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.
Dear Attorneys, Hearing Officers and Court Reporters:
I wanted to let you know that I am leaving SED to become the Director of Human Resources for a local school district. My last day here will be May 11. Bart Zabin has retired. Your tenure questions and issues should be sent to TENURE@nysed.gov or by calling (518) 474-3021. Other Part 83 and fingerprinting issues should be sent to OSPRA@nysed.gov or by calling (518) 473-2998. From there, your questions will be routed to the correct person. Daniel Harder who is copied on this email will be the Acting Director of OSPRA until a new Director is appointed. As many of you know, Daniel Harder is an experienced litigator who has been with OSPRA for over 12 years and is well versed with the issues affecting the various program areas.
I have enjoyed my many years of working with all of you and expect that you will be in good hands after I leave. If you would like my contact information for future communications, please send me a private message.
THE BRONX —State Assemblyman Jeffery Dinowitztried to block minority students from
enrolling in a popular public elementary school — saying that he didn't want
“outsiders” coming into the kindergarten in the tony area of Riverdale,
according to a lawsuit filed by the school’s assistant principal on Monday.
The state
legislator installed his chief of staff Randi Martos in P.S. 24, located on
West 235th Street, as "part of a politically and racially motivated scheme
to prevent minorities and lower-income children from attending P.S. 24 and
other schools in the area," school administrator Manuele Verdi claimed in
the suit.
Martos was
present during the enrollment process atP.S. 24on
at least six occasions in March and April of this year — demanding more than
the required proof of residency and violating federal privacy rights of at
least 100 students by having unauthorized access to their personal files, the
assistant principal claimed.
Verdi also
claimed that Dinowitz issued thinly veiled racial threats, saying he could tell
if children were not from Riverdale just by looking at them and “by the way
they walk, talk, and wear their pants.”
Martos
improperly intervened in the registration process, looking over students’
medical and academic records and checking their proofs of address, insisting
parents produce three pieces of identification — which exceeds the two required
under city regulations and runs afoul of the Mckinney-Vento Homeless Assistance
Act, a federal law to ensure immediate enrollment and educational stability for
homeless students, the lawsuit stated.
In
addition, it violates students' protection under HIPAA and Family Education
Rights and Privacy Act laws for non-school personnel to have access to their
records.
Dinowitz
told DNAinfo New York on Monday that Martos did play a role in student
registration but stressed that she was invited to do so by the school. He also
insisted that it was helpful for the school.
"Her
role there was brief and was more as a helper, because they need all the help
they can get, apparently," Dinowitz said.
"The
fact that Manny Verdi may not have had as active a role as he’s had in the past
in signing off on everybody, whether they should have been enrolled or not,
probably annoyed him," Dinowitz continued.
Dinowitz emphatically
denied that issues of race and class had anything to do with his office's
involvement in P.S. 24, characterizing such accusations as wildly
inappropriate.
"All
I can say is that’s really a lot of nonsense," Dinowitz said, "and
with all the racism that goes on in this world, it’s disgusting when somebody
would raise false charges of racism to feather his own nest, so to speak."
The
unusual move to include Martos in the school’s enrollment process occurred
after an annex that had housed P.S. 24’s fifth graders closed, leading to
complaints of overcrowding at the school.
Verdi said
Dinowitz denied that there was an overcrowding problem, adding that there were
too many "outsiders" coming to enroll in the school.
Verdi
argued that his school, and former principal Dr. Donna Connelly, were targeted
by Dinowitz and other politicians as the school became stronger, more diverse
and more progressive in its teaching and learning.
“We were
never much liked by some of the local politicians and accusations and innuendo
commenced soon after we started our tenure at PS 24,” Verdi wrote in a Feb. 13
letter toSchools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.
“It was
clear to us, from the beginning that while we and most of the staff have only
the children’s best interest at heart and mind, local political machines had
other agendas,” added Verdi, who believes he should be granted whistleblower
status for shedding light on this enrollment practices.
Verdi
added in his letter to Farina that "Once it became public knowledge that
Dr. Connelly’s boyfriend is African American, as well as one of my children,
Mr. Dinowitz stopped visiting the school."
P.S. 24,
known as the Spuyten Duyvil school, is considered a gem in the area, with a
strong arts program and active parent body. It won a New York State academic
excellence in education award this year.
In terms
of the sheer number of applicants to this neighborhood school, it ranked No. 89
most popular of more than 880 programs, according to a 2014 analysis of
Department of Education kindergarten enrollment data.
It’s also
known for having a diverse student body, with 42 percent white students, 41
percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian and 7 percent black. Nearly 30 percent of its
students are on free or reduced lunch.
