John sent me the link to this article on the Puffington Host.
The city and teachers’ union may have agreed to shut down the usage of “rubber rooms” — reassignment centers for educators awaiting discipline hearings in 2010 — but according to a new report, the city is still shelling out to idle teachers.
The Daily News reports traditional rubber rooms have been replaced with unused offices and even cramped utility closets, where although numbers have improved, on an average day roughly 200 teachers sit and collect their normal salaries.
And for their time, the city is projected to shell out a staggering $22 million to teachers doing absolutely nothing this year alone.
And that’s opposed to many of the incompetent school teachers who are still teaching and in effect doing nothing while standing up in front of students.
When the city announced an end to the controversial rubber room practice in 2010, Mayor Bloomberg denounced the centers as an “expensive abuse of tenure.” Under the new agreement, teachers accused of wrongdoing were supposed to be assigned administrative work until their cases receive a hearing.
Two years later, many teachers subjected to waiting say they haven’t received such duties.
Prolly because the New York school system, like most school systems, is already awash with administrators.
Rubber rooms remerged under the spotlight earlier this month when a Staten Island teacher was found live streaming his time in a center with signs readings “I’d rather teach!” and “Don’t Tread On Me.”
A department spokesperson said Francesco Portelos had been removed as a computer technology teacher because he was deemed “extremely difficult to work with,” but he claims he was actually penalized for accusing the school’s principal for financial misconduct.
Which was prolly the truth.
“It’s just crazy, I never thought this would happen especially in the New York City Department of Education,” Portelos said. “A $24 billion budget and I’m being paid $75,000 to sit here. It’s ridiculous. I’m not here because I’m a bad teacher, I’m not here because I did anything to anyone physically, I’m here because they were trying to shut me up and it backfired big time.”
I don’t know what his problem is. He’s still getting paid a lot of money.
Gotta love the gummint.
“More Nice Work If You It” Huh? Another engineer who can neither think (beyond engineering) or write. But thank god you are here to criticize our “gummint.” Good lord.
Thanks for the compliment, but if you’re trying to insult me at least make it an amusing insult rather than the “you’re stupid” variety.
This treatment often works – with the good people, the ones who want to work. The lousy people happily stay and vegetate.
A fellow I know who was subjected to that treatment (another state, but government behavior is eerily similar) took the time to better himself instead. He brought in computer books and picked up 3 certifications in the 6 months he was in purgatory. THEN he left, having a better job to go to.
NYC Public Schools must have awfully clean bathrooms if they can pay people to sit in a “rubber room” performing janitorial duty…
*sigh*
The correction didn’t go through.
NYC Public Schools must have awfully clean bathrooms if they can pay people to sit in a “rubber room” instead of performing janitorial duty…
This “rubber room” idea for teachers sounds a bit like the Roman Catholic Bishops reassigning the pedophile priest to another diocese in order for said Bishops to make themselves look good by ridding themselves of “troublesome priest”, to quote Henry II about Thomas More. The trouble is, Thomas More lost his head – – literally. The pedophile priests of today just lose one or two little kids only to get different little kids somewhere else.
BTW, I am not atheist, just an agnostic and a failed Lutheran.
I could not sit in a room just to collect money-what a fucking waste of your life-you’re only given so much time here on earth and to use a huge chunk of it sitting on your ass, totally UNPRODUCTIVE, is a disgrace.
Hey there. Your site popped up on an alert. I’m the teacher quoted above in the article who live streamed last October. I’ve actually continued to sit and collect a paycheck while I continue to research and uncover corruption. See my site http://www.educatorfightsback.org.
As far as that $22 million number…it’s more than doubled since October as they continue to attack educators and education.