XPost: alt.education, nyc.politics, alt.politics.liberalism
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns
Some will claim that the city Department of Education’s failure to fire
Karen Eubanks is a vindication of the system’s elaborate protections for tenured teachers. We wish.
As Susan Edelman reported in Sunday’s Post, DOE brought Eubanks up on
charges for her reaction to an April 2016 after-school show by
cheerleaders at Manhattan’s HS for Environmental Studies.
The veteran dance teacher was filling in at the school when she watched
the performance, which, as she saw it, exposed the bottoms and/or genitals
of some of the 30 dancers. She spoke to the young women afterward, and
also to their coach.
And that left her subjected to an expensive investigation and an eight-day trial on misconduct charges.
“It’s shocking that I was accused of wrongdoing after advocating for the dignity of our students,” she told The Post.
Never mind that the routine was so risqué that eight to 10 boys were seen videotaping it, or that another independent witness confirmed that the
show was “vulgar.”
The trial generated a 974-page transcript and a thick 42-page ruling by a $1,400-a-day hearing officer — who ordered a reprimand rather than
termination.
This is madness: If Eubanks is correct, then the DOE bureaucrats who moved
to fire her should themselves get the ax. Alternatively, if some other
facts somehow justify the DOE effort, then the system failed.
None of it justifies a process that typically costs $300,000 to fire a
teacher.
Because if your school leaders are trying to oust educators who stand up
for decorum, then that school is being led to disaster.
Meanwhile, the same rules mean good leaders can’t get rid of bad apples. They’re reduced to a “pass the trash” strategy — give a good
recommendation so some other school gets stuck with the lemon.
Even the disciplinary process leaves the “accused” running out the clock
in rubber rooms or other non-teaching posts, collecting paychecks and
boosting their pensions.
Consider the case of Sadie Silver, a Brooklyn principal who kept her job
after being arrested on charges of smuggling heroin into an upstate prison
in July 2014. She was finally dismissed — in March of this year.
As we noted Sunday, this school system simply isn’t designed to serve the children.
https://nypost.com/2017/10/09/more-proof-that-this-school-system-isnt- designed-to-serve-the-kids/
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