Verdi said
he and Connelly were scapegoated by Dinowitz after the school lost the lease to
the annex. Connelly, who left in October, “chose to retire to avoid future
confrontations with local officials and school administration,” the lawsuit
read.
However,
Dinowitz maintained that Verdi and Connelly were genuinely at fault for the
loss of the lease, as he and other elected officials had told them months
before it was up to push the DOE on getting it renewed after hearing that
negotiations were going poorly.
"They
chose not to do that," Dinowitz said. "They buried their heads in the
sand, basically."
Verdi then
exacerbated the overcrowding situation by allowing students from anywhere to
attend the school despite the lack of space, according to Dinowitz.
"If
there was space, kids should be in the school. If that would help relieve
overcrowding in another school, fine," he said. "But that wasn’t the
situation. They allowed people to come into the school who lived far
away."
Following
Connelly’s departure, Superintendent Melodie Mashel told Verdi that he “cannot
stay at 24” because politicians were “intimidated” by him and that leaving
“might be a good thing,” court papers read.
“I have
been informed by several people of several meetings convened by Superintendent
Mashel where my position as AP was discussed and my removal would be a
condition for anyone wishing to be principal at PS 24,” Verdi wrote in the
letter to Fariña.
Verdi said
he is scheduled to meet with Mashel on May 4, at which point he said he expects
to be fired or disciplined.
The Department of Education referred questions to the New York City Law
Department, which confirmed they will "review the complaint."
PS 24
Bronx School Parents Furious Over Political Fighting and Lack of Leadership
THE BRONX — Parents at a popular public school in Riverdale want to cut through the politics and get their school back on track with a new principal, after their former principal resigned under pressure and an assistant principal accused a state legislator of racially profiling applicants.
P.S. 24, located at 660 W. 236th St. in The Bronx, was run by Principal Donna Connelly until she left in October after a series of controversies under her tenure, including the school losing its lease for an annex and reports that she had forced teachers to get rid of their desks and filing cabinets.
The turmoil at the school has continued with Assistant Principal Manuele Verdi's recent lawsuit against the city accusing State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and his office of getting involved with enrollment at the school to block minority students from attending.
However, parents at the school are eager to move beyond such controversies and get a new permanent principal installed.
“This year has been very challenging, but we are fearful about how the delay in appointing a new principal will impact the preparation for our upcoming academic year,” parent Paulina Sanchez said.
“For the first time in our history, we will be dealing with having to house over 1,000 students in a building intended for 610 students," she continued. "The loss [of] our annex space this year was a major blow, and we cannot afford to delay this matter any longer.”
Dinowitz said more than 100 parents attended P.S. 24's Parents Association meeting on Monday night and were extremely upset.
Parents were talking about pulling their children out of the school, and teachers were talking about leaving the school due to its lack of leadership and overcrowding issues, he said.
"The school is in severe crisis right now," Dinowitz said, "and when elected officials fight for the kids in their schools, most people appreciate it."
He said Verdi's lawsuit would put an added burden on the process to find a new principal for P.S. 24 and again emphatically denied that race had anything to do with his office's involvement in the registration process for P.S. 24.
"Just because Manny Verdi thinks that his job was to overpopulate the school doesn’t mean that there were racial motives in those of us who wanted to keep the population of the school at a reasonable level," he said.
The process for finding a new principal at P.S. 24 has been temporarily delayed pending an investigation, and the superintendent will update the school community moving forward, according to DOE officials.
The Parents Association of P.S. 24 expressed strong frustration with this process in a statement, describing it as "totally unacceptable."
"We are outraged that P.S. 24 has been without [a] permanent principal for six months and may not have one for the remainder of this school year," the statement reads. "We should have a principal and two assistant principals. Currently, we only have one acting interim principal and one assistant principal."
The statement goes on to blame incompetence of the DOE regarding the school's overcrowding issues and demands a full explanation into the delay in the principal selection process and the speedy appointment of a new principal and an additional assistant principal.
Parents Association co-president Bob Heisler said that P.S. 24 was dealing with students trying to attend the school from outside of its zone, but the neighborhood had to deal with its changing demographics as well.
“If a school is sought after, people bend the rules in order to get into it,” he said. “But the other problem: we’re not responding to the demographic changes of the neighborhood.”
He said that the sooner the school resolved the issue of not having a leader, the sooner it would be able to deal with its long term capacity issues and that, in the meantime, the building’s cold lunchroom would be converted into four classrooms.
"This is a good school, historically," he said, "and the DOE has not done anything this year but screw it up."
