Some MOREistas and ICEers have been attending various 3020a termination hearings - I am about to head off to the Peter Zucker hearing now. These are run like real trials except that the hearing officer functions like judge and jury. I tell people on trial that this person is the only person in the room you have to care about impressing. Forget the DOE legal people (mostly nasty slugs) who try to make you look like a mass murderer.
Fellow retiree David Dobosz has been attending a different 3020a hearing of a high school teacher. He sent this report yesterday:
What I am learning in the 3020A hearing of a (school and teacher name redacted) teacher, includes a bombshell of revealing connections. Th actual hearing record is bearing out the fact that school budget cuts are behind the senior teacher gotcha terminations and, by extension, ATR eval terminations. Between the teacher's adversarial AP and the UFT chapter leader who witnessed on behalf of the teacher and blew the whistle on the admin, all was exposed.
Meanwhile, the DOE has no strategy to deal with funding, increasing school segregation, curriculum dumbing down and allowing teaching or administrating out of license, all of which results put additional stress on schools to keep barely functioning. Using financial starvation incrementally destroys a quality public education for all through policies that result in dysfunction.
The UFT is silent and pretty much a non-entity - teachers are
entitled to a NYSUT lawyer, some of whom have been vilified unjustly,
leading some teachers to spend money on their own representation. I
always say -- go NYSUT first until you feel that is not working out for
you - and have backup just in case.
6 comments:
Most of the NYSUT lawyers are good, a few are not. I went with my NYSUT lawyer and he did a fine job.
You're right, the only person you need to impress is the Arbitrator.
What steps can parents take to insure that properly certified and licensed teachers are in the classrooms? Is there a set of steps a parent can take if they know this is going on?
Complain to the Chancellor and the school administration that your child's teacher is not certified. Copy as many people as you can think of, especially those holding elected offices.
If a teacher has already met the attorney and feel he can not defend them adequately, can the teacher be appointed a different NYSUT attorney?
If a teacher has met the NYSUT attorney and it is clear he can not defend the case successfully, can a different attorney be appointed. If not, how does a teacher go about getting their own attorney for the 3020a?
I believe you can ask for another attorney at least once. Don't give up on NYSUT until you've checked a few out -- I've seen the best of NYSUT and they are good but I've missed the worst.
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