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

Senior Assistant Counsel

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

Assistant District Attorney

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

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

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

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

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

Education

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

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

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

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

"From: Paul Brown <pbrown@nysutmail.org>
To:
Sent: Wed,  2013
Subject: Re: - WITNESSES
I have an ethical obligation not to put on witnesses that I believe will be damaging to your case.  I have confirmed with one of my supervisors and with several colleagues at my office that the witnesses you suggested will offer little, if any, substantive value and will open the door to many more potential problems. .....
 
Please call me should you have any further questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSUT defends the UFT, not individuals or individual rights.

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

I'll give you an example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really? Who says?

The UFT and the DOE, that's who.

Betsy Combier
President, ADVOCATZ
212-794-8902

August 3, 2014

City tries to cut down teachers without permanent jobs




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


TEACHERS FOR MARY
 

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

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


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

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

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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Arthur Goldstein on Campbell Brown's Law (about Tenure)

Arthur Goldstein,Diane Ravitch, Gary Rubenstein

The Best Article ever, Explaining Campbell Brown's Law
We all know, or should know, about Campbell’s Law. That is a social science axiom that says:
“The more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
The short translation: the more you measure people and tie high-stakes to the measurement, the more likely they are to make the measurement the point of their activity, which distorts the activity. Campbell’s Law explains why teachers teach to the test or even cheat, because so much is riding on achieving high test scores. So teachers forget about everything other than test scores, such as citizenship, character, ethics, and so on.
Arthur Goldstein, who teaches high school ESL in New York City, here explains how Campbell’s Law has been replaced by Campbell Brown’s Law. Campbell Brown is the media figure who is leading a lawsuit to eliminate tenure in New York State.
Here is Campbell Brown’s Law:
“Campbell Brown’s Law says whatever goes wrong in school is the fault of the tenured teachers. If you fail, it’s because the teacher had tenure and therefore failed you. Absolutely everyone is a great parent, so that has nothing to do with how children behave. Campbell Brown’s Law says parents have no influence whatsoever on their children. If parents have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, that will have no effect. If they provide no supervision because they aren’t around, that won’t affect kids either.
“Campbell Brown’s Law says kids themselves are not responsible either. If they don’t study, that isn’t their fault. The teacher should have made them study. If they fail tests because they didn’t study, it’s a crime and the teacher should be fired. Under Campbell Brown’s Law the only obstacle to studying is if the teacher has tenure. This is unacceptable and it is therefore the reason that the parents work 200 hours a week. It’s also the reason the kids didn’t study. The kids figured they didn’t have to study because their teachers had tenure.
“Campbell Brown’s Law is demonstrated in charter schools, where teachers don’t have tenure. All kids excel in charter schools, except for those who don’t. That explains why, in some charter schools, that all the students who graduate are accepted to four-year colleges. It’s neither here nor there if two-thirds of the students who began ended up getting insufficient standardized test scores and getting dumped back into public schools. That’s not the fault of the charter teachers, because they don’t have tenure and are therefore blameless. Campbell Brown’s Law says so.”
It is an excellent post, and how brilliant to connect Campbell’s Law to Campbell Brown ‘s Law.
Goldstein concludes:
“In short, if you’re a tenured teacher, you are an impediment to Excellence. The only way you can help children is by getting rid of your tenure, standing up straight and walking to Arne Duncan in Washington DC and saying, “Please sir, I want to be fired for any reason. Or for no reason. I want to take personal responsibility for all the ills of society. Neither you, society, poverty, parents, nor children themselves are responsible. I’m ready to be dismissed at the whim of Bill Gates or the Walmart family and I agree with you that Katrina was the bestest thing to happen to the New Orleans education system.”
“Me, I’m still a tenured teacher. And as terrible as that may be, I’m still relieved to never have had students so hopelessly stupid as Arne Duncan or Campbell Brown.”
As for me, I took a lot of hostile comments on Twitter for saying to a Washington Post reporter recently that Campbell Brown was pretty but didn’t know much about teaching. Outraged people, many of whom seemed to work for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst or similar organizations, called me sexist for saying she was pretty but didn’t object when I said she was clueless about education. Anyone who wants to call me pretty (at the ripe old age of 76), you have my permission. Have at it. I wonder what the enraged Brownians will think about Campbell Brown’s Law.
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Sunday, July 27, 2014

Campbell Brown To File a Second Anti-Tenure Lawsuit in New York

So sad seeing how politicians and wealthy education "reformers" who do not know anything about teaching use parents and children to get the wrong policies they, the so-called "reformers", want. The tenure lawsuits are about grabbing the $billions in public money, not about teacher effectiveness. Union bashing at its least finest political moment.

The Sad, Misinformed Campaign of Campbell Brown To End Tenure Rights of Teachers

Mona Davids Fools No One, as Her Foolhardy Lawsuit Against Teacher Tenure Gains Thousands of Opponents

The Frivolous Case of NYC Parent Mona Davids v Tenure

N.Y. Teacher Tenure Law Targeted After California Ruling


Take a look at what's happening in Colorado, also below.

Betsy Combier


Natalie Mendoza, 8, seen here with parents Angeles Barragan and Armando Mendoza, is
named in a new lawsuit challenging teacher tenure.

EXCLUSIVE: Second lawsuit challenging teacher tenure to be filed by group of New York families

In a suit to be filed in Albany on Monday, seven families will charge that their children are underserved in schools due to incompetent teachers — who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate the kids' constitutional right to a sound education. The suit is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate Campbell Brown.

 
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
 
Sunday, July 27, 2014, 2:30 AM



Plaintiff Nina Doster, of Queens, poses with children (from left) Patience, Micah and King.
Seven families will file suit Monday to end teacher tenure in the fiercest attack yet on job protections enjoyed by New York State educators.

