That's outrageous. Is this a state thing, or merely a NYC thing? Either way it's horrible.
Of course, the UFT is doing nothing to help a 20 year veteran such as this man. There is currently a lawsuit filed against the DOE, which you can find out about at http://www.teachers4action.com/.
People unaware of this travesty of a justice system can see a trailer for an upcoming documentary on rubber rooms at http://www.rubberroommovie.com/,
Mrs. T.,
It's a city thing. I've never heard of rubber rooms anywhere else.
While we can't blame BloomKlein for inventing the rubber rooms, we can sure credit them with perfecting them as a torture device--a kind of waterboarding for tenured teachers.
I remember a time when no one went to the rubber rooms except teachers charged with crimes. As long as you kept your hands off the students and didn't slug your principal, you had no reason to fear banishment. Today, it's different. Make a little too much money for the principal's budget, say something to the wrong person in the teacher's room, or spend an extra minute on your mini-lesson, and you may end up with a two year stretch in the vulcanized Guantanamo.
Of course, the UFT has been on top of this issue. With their help, we can now spend three months there without pay! As an added bonus, they refuse to force the DOE to tell us the charges. This saves us endless worry, which is good, because without health insurance we won't be able to pay for the inevitable nervous breakdown we'll suffer while pondering our fate.
90% of the teachers in the "rubber rooms" shouldn't be there and are not fired under the 3020-a regulations. However, under Kleinberg if the principal wants to take the teacher out, they can. That is why there are 800 people in the "rubber room".
A guy came to a recent ICE meeting - it was his first day in the rubber room. It had nothing to do with kids or teaching but some charge by a jealous colleage regarding something so rediculous as to make your hair stand up - like the most minor adminstrative thing. I wish I could tell the story but he got bad union advice and a lot of other stuff that we can't talk about yet. He will probably spend the next year there and his current kids do not have their teacher and have subs. In our discussion it came out that the principal did something that may be illegal and he is the onlyone who knew about it. I think this was a preemptive strike.
Another case of a teacher I worked with and saw the excellent quality of work - always recognized by the rest of the staff. A leadership Acad princ came up with some stuff that is almost funny but not to someone who will also be there for a year. Again, the kids have had subs and chaos reigns in a class that was under control.
Other teachers on charges based on arguments with supervisors.
We always hear about the teachers that suffer. No one cares. But when we point out how their kids are denied their services over bullcrap and end up with sub after sub, that might strike a chord.
Commenting by HaloScan
