Court Opinion

ID: 9872801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 21:14:41.418074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:29.664507
License: Public Domain

Friedman, J.P., and Andrias, J.,
dissent in a memorandum by Andrias, J., as follows: Contrary to the majority’s determination, considering all relevant circumstances, including the nature and severity of the misconduct and the mitigating factors raised by petitioner, the penalty of termination is not so disproportionate to the charged offenses as to shock one’s sense of fairness (see Matter of Pell v Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d 222, 233 [1974]). Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
Petitioner, a special education teacher, worked in the District 75 home instruction program, which provides instruction to children who are unable to attend school due to medical conditions. Home instruction teachers, with some exceptions (e.g., personal days beyond the allotted amount), are paid their full salaries regardless of the number of hours of daily instruction that they render to their students. Still, under an honor system, they must prepare a daily log showing the names of their students and the times they provided instruction to each of them, and a monthly time sheet that corresponds to the daily logs. They are also required to report any schedule changes to their supervisors and, if a student is unable to receive instruction for five consecutive days, to complete a form stating why the student was not receiving services.
In September 2012, petitioner was assigned to provide instruction for one hour a day, five days a week, to Student “A,” an eight-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, who lived in the Rockaways. After Hurricane Sandy struck on October 29, 2012, Student A’s family was temporarily displaced, and moved to Brooklyn. Petitioner was also displaced by the storm, and schools were closed from October 29 though November 2, 2012.
In January 2013, petitioner’s supervisor was informed by Student A’s social worker that he had not received instruction from petitioner since the hurricane. After an investigation was conducted, disciplinary proceedings were commenced charging that: (1) on 24 days from October 15 to December 19, 2012, petitioner submitted false or fraudulent daily logs and time sheets claiming that she provided instruction to Student A; (2) on 12 dates in December 2012, petitioner submitted false or fraudulent daily logs and time sheets that showed her reporting to various schools and/or libraries; (3) from October through December 2012, petitioner, with intent to defraud, made false *417representations resulting in financial benefits; (4) as a result of the foregoing activities, petitioner received her full salary during October, November, and December 2012 for services she did not perform; and (5) because of petitioner’s actions Student A was deprived of educational services.
Petitioner did not deny the first two specifications. At the hearing, she claimed that her paperwork was inaccurate because she completed her time logs before the fact, did not change them after the hurricane, and was not sure if she rendered services on any particular day. Petitioner also claimed that Student A’s mother had asked her to suspend instruction until the family returned to the Rockaways.
Student A’s mother testified that her son did not receive instruction when they were in Brooklyn or after they returned to the Rockaways in December. Petitioner told her that she could not instruct her son in the family’s apartment due to her supervisor’s safety concerns, and would not agree to provide the services at a library or other place. The mother, who thought petitioner was an excellent teacher who worked well with her son, never told petitioner to discontinue services. Petitioner’s supervisor testified that he spoke with her after the hurricane and that she did not report any changes in her daily schedule, as required. Petitioner was never given permission to suspend services, and he did not receive petitioner’s November and December timekeeping records until January 2013.
The hearing officer found that petitioner “failed to provide home instruction to Student A and submitted false and fraudulent documentation for services that she did not provide to him and that she gained a financial benefit by doing so.” The hearing officer did not credit petitioner’s excuses for her actions and found that petitioner offered no plausible reason for not discussing the situation with her supervisor. The hearing officer also found that petitioner used the disruption caused by Hurricane Sandy and Student A’s dislocation to obtain free time for herself, when she was supposed to be delivering services, and, by taking advantage of the honor system at the expense of Student A, breached a fundamental tenet of the home instruction program.
Based on these findings, the hearing officer sustained specifications 1, 2, 4, and 5, and dismissed specification 3 as duplicative of 1, 2 and 4. In imposing the penalty of termination, the hearing officer stated that petitioner refused to take responsibility for her actions, sought to blame others, and failed to recognize how her actions affected Student A. While *418considering petitioner’s long tenure, unblemished record, and good reputation and the difficulties she faced after Hurricane Sandy, the hearing officer found that these mitigating factors did not “overcome her dishonesty, fraudulent conduct and neglect of duty over an extended period of nearly two months.”
