Court Opinion

ID: 9870000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 19:46:04.897707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:05.446184
License: Public Domain

Sweeny, J.,
dissents in part in a memorandum as follows: I concur with the majority that there is no basis to overturn the factual findings reached by the Arbitrator.
I disagree that the matter should be remanded for imposition of a lesser penalty. The majority is in error to say the penalty of termination is so shocking to the conscience that it must be vacated.1 The majority has accepted the Arbitrator’s findings wherein he found credible the testimony of three separate students that petitioner assisted them and other students by pointing out a number of answers to be changed in a statewide English proficiency exam. Where I depart from the majority is their attempt to, for example, compare an employee neglecting to do carpentry work in a lavatory (Matter of Diefenthaler v Klein, 27 AD3d 347 [1st Dept 2006]) to a teacher who violated the integrity of a school examination.
In a case with a fact pattern similar to this, the Third Department found “petitioner’s offense goes to the heart of one of the most integral aspects of the education process: integrity in conducting examinations” (Matter of Carangelo v Ambach 130 AD2d 898, 900 [3d Dept 1987], lv denied 70 NY2d 609 [1987]).
*453The Arbitrator found, and the majority does not challenge, that petitioner “[c]ommitted insubordination by assisting students during the administration of the statewide exams when she was expressly directed not to do so.” He further found “that [petitioner] was the authority figure for these students, who were approximately ten years old at the time the incident occurred, and that she had the responsibility to set a good example for her students to emulate. [T]he message that her conduct conveyed to these young students, that cheating is permitted, was completely inappropriate and more than harmful. . . . [H]er actions demonstrated a lack of integrity and irrevocably comprised her ability to serve as a role model for students.”
That petitioner had a previously unblemished record is not compelling, especially with the facts herein (see Matter of Russo v New York City Dept. of Educ., 25 NY3d 946 [2015]; Altsheler v Board of Educ. of Great Neck Union Free School Dist. 62 NY2d 656 [1984]; Matter of Montanez v Department of Educ. of the City of N.Y., 110 AD3d 487 [1st Dept 2013]).2
Although the majority may feel a lesser penalty is more appropriate, as students and parents have the right to believe the testing process is fairly administered, it cannot be said that the penalty shocked one’s sense of fairness (Pell at 234).
I would reverse the lower court and reinstate the arbitration decision along with the penalty of termination.

. I agree with the majority that the seminal cases such as Matter of Pell v Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County (34 NY2d 222 [1974]) clearly set out the heavy burden to vacate an arbitrator’s penalty determination. I disagree to their application herein.

. The majority’s reliance in Matter of Solis v Department of Educ. of City of N.Y. (30 AD3d 532 [2d Dept 2006]) is not helpful as the underlying act the teacher committed in that case was not explained.