The Bronx principal who ordered teachers to dump their desks in the trash earlier this month because she didn’t want them sitting in class has chosen to toss herself out as well.
Donna Connelly, who is principal of PS 24, the Spuyten Duyvil School in Riverdale, has filed her retirement papers effective Nov. 1 after being pressured to leave by superiors who read about her nutty antics in The Post, according to the Riverdale Review.
Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz went on to blast Connelly and her close personal friend and assistant principal Manny Verdi, after the Department of Education admitted at a PTA meeting that they had failed to renew the lease at the nearby Whitehall co-op building.
The building had housed approximately 140 fifth-graders over the last six years — and now officials are being forced to scramble to find space for the students at the school, which is already 200 kids beyond capacity.
Connelly’s retirement makes PS 24 the third school that she has been removed or forced to resign from in the past 23 years, the Riverdale Review reports.
Verdi — who has been disciplined for using his personal American Express card for routine school expenses so he could rack up “points” to fund a lavish trip to Italy — is lobbying to be her replacement, the paper said.
But in order to make the decision on who should replace Connelly, Dinowitz says, officials will hold “an open process to find the best person for a school that deserves, after so many years of turmoil, the best possible leader.”
He added that “the hardworking staff, many of whom have been in our community for decades, deserve this, and certainly, our children deserve nothing less.”
In Mayor de Blasio’s New York, when a kid curses you out in a crowded hallway, all you can do is call the kid’s parents. That’s what the new discipline code says.
Our job is already tough. You never know what’s going to happen when you’re face-to-face with 34 teenagers five times a day.
Over time, you develop strategies. When they work, you repeat them. Eventually you create a toolkit to create an environment in which students can learn. You learn what to do when they test you, which they do constantly. You learn which kids cannot be near which other kids. You learn when to speak up, and when to keep your thoughts to yourself.
Kids are unpredictable, and each one has a unique set of problems and triggers. It’s on you to create an environment of mutual respect: You respect them, they respect you, and they respect one another. It takes time, but once there is a positive culture, learning can take place.
Discipline is the last thing you do, the last place you go. But every student needs to know you will go there when it’s necessary, or your classroom will quickly become a chaotic mess. I consider it a personal defeat if I have to remove a student from the classroom.
The last time I did that it was because a girl threatened to beat up a boy, and I was absolutely persuaded she would do it. Removing her removed that possibility. The next day she was a little calmer.
In our school, kids aren’t supposed to wear hats. They aren’t supposed to use their phones without permission, and in my class, they don’t. (Well, they do, but if I give them a look they stop.)
The hallway is a different place altogether. I don’t know the kids in the hall. They don’t know me. I am not a stickler about rules in the hallway. But some things are beyond the pale. A colleague of mine, a rather large man, saw a boy and a girl getting passionate and physical in the hallway. He asked them to go to class.
The boy instructed my colleague to perform a vulgar act that may or may not be possible. My colleague was able to handle it in a professional manner, but found the consequences for the kid’s act to be mild indeed.
Why? Because principals must now get explicit approval from the central Department of Education for suspensions involving student insubordination.
These are new regulations, brought to you by the kinder, gentler Chancellor Carmen Fariña — intended to lessen suspensions that disproportionately remove black and Latino kids from school.
The way things work on the front lines in school buildings, requiring approval from DOE is almost as good as flat-out banning these suspensions.
The new rules are working exactly as intended. Suspensions are way down — by 32% between last year and this year.
De Blasio and Fariña see this as a success, because fewer kids are missing class.
I see it differently, because now, baked into the system, there are only very mild consequences for wearing hats, using prohibited electronic devices or mouthing off to teachers. The most extreme thing you can do in most of these cases is remove a kid from class and schedule a parent conference. Of course if they occur in the hall, as a great many things do, you can’t even remove the kid from class.
I understand the chancellor’s interest in calling in guidance counselors and social workers before using disciplinary measures. I value them greatly, and often seek their help. But they’re overburdened, and some things are simply not their domain.
I understand that in the past, and in some places, suspension was overused. But every problem, like every kid, is different.
I’ve been teaching 32 years, and I’ve had a student suspended exactly once. But suspension was part of my toolkit, and like my classroom, I covet my toolkit. In fact, even talking about suspension was part of my toolkit.
Taking it away is not going to improve the education of even one single New York City schoolkid.
Goldstein is an ESL teacher and UFT chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School.
The lawyers I have watched who prosecute 3020-a Respondents are a motley crew, ranging from "I am trying-my-best to terminate this employee with quiet professionalism" to "this Respondent is scum and I'm gonna prove it even if I have to scream and yell."
