Saturday, January 11, 2020

Porty Beats DOE: NY Post

The DOE defied the order to make the notification for nearly three years.... NY Post

Over the years I've had my disagreements with Portelos but in the beginning I was a supporter and adviser and attended a dozen of his 3020a hearings where the hearing officer herself and the NYSUT lawyer became believers in his story that he was being set up for daring to disagree with the principal who turned on him on a dime - and the DOE followed suit. For not firing him the hearing officer was dropped - and I thought she was really good.

Check your schools to make sure this notice is posted. James did a post on this with lots of comments: http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/has-your-school-posted-this-perb-ruling.html


The NY Post - Sue Edelman - who did some early stories on Portelos - has a good summary below. The Post on the other hand, sent a reporter and photographer to the first day of his hearing to do a hit job on him. They taketh and they givith.

See Ed Notes from Sept. 2013.
Someone tell me this is journalism where I highlighted hackisms in pink:

A Staten Island teacher who taunted the Department of Education by live-streaming video of his time in a “rubber room” continued to hog the spotlight at his termination hearing Thursday by inviting the media to watch. Francesco Portelos, accused of rampant insubordination at IS 49, opened the normally closed disciplinary procedure in hopes of extending his 15 minutes of fame. But the move blew up in his face, when he was not allowed to speak because it was the department’s turn to present its case.
I loved this line:
Unlike a normal trial, Portelos’ side will make its case at a later hearing.

Portelos Hearing: NY Post Reporter Reuven Fenton Commits Journalistic Malpractice

Ex-rubber room teacher wins fight against ‘rampant’ DOE retaliation 

https://nypost.com/2020/01/11/rubber-room-teacher-wins-fight-against-rampant-doe-retaliation/
By Susan Edelman

A Staten Island teacher who once live-streamed himself in a rubber room has forced the city Department of Education to publicly admit it wrongly retaliated against him.

Francesco Portelos won a long battle to make the DOE notify about 120,000 fellow union members — on bulletin boards in every building and emails to each employee — that it must rescind actions against him for asking questions about his school budget and helping colleagues who alleged workplace bullying.

The DOE defied the order to make the notification for nearly three years.
Portelos was formerly a teacher at IS 49 Berta A. Dreyfus in 2012, when he sparred with then-principal Linda Hill over financial matters, including his accusation — later confirmed by the DOE — that she paid herself for undeserved overtime.

Hill had Portelos tossed in the rubber room, a holding area for teachers under investigation, where he live-streamed his idleness. He then won election as a union chapter leader, but Hill barred him from meetings and launched further probes against him.
In May 2012, Portelos filed a complaint with the state Public Employee Relations Board. In April 2017, the PERB ruled in his favor, ordering the DOE to remove all disciplinary letters and negative observations it found “in retaliation for his engaging in protected activity.”
But PERB had to sue the DOE last year after the city simply buried the notice on its website, where it would be hard to find.
On Nov 26, an Albany Supreme Court judge ordered the city to fully comply.
After The Post asked about the notices on Friday, the DOE said it sent out all the emails that day, blaming a “technical error” for the delay.
Portelos, who now teaches at IS 27, coached a team of students who won second place in a citywide hack-a-thon contest last April, when he shook hands with Chancellor Richard Carranza.
“It’s bigger than just me and Principal Hill,” Portelos said of his battle. “The system is so rampant with retaliation, the DOE and its supervisors will have to think twice before going after someone who is active in the union or speaks up about school issues.”
A DOE spokeswoman would not explain why it defied the initial order, but said, “NYC is a union town and we are proud to have strong unions representing school employees. The DOE is complying with the current court order by instructing that the PERB notice be posted for 30 days, and by emailing this notice to all teachers.”
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not at all surprised that a good hearing officer got fired for doing the right thing. I am a fantastic (former) U-rating advocate who ALWAYS did the right thing and was tormented (by you know who/what) for doing so...given absolute slam dunk in the trash (for being blatantly wrong) cases the last year of service...then surprisingly begged to come back as recently as about 2 yrs ago. (Hmmmmmmmm wonder why....) Glad I'm 7/8ths out of this monkey funk flinging circus....