The families, including five from some of the most impoverished communities in the city, claim their children were underserved in school due to incompetent teachers who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate kids’ constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The lawsuit will be filed in Albany and is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate, Campbell Brown.

“There’s no reason why my kids should not be reading on grade level. The law should be changed,” said Nina Doster, 33, of South Ozone Park, Queens. The mother of five is a plaintiff in the suit and also a paid organizer for the StudentsFirstNY advocacy group.

“Every child should be subject to the best education and teaching in every classroom,” she said.

Brown and her new reform group, Partnership For Educational Justice, argue that the current tenure, seniority, and dismissal protections make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers in New York State. They also say that the layoffs policy in which most recently hired teachers are the first to be fired deters the best new educators.

The lawsuit details the frustration of Tauana Goins, who says a teacher at Public School 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, called students “miserable” and went so far as to call her 8-year-old daughter “a loser.” The girl became so scared she regressed academically, her 27-year-old mother says.

Another kid named in the suit, King Doster, 6, said his teacher at P.S. 140 in Springfield Gardens, Queens, claimed she was “too busy” to help him learn to read.

Yet another, Natalie Mendoza, said her kindergarten teacherslept through class in a rocking chair at P.S. 94. in the Norwood section of the Bronx. That same teacher allegedly gave Natalie good grades despite her being unable to read. The teacher told Natalie’s mom, Angeles Barragan, not to worry about her daughter’s academic struggles because “it was just kindergarten,” according to the suit.

“My daughter wasn’t learning to read,” said Barragan, 48, whose daughter may have to attend second grade for a third time. “I went to observe the class and I saw that the teacher was just sitting in a rocking chair and the parent volunteers were the ones who were doing the teaching.”

Brown hailed the plaintiffs as pioneers.

“I stand in awe of these parents and their commitment to demanding that the system change,” Brown said. “As a mom I think we should evaluate every education law or policy by first asking, ‘Is this good for children?’”

The suit, which will include two families from Rochester, is the second legal challenge of teacher tenure. The first was brought by the New York City Parents Union and filed in Staten Island Supreme Court. It’s possible the two will eventually be combined.

Brown has enlisted the powerhouse law firm Kirkland & Ellis to handle the case, which is working pro bono. It is among the largest firms in the country and played a prominent role in defending California’s controversial parent trigger law, which allows parents to force major changes at failing schools if they are able to gather signatures from 51% of parents.

She hopes to facilitate similar suits in any state that has similar protections for unionized teachers.

The complaint does not name the allegedly incompetent educators, but argues that tenure laws lead to bad teachers, a claim supported by some research.

But observers say it will take much more than just education horror stories to win the case.

Brown “has to prove inequity, inadequacy and causation — that the different legal constellation in New York causes the learning issues that we see throughout the state,” said David Bloomfield an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

The lawsuit is inspired by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s ruling in June that declared teacher tenure violates students’ civil rights to a quality education. The ruling in the case, Vergara v. California, was endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. It is under appeal.

Brown has received guidance from David Welch, the Silicon Valley billionaire who funded the Vergara case. She will not disclose the names of donors funding her current effort.

The teachers union would not comment on the lawsuit, but has defended tenure as a way to ensure educators’ due process before being terminated.

sbrown@nydailynews.com

Denver Teachers Suing District to Protest Forced Layoffs

by dianeravitch
In 2010, Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston took credit for a piece of legislation called Senate Bill 191, which he said would produce "Great Schools, Great Teachers, Great Principals." Its main feature was tying teacher evaluation to their students' scores, which counted for 50%. But it included other time bombs. One allowed districts to lay off teachers for various reasons. Now seven teachers and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is suing.
One of those who lost her job was Cynthia Masters, a special-education teacher in a K-8 school. She was one of only 3,000 to lose their job.
"In the four years since the law was passed, nearly 3,000 DPS teachers have lost their positions due to what the district calls "reduction in building," or RIB for short. The reasons that teachers are RIBed vary: Some lose their jobs because their schools are "turned around" or closed. Others are cut because school enrollment drops. In Masters's case, she was RIBed due to a decrease in the number of special-ed students.
Of those 3,000 teachers, 1,240 had at least three years' worth of positive evaluations, including Masters. And not all of them have been able to find new jobs. According to the law, still widely referred to as Senate Bill 191, RIBed teachers with three years of positive reviews — officially known as "nonprobationary" — who can't find a position within a certain time frame are put on unpaid leave, a move that both unions believe violates the state constitution......"
"Brad Bartels, an attorney with the Colorado Education Association, says these teachers are victims of DPS's brand of musical chairs. They didn't lose their positions because they were bad teachers, he insists: "They just didn't have a chair when the music stopped."
"Seven DPS teachers and the DCTA have now sued the district. (The statewide CEA is representing the DCTA in the matter.) The lawsuit is a class action, and the plaintiffs represent several different classes, including all teachers in Colorado who were considered nonprobationary prior to the passage of Senate Bill 191 and all nonprobationary DPS teachers who were RIBed and ended up on unpaid leave.
"Westword spoke with five of the seven plaintiffs and found that they have several things in common: All are older than 45 and have good teaching records. Upon losing their positions, all five applied for hundreds of teaching assignments within DPS but, inexplicably to them, received just a few interviews. Only one managed to avoid being put on unpaid leave or being forced into early retirement.
"I applied for over 700 positions in the district," says plaintiff Michelle Montoya, who got RIBed in the fall of 2010. "I thought, 'I can deal with this. I'm going to go get a job. My skills are definitely needed.' And I just never got a second interview."
Will Senator Michael Johnston live long enough to declare that Colorado now has great teachers, great principals, great schools, thanks to Senate Bill 191?





 
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