I believe that the NYC 3020-a Arbitrators and DOE Attorneys are in an impossible moral and ethical conflict, where they must overlook obvious violations of law and regulations, even the lies of their witnesses, to satisfy the DOE policy of terminating tenured teachers in order to stay on the panel or in their jobs. Is the $1400/day and/or the perks of being a DOE 3020-a Attorney worth the risks to reputation and future cases? The Arbitrators and Attorneys on the NYC panel must say yes.
Some of the DOE Attorneys who prosecute teachers and other employees at 3020-a really believe that the person charged is guilty of terrible crimes to children....or, they are excellent actors. Sometimes the venom and disrespect heard across the table is so outrageous that it seems to have a personal distaste behind it for the person who is charged. I agree that if a teacher has sex with a young child in a classroom closet, the distaste and disrespect may be valid. But for a charge of not having a lesson plan? C'mon, that is absurd. I have seen this anger and it is not easy to view, even after studying the Attorneys and arbitrators at 3020-a hearings for 13 years, as I have.
Are you an Attorney ready to defend the NYC DOE administrators as they wrongfully attack teachers and other staff? You must be willing to keep secret the failures of the charging agents (the Gotcha Squad, DOE "legal", principals, Assistant principals, whomever) to put two teachers in an ICT class; to give 'specials' (art-music-dance teachers) to special education children who have service providers listed on their IEPs; to provide state mandated SAVE or TIME OUT Rooms; to properly discipline and report rowdy and/or dangerous students who assault other students, teachers, staff. The list is long of the coverups you must do. But the pay is good. Below is an application:
Deputy Director) to terminate the person charged, no matter what the charges are. They change the rules to fit their whim-of-the-day, as they can.
Gotcha Squad Attorney Ian Nikol (on the left)
And one of the denial of rights for all charged UFT members of the DOE in New York City can be seen in the fact that no charged, tenured teacher may assist in choosing his/her arbitrator, as mandated by the NYS Commissioner's Regulations and Education Law 3020-a(3)(a)(b). NYSUT and the DOE did away with that right, leaving the appointment of arbitrators to the attorneys in the Gotcha Squad TPU or ATU. This is one reason why anyone falsely accused and found guilty of any specification must file (within 10-days) an Appeal (Article 75). This is why I filed a Freedom of Information request to New York State for all the vouchers of the Arbitrators, to show that the TPU and ATU have to reach out to lawyers in Chicago (i.e. Doyle O'Connor, in my opinion the worst arbitrator on the NYC panel). NY State Ed Department (NYSED) pays for the daily rate in hearing days and study time, but the NY City DOE pays for the travel. The DOE maintains their control over the arbitrator this way.
If a Principal is charged with 3020-a, he/she may, with his/her CSA Attorney, choose an arbitrator. We did, in the cases where a Principal hired me and one of my attorneys. Outside of New York City when I and/or my services and an Attorney are hired to do 3020-a, we get a list of arbitrators and, with the school district lawyer on the case, mutually agree on a single arbitrator. Not in NYC. The arbitrator is assigned by Dennis Da Costa, Naeemah Lamont (TPU incompetency cases) or Laura Brantley (ATU misconduct cases). Thus if you have ever observed a 3020-a as a member of the public, been charged or have been a legal professional and/or witness at these arbitration hearings, you may have seen the arbitrator give deference to the DOE Attorney on the case. The arbitrator who wants to remain on the permanent panel does what Da Costa, Lamont, or Brantley want them to do, so that they are not fired.
Gotcha Squad Attorneys Naeemah Lamont, Ian Nikol, Rishona Fleishman
In NYC most, not all, of the arbitrators cannot be neutral. But cases can still be won on the defense. A strong defense, where all the school's violations of law and procedure are put on the table, can win the case. If the Respondent wants to Appeal - and I believe that all charged educators must Appeal - the Appeal is imbedded in the transcripts and the 60+-page closing argument.
I have seen this at work many times, and the "persuasion" techniques used by Da Costa are reprehensible. In one case, the Arbitrator found a science teacher guilty of such minor charges that she gave the teacher a small fine and wrote in her decision that the teacher must return to her position at the school she had been teaching in. The TPU told the arbitrator after the decision had been sent out to all parties that there had to be another hearing. The Arbitrator travelled from Maryland and we went, only to hear Dennis Da Costa scream at this arbitrator that she had to modify her decision, as no teacher found guilty of anything can return to the school at which she was charged. The arbitrator agreed to remove that part from her Award, the teacher was made an ATR, and the Arbitrator left, humbled and disgusted with the attack of Da Costa (my opinion).
Shareema Abel
This post is about the behavior of one very strange former DOE attorney/prosecutor, Attorney Shareema Abel. She was an Attorney assigned to the TPU when I observed her at several 3020-a proceedings, one of which I was hired to be the paralegal. More about her career is below.
In the case I worked on, Respondent teacher was a UFT delegate in addition to her position as a full time teacher who had never been disciplined in 3020-a before she received charges in 2013 for incompetency. The case was not ripe for arbitration, because when the hearing started, the Principal who had charged her, Angela Whitehurst of MS334, had resigned, under charges that she - Principal Whitehurst - had altered records. When we received the discovery documents, and the Appeal of the Respondent's U-rating to the Office of Appeals and Reviews (OAR), we - I and the Attorney - noticed that almost all the documents were not signed, by anyone.
My client said that she had not been able to see her file for almost 4 years, and had not been given a copy of the observations nor had she been asked to sign all but one. Principal Whitehurst, in her testimony, said that she destroyed all files and papers in her office when she was found guilty of wrongdoing, resigned, and became Principal of National Heritage Academies, a Charter School.
We submitted a Motion To Remove Unsigned Documents From The Record based upon the UFT Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Article 21:
" ARTICLE TWENTY-ONE: DUE PROCESS AND REVIEW PROCEDURES in the CBA states:
A. (1) "No material derogatory to a teacher's conduct, service, character or personality shall be placed in the [teacher] files unless the teacher has had an opportunity to read the material. The teacher shall acknowledge that he/she has read such material by affixing his/her signature on the actual copy to be filed, with the understanding that such signature merely signifies that he/she has read the material to be filed and does not necessarily indicate agreement with its content."
Almost immediately after we gave the Arbitrator, Richard Williams, and Ms. Abel a copy of the Motion, Ms. Abel started acting in a strange way. Ms. Abel crumpled her copy of the Motion into as tiny a ball as she could make, and sat on it. Then a few minutes later she stuck her tongue out at me, and kept it out for as long as she could. About half an hour later Ms. Abel I guess saw me looking at her and she started saying "oh, I'm so beautiful, I'm so gorgeous...." while she wiped her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, over and over, as if to wipe something off of her face that was dirty or something. We saw her wiping her face at the same time I did, and asked me what she was doing. We never figured this out.
When Ms. Abel started her cross-examination of my client she stood up, walked around the table, and stood right next to my client so that my client had to look up from her seat while answering the questions. The lawyer I was working with asked the Arbitrator if he would tell Ms. Abel to sit down, and he did, but Ms. Abel would not move. So, he stood between Ms. Abel and the client. The arbitrator told everyone that he would not allow any disruptive behavior in his hearing, so he asked everyone to sit down.
We won the case:
Decision of Arbitrator Williams:
"The
school administrations lack of compliance with the UFT MOA provisions on
"due process"
and
''teacher files" in this matter is simply astonishing and serves as
credibility "dark cloud" over the entireproceeding against this
Respondent....When a teacher is denied the right to view their own personnel
file, they are essentially denied notice and the opportunity to be heard; when
documents appear from an employer that set forth performance deficiencies in
writing (electronic or otherwise) but contrary to express language in the MOA,
no signature appears from a teacher acknowledging the document was shown to
them, that teacher was denied notice and the opportunity to be heard; when an
administrator testifies they spoke with a teacher concerning performance
deficiencies that were noted during an observation but the teacher denies that
either observations or discussions took place, and neither the administrations'
written notations of those observations nor any other corroborative evidence of
the observations or discussion is produced, and where there is no written
acknowledgement of receipt, the conclusion that the teacher was denied proper
notice and the opportunity to be heard is the more plausible conclusion...It isalsotruehowever,thatin adisciplinarycontext,thefailuretoprovideateacherwith
theprotectiverightstowhichtheyareentitledpursuanttoacollectivebargainingagreement,will
negativelyaffectanydisciplinaryactionbroughtincontraventionofthoserights.Asstatedearlier,thefailuresrelatedtotheavailabilityandmaintenanceofteacherfilesandthefailures
relatedto"lessonspecific"pre-observationmeetingsinthecontextofFormalObservations,
negativelyaffectthe'justcause"ofcertainspecifications
withinthisdisciplinaryaction."
Within a week or two, Shareema Abel was gone from the NYC TPU/ATU Offices, and moved to Governor Cuomo's Office as special counsel to the Commissioner for Ethics, Risk and Compliance for Homes and Community Renewal. In my opinion, Shareema Abel should not be in that office. Not from what I saw at 49-51 Chambers Street, 6th Floor.