The majority holds that the penalty of termination shocks its sense of fairness and remands for the imposition of a lesser penalty. In support of this determination, the majority finds that petitioner’s isolated instance of neglect, committed under extraordinary circumstances by a teacher who had an otherwise unblemished record, was “more a matter of lax bookkeeping” than misconduct, from which petitioner derived no benefit because she would have received the same salary regardless of how many students she instructed or how much time she spent with them. I disagree. The hearing officer carefully considered all of the evidence, and her credibility findings in favor of respondents’ witnesses are entitled to deference (see Matter of Nuchman v Klein, 95 AD3d 645, 646 [1st Dept 2012], lv denied 20 NY3d 855 [2013]). There was more than adequate evidence of petitioner’s fraudulent intent and “ [considering petitioner’s lack of remorse and failure to take responsibility for her actions, as well as the harm caused by petitioner’s actions, the penalty of dismissal, even if there was an otherwise adequate performance record, cannot be said to shock the conscience” (Cipollaro v New York City Dept. of Educ., 83 AD3d 543, 544 [1st Dept 2011]).
Although petitioner was considered a good teacher and had an unblemished record over a 17-year period, she admittedly submitted false time sheets and continuously failed to provide instruction to a disabled child over a period of nearly two months (see Matter of Rogers v Sherburne-Earlville Cent. School Dist., 17 AD3d 823, 824 [3d Dept 2005] [upholding termination for falsifying time sheets and a pattern of excessive leave time usage and abuse of leave time benefits despite “a long and previously unblemished record” (internal quotation marks omitted)]; Matter of Hegarty v Board of Educ. of City of N.Y., 5 AD3d 771, 772 [2d Dept 2004] [upholding termination for a teacher who fraudulently submitted time sheets for educational services he never rendered]). Petitioner’s intentional fraud was far more than “lax bookkeeping.” In addition to preparing and submitting records that she knew were false, she also failed to advise her supervisor that she had stopped providing services to Student A.
Petitioner’s intentional failure to keep her supervisor apprised of the child’s status prevented the school district from *419arranging for instruction by another teacher. As a result, Student A, who was supposed to receive one hour of instruction per day, missed approximately 40 to 45 hours during November and December 2012, and, according to his mother’s testimony, became depressed and was behind his classmates as a result of the lack of instruction.
Contrary to the view of the majority, petitioner benefitted from her intentional misconduct, which allowed her to devote the time she should have been spending with Student A to other activities. If petitioner had notified her supervisor that Student A was no longer in Queens, she would have been assigned another student. The disruption caused by the storm does not explain petitioner’s failure to notify her supervisor of any hardship she faced or confusion about how to proceed.
The hearing officer’s conclusion that petitioner’s conduct was intentional, that she took no responsibility for her actions and continued to blame Student A’s mother, and that she failed to recognize the adverse effect of her conduct on a vulnerable and physically handicapped student further supports the penalty of termination (see Matter of Davies v New York City Dept. of Educ., 117 AD3d 446 [1st Dept 2014]). As the hearing officer found, theft of services is a “serious offense,” and petitioner’s deception, which would not have been discovered but for the social worker’s call, destroyed the trust that is essential to this field-based program dependent on the honor system.
The majority’s reliance on Matter of Bolt v New York City Dept. of Educ. (145 AD3d 450 [1st Dept 2016]) is misplaced. In Bolt, in a single lapse in judgment, the teacher pointed out to several students that certain answers on their exams might be wrong, and suggested they take another look at them. She did not alter any of her student’s answers or advise them what the correct answers were. In contrast, petitioner submitted false time sheets covering a nearly two-month period, during which she continuously failed to provide Student A with needed services, which benefitted her to the detriment of the child, and inflicted harm on the home instruction system.