Source: http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=8011
Timestamp: 2020-08-15 19:33:19
Document Index: 457634621

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3020', '§ 3012', '§ 3020', '§3020', '§ 3020', '§ 3020', '§ 3020', '§3020']

If you are a tenured teacher, social worker, guidance counselor, school psychologist or other senior-level employee of the New York City public school system, watch out. New York City has, it appears, no interest in protecting your tenure rights and has made you an “employee-at-will” without your consent or, for that matter, your knowledge.
Employees-at-will have no legal right to due process and may be fired at any time, almost for any reason. This is a major part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s strategy to reform the New York City public schools with an overhaul of the people who work inside as teachers, counselors, psychologists, etc. He wants young, white, business school graduates who will keep the “company” profits high and guarantee results that comply with the business model where productivity is more important than learning. Bloomberg ran his first-term campaign for Mayor as “The Education Mayor” and vowed to change what he called dismal results on state tests, graduation, and other state and federal data by removing “bad” or “incompetent” teachers from the system.
This was, some people said in 2002, good news, as all parents want “good” teachers in their children’s classrooms. However, how was incompetency to be determined? The bad news is that Bloomberg, along with his colleague Joel Klein, neither of whom are licensed educators, gave principals total power within their schools to judge the people who worked for them according to what is now known as the business model standard. The manner in which the business model was implemented led to removal of anyone whom the principal didn’t like, anyone who spoke out too much about the school budget, about feeling harassed, about teaching outside of license, or about anything at all. Tenure rights? No one paid attention to them (and no one made them pay attention).Terror set in as teachers realized that they could be thrown out of their classrooms because the principal may not “like” them, may have someone younger in mind, or may have a political reason – or no reason at all – to remove them to await a 3020-a arbitration hearing, charged with being late two minutes, or other such nonsense.
By 2005 budgetary constraints led to more and more senior, high salary teachers and other DOE personnel being removed from their positions so that younger, less experienced teachers could take their place. This “get two for the price of one” led to a stream of people, almost all senior tenured teachers, being re-assigned to what became known as the “rubber room”, where they were told to sit and wait for their trial, or 3020-a arbitration. Sometimes the wait was a year, sometimes seven years. Sometimes the charges had some factual basis, yet more often than not were a mixture of circumstances and hearsay. Incompetency had been criminalized.
But facts don’t matter in this new education model. Getting rid of “dead wood” does, to the new CEOs who head the New York City school system and who are empowered to say “you’re out” for any or no reason. As I wrote above, if you are tenured, if you have worked successfully with kids for 20 years or more and have a high salary, watch out. You may be put on trial for your satisfactory performance any day.
When I started examining the procedures used by the newly instituted Department of Education, I saw that my knowledge of education law and arbitration, which I got by reading my own books (I am not an attorney) did not give me any clue as to the random and arbitrary nature of the 3020-a hearings I was asked to attend in NYC. So, I studied the lawyers and the arbitrators to try to find out how the law could be ignored.
Over time (8 years donated to doing research on this, 2003-2011) teachers and other employees who are charged with 3020-a started calling me to ask what the heck is going on. I tell them my opinion. I am now hired to work as a paralegal on administrative hearings. I wrote an essay on the violation of law and denial of rights in NYC 3020-a:
Betsy's Motion on Probable Cause in Teacher Tenure Arbitration
Tenured teachers brought to 3020-a need to submit a motion to dismiss the disciplinary action because of procedural violations of law which impair their tenure rights to due process as cited in Education Law 3020-a. No Respondent ever waived his/her rights to a hearing on §3020-a charges, which must be presented to the Panel For Educational Policy (PEP) for a vote in Executive Session in compliance with Education Law 3020-a (2)(a).
Yet in the papers served on Respondent, the date of the Executive Session is missing and there is no information on a vote by the employing board on probable cause. An Executive Session is mandated by law and cannot be omitted by fiat of the Chancellor, or by any other law, rule or agreement. There was no Executive Session and the Complainant, the NYC Department of Education, did not comply with Education Law 3020-a.
Therefore, the Arbitrator has no subject matter jurisdiction to proceed with tany case and should immediately withdraw all charges. Alternatively, the Arbitrator should adjourn the hearing of this case until there has been a vote in an Executive Session by the school board and a proper determination of probable cause.
Tenured teachers have a property and liberty right to their jobs, and therefore when there is any penalty that reduces the benefits of these rights, there must be Just Cause.
Judge Desmond Green in the Richmond County Supreme Court ruled in the case of Rosalie Cardinale that:
“New York State created the public school tenure system guaranteeing continued employment to tenured teachers by statute and therefore created a property right in a tenured teacher's continued employment. (See Education Law§§§ 3012, 3012- a, 3020, Holt v. Board of Educ. Of Webutuck Cent. School Dist., 52 NY2d 625 [1981], Matter of Abromvich v. Board of Educ. of Cent. School Dist. No. I of Towns of Brookhaven & Smithtown, 46 NY2d 450 [1979]). Where a property right in continued employment exists, such as New York's tenure system, the recipient of such a right may not be deprived without due process. See Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538 (1985).
New York State guarantees a tenured teacher's due process rights to continued employment by statute requiring that "no (tenured teacher) ... 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 or in accordance with alternate disciplinary procedures contained in a collective bargaining agreement ... " Education Law § 3020.
The statutory procedural process afforded to teachers with tenure under Education Law §3020-a requires:
The filing of charges "in writing and filed with the clerk or secretary for the school district or employing board during the period between the actual opening and closing of the school year for which the employed is normally required to serve. Education Law§ 3020-a(l)
"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 the employee pursuant to this section." Education Law § 3020-a(2).
Where an employing board determines probable cause exists for discipline the tenured teacher shall receive: "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 " Id.
Green summarized his conclusion that there was a procedural error of law:
“Hearing Officer Lendino conducted the Education Law § 3020-a hearing based on unproven assumptions that the delegations of duties and responsibilities from the office of the Chancellor to subordinate administrators occurred in compliance with the relevant statutory authority.”
It is clear that a decision of an Arbitrator who proceeds without getting a signed waiver of a Respondent shows bias against the Respondent and an excess of authority that is not sanctioned by any statutory authority.
The requirements of NYS Education Law §3020-a, under which tenured personnel may be disciplined for "just cause" are absolute and require that before charges can be brought against a tenured educator, the school board [PEP] must:
a.	Determine that there is "probable cause" for the proceeding with charges by a majority vote by the Board.
b.	Make this determination within 5 days of the charges being filed with the Board.
c.	Ensure that the decision to proceed with the charges is not frivolous, arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory.
The 'NYC Rubber Rooms' refer to the eight locations open until July 1 2010 scattered throughout New York City where targeted tenured employees of the NYC public schools were told to sit until charged, often for 2 - 7 years. While these people sat and awaited their “fate,” which was unknown and some were never charged at all, The Gotcha Squad created charges against them without their knowledge or consent. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) the New York State United Teachers legal group (NYSUT) and the New York City Board of Education (NYC BOE) all conspired together to deny thousands of people their constitutional due process rights. Many did not go away willingly or quietly after receiving unfair decisions through mediation/arbitration, so the 3020-a process was and currently is used to force employees out of the system. The NYC BOE Gotcha Squad could be held accountable if the charges are proven completely false and/or the employee brought to 3020-a is exonerated, so arbitrators on the UFT/BOE must prove something in order to get the NYC BOE paid back for the time and money spent on trying to get charges to stick (doesn’t matter if the charges are true or not).
Sidebar: My opinion doesn’t matter, anyway, according to NYSUT Assistant General Counsel Claude Hersh, the new General Counsel Richard Cassagrande, and Richard Iannuzzi, President of NYSUT, because I am not an Attorney, right guys? NYSUT’s current thoughts on my speaking out about what I have seen and what conclusions I have made as a volunteer observer of 3020-a for 8 years are that I am a criminal, I have sued all the arbitrators and thus all of them hate me, and that I don’t know what I am talking about, etc., etc. I have never sued an arbitrator, I dont have standing to do that. Their comments are insulting and wrong, and I will address them in another forum, never fear.
Back to a short recent update on the Rubber Rooms. On April 15, 2010 the UFT President Michael Mulgrew, NYC BOE CEO Joel Klein, and Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced that there was a new agreement to end the rubber rooms forever. This agreement was negotiated, signed, sealed, and delivered in total secrecy. Not I or nor anyone else knew about it outside of a select few at the UFT headquarters and district offices. On the 15th I received a call at home from Luis Crespo, the Brooklyn TRC ‘Principal’ and he told me to get over there ASAP, as there was a major announcement in a few hours. It was 8AM.
The April 15, 2010 agreement mandated the closure of the eight locations that, altogether, held approximately 500 people awaiting their "trial", freedom and exoneration, or termination. The rubber room process – false charges substantiated at 3020-a followed by excessive penalties - didnt end, only the rooms. Teachers continue today to be thrown out of their classrooms often for little or no reason and without evidence of the allegations, but now, after April 15, 2010, the effort to get the people removed and tainted by charges has taken on a new urgency, fueled by Mike Bloomberg who dictates the rules. The UFT has continued the "hands off" strategy, and rules in the UFT contract are being ignored without any accountability. Employees charged with anything are removed from their classrooms and told to sit in the office, the suspension room, at 65 Court Street, or 131 Livingston, both in Brooklyn, and Long Island City, just to name a few locations.
By 2010 the order from Mike Mulgrew, Klein and Bloomberg was to get all 'rubber roomers' off the arbitration calendar and, hopefully off of the NYC BOE payroll. To show how this played out, I will now tell the story of "Jane" - not her real name. I have redacted all mention of her real name in the papers that she gave me that details what happened to her at the hands of NYSUT attorney Keith Gross and Arbitrator Bonnie Siber Weinstock on May 13, 2010.
When the arbitrator asked me if I had been coerced into making the agreement, I tried to explain that this really was coercion sine there was few choices available to me and none that were very appealing.
Jane now works at cleaning doctor's offices at night. She sleeps a little during the day, and says that she is happy because she is out of the Department